I am realistic–I expect miracles. ~Wayne Dyer.
Are you feeling left out of the miracle loop? Have you been craving a miracle that has passed you by? Or worse, have you fallen into the spiral? You know, the one? The downwards spiral that is bottomless. And by that, I mean, it keeps going down, down, down? And you with it. And you finally wake up stuck in a grimy (albeit metaphorical) dungeon…and you want to blame everyone who ever gave you bad advice, from the grumpy stranger who didn’t hold the door, to your friend who screened your call. And your Higher Power–aka God–seems to be MIA. And you are stuck in miserable gut churning despair. But as you sit or lay there, a small thought flickers and grows, maybe it isn’t about what everyone else has and hasn’t done. Maybe, just maybe, it’s possible that the only thing standing in between miracles is You.
A dear friend of mine found herself in a truly hard, rock bottom place. A lovely spiritual teacher with a warm and generous spirit, who had done so much for others, found herself in overwhelm. In severe financial difficulty, and relationship stress, she was caring for her mom in the final stages of cancer. We were talking, on a day when her mom was close to passing. She turned to me in abject frustration and asked, “Where did it go wrong? Where the hell is my miracle? Am I so unworthy?”
I stared at her with a full heart and struggled to come up with one helpful thing to say. But when I considered her situation…what I saw was many little miracles had been arriving on her door and she was too angry and blocked to notice. As things had gotten more challenging, she had become more insistent on how her miracle should appear. She wanted a big miracle. A cure for cancer. A Lotto win. But the problem was she was in a downward spiral and could only see the negative and so more negative was coming at her. And so she was stuck in a shit storm of a negative feedback loop…
I felt so much empathy for her because the human experience can force us to dig deep and take us to the edge. Like a dehydrated marathon runner getting baked by an unrelenting sun with a gigantic hill in sight, it can be an ordeal. I had been in a similar place a few years earlier when my mom had passed from cancer. And let’s face it dealing with a family member with terminal illness is just about as hard as it gets. So I was in a very depressed state.
A few days before my mom passed, I had a road altercation with a Hell’s Angel Biker. I wasn’t paying attention at a stop sign and had taken the right away. The biker responded in anger and ran me off the road. I remember resting my head on the steering wheel as the biker cursed me out, thinking in dismay…could things get any worse? Umm…Yes. On the day after my mom passed, A dog patrol officer showed up at my front door to issue a ticket for failing to renew my dog license. It was barely a few days overdo. She was notorious in the neighbourhood for her aggressive techniques. I was not in my most constructive state, as I stepped outside my house to ‘explain’ that I had not had time to renew it because I had been caring for my mother in her last days. The patrol officer was unmoved and issued me a ticket anyway. I swore at her and she gave me a rather smug grin (in my memory). As I took it, I broke down in tears. My next door neighbour who had been ceaselessy renoing his house beside me, and far from my favourite guy, glared out his window at me. And the final kicker came as I went to let myself in, I realized that I had locked myself out of the house.
When I finally got back in the house, through a window, I collapsed on family room floor sobbing my heart out, flooded with grief. I gave in. And then something happened…my yellow lab, Hank, the same lab I had received the ticket for, came into the family room. He was a sweet gentle soul with soft brown eyes. Arthritic and old, we had rescued him from the local dog shelter. He had been kept in a yard for 9 years and never walked. Needless to say, he loved his walks. But he was terrified of television and indoor noises. And for all the time that we had him, he refused to come into the family room because he thought the TV was a monster. It defied his comprehension.
But on this day, at this low point, when my heart felt like it would break, he showed up. He snuggled beside me. And I turned to him and wrapped my arms around him. And he was simply present. And after I finished crying for a period of what could have been several minutes, he gave my hand a single lick, got up and went back to his favourite spot in the front hall. And when I looked back on that day, I saw that Hank was my miracle. He received my grief with unconditional love. And unconditional love in the right place at the right time, is, a miracle. Grief is a long process, and mine was far from complete, but in that moment, I shifted from despair to love.
And on that day, that was nothing short of a miracle.
How to Magnify Miracles…
1. Don’t be Afraid to Ask. But the trick is to ask and know you are worthy. And if you feel unworthy don’t beat yourself up. Try again.
2.Be Open. This definitely means changing your expectations. Miracles Don’t Have to Be Big and Fat…sometimes they are teeny. They often come in groups. One leads to the next, like a series of doors in a hallway leading some place very wonderful. If you aren’t sure and you are on the fence, call it a miracle. Expand your definition of what a miracle is and you broaden the possibilities.
3. Recognize That Sometimes It’s Not What But WHO. People can be Miracles. Yep. They can. And they often don’t have a clue. And that’s ok. It’s all about the timing. Divine Timing. Animals are often divinely placed miracles. Mine was a yellow lab called Hank. What happens if your miracle shows up and you are so busy looking for the right miracle, that you don’t notice it?
4. Gratitude Maginifies Miracles. Say Thank-you before you get the miracle and, of course, after. Gratitude opens your heart wide and when your heart is open, there is so much more room. Your perspective shifts and you can see all those miracles both big and small.
4. Gratitude Maginifies Miracles. Say Thank-you before you get the miracle and, of course, after. Gratitude opens your heart wide and when your heart is open, there is so much more room. Your perspective shifts and you can see all those miracles both big and small.
5.Don’t Be Afraid to Give In. This is different, far different than giving up. But if you are Feeling Low, Lay Down. Don’t get pissed if your miracle is no where in sight. Acting out in anger doesn’t create a fertile ground for miracles. Instead, if you are in a downward spiral, complete disharmony, don’t resist. They don’t say what you resist persists for nothing. Surrender. Again, this is far less pleasant than being on the path of gratitude. And this is a state of acceptance, not a state of defeat. But when you give in, you let go of ego. You stop dictating to the universe the what, who, and how and this puts you in a place of being open to receive.
6. Keep Track of Miracles. Keep a journal and be as inclusive as you can about writing down all those miracles as they show up. Because, as you may have already guessed, like attracts like. And it can be such a good read to revisit your miracles whenever you feel in a state of lack.
7. Accept that You Can be Miracle Maker for Someone Else. If you can receive a miracle, you can give one. And vice versa. When you trust that you can be of service, you step out of your ego. When you step out of your ego, miracles abound in all directions. Again, this can be tiny from your perspective but huge for that person in need. A kind word, a smile, a small gesture can light up that person to be ready to receive a miracle enroute.
Magnify those Miracles!
Namaste,
