In this installment of Talking Circle, two courageous readers show us what can happen when we use intention to heal our minds, bodies, and spirits.

Mary's Story

Why is this happening to me?  These words played over and over in my head like a broken record for the span of almost three years.  I had always thought of myself as a positive person and have a library of self help books to prove it.  But when one after another each aspect of my life fell apart, I felt myself sinking deeper and deeper into the world of negativity and pity parties. 

2007 started out like any other year.  Things were going pretty well in my life.  I had a good job, health, and a happy marriage.   Little did I know that that was about to change. 

I had been struggling with female problems for some time, but they were progressively getting worse. In the spring of 2007, at the age of 36, I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer.  When the doctor said those words to me-"The tumor on your ovary is borderline stage 2 cancer, and we need to start radiation immediately"-I was so devastated.  I cried all the way home from the doctor's office and couldn't even imagine speaking them out loud.  I went to the worst possible scenario and started my downward spiral into depression and negativity.  During the countless doctors visits, my husband decided that he was in love with another woman. That he was no longer "in love with me". 

We had been together for so long I didn't know where I ended and he began.  I remember the moment he told me and how I couldn't breathe.  My heart was broken, and I really had no idea how I was going to move on.  I didn't know if I was going to live or die because of the cancer, and I isolated myself from everyone around me.  I spent months self medicating (drinking a lot), crying, going to radiation, and not taking care of myself or anyone around me.  I felt myself being swallowed alive by anger, hurt, resentment, and negativity.  When I looked at myself in the mirror, I did not even recognize the person in front of me.  My eyes that had once been filled with joy and happiness were so empty.  I had no idea how I was going to live each day.  Often times wished that the cancer would prevail.   I was laid off from my job of 14 years later that year, and it seemed as if all hope was lost.  Nothing I had once identified myself with was left. 

You are probably beginning to wonder what all this has to do with intention.  There came a point when I decided to only allow myself to think of what I wanted rather than immerse myself in all the things around me that were falling apart.  I shifted my focus from "Why me?" to "Why not me?"  Why couldn't I have and do anything I wanted?

I sat down one afternoon and wrote a list of all of the things I wanted in my perfect job.  Three days later I got a call from the company I am currently working for, and one by one, every item on that list has been fulfilled.  My marriage has never been stronger and I am a year and half cancer free.  If I had realized that all things were possible long before I did, I would have saved myself a lot of tearful days and nights.  Now when things are not going quite as planned, I first ask myself if there is a lesson to be learned from this situation, and then I change my mindset and intentions to make it what I want it to be.  Life gives us so many growing opportunities.  I often wish I didn't have so many chances for growth, but I know now that my intentions can change my destiny.

                                                                               Mary Rich, 40, Evans, GA USA
 

Sarah's Story

I have wanted to be a mother for as long as I can remember, so I was thrilled in February of 2009 to see "Pregnant" appear on a home pregnancy test. 

For the first trimester, I appeared to have a picture-perfect pregnancy, and my doctor always ended my appointments by telling me what a healthy baby I had growing inside me.  When the time came for my second-trimester ultrasound, I was hopeful we'd get lots of good pictures of our little baby, and that my mother-who accompanied my husband and me-would be ecstatic to meet her first grandchild.  She was, and so were we.  Our joy was short-lived, however.

"I don't like what I see," the doctor said.  "I've made an appointment for you to see a specialist next week."  She wouldn't tell us anything other than that our baby had fluid around its heart and abdomen.  She would not offer any speculation as to what might be causing it. 

Shaken but optimistic, I hugged my mom goodbye and promised her that everything was going to be fine.   My husband and I went back to his office and immediately started to Google "fluid around fetal heart and stomach."  What we found terrified us. We began grieving while still holding out hope over the weekend.

On Monday we drove to see the specialist.  Right after starting the ultrasound, he said, "I'm sorry, but your baby is very sick."  He confirmed that there was a lot of fluid around our baby's heart and stomach, and he informed us that this was causing our baby to experience heart problems.  The only hope was that the cause was anemia, which was treatable, so he did an emergency amniocentesis to find out.  Within minutes, we had the results.  It was not anemia.  There was nothing we could do.  He told me to schedule an appointment for two days later to see if our baby was still alive.  If all progressed well for the next two weeks, he could deliver early and try to save our baby.  We were devastated.

The next day, I realized that I had not felt any movement since we had gotten home from the hospital.  We drove to my doctor's office to check for a heartbeat.  There was none.  An ultrasound confirmed that our baby had died during the night.  I was sent another hour away to be induced.  My mother came to be with us for that, too.  But things were not how they were supposed to be.  Joel Thomas was born still on July 15, 2009.  He weighed one pound and was twelve inches long.  I will forever cherish the precious few moments we spent with our little boy.

After a great deal of genetic testing, counseling, and grieving, we started trying for another baby.  We wanted more than anything to be parents together.  We had discussed it since our first date!  It did not happen as easily this time, and my new doctor was about to intervene with fertility treatments.  Before I agreed to start the treatment, I thought I would try something different.  I created an intention that I would become pregnant, and I visualized it happening.  I figured it was worth a try, so I dove in wholeheartedly.  I created a sign to hang where I would see it every day that read, "My body and my mind are healed, and I am having a beautiful, healthy baby."  I read it aloud at least once every day.  I changed my diet so that I was eating as though I were already pregnant, and I spoke as though a baby was already inside me.  I went shopping for clothes and blankets for the baby I intended to conceive that month.  It seemed crazy, but my husband and my mother (the only people who knew I was doing this) went along with it anyway.  And then, the week before I was supposed to begin the treatments, I got a positive pregnancy test!  My husband and I were both elated and terrified.  The next nine months were fraught with complications and scares, and being on the same timeline as our first pregnancy complicated our emotions a great deal as well. 

At my 37 week appointment, our non-stress test was different than usual.  Our doctor followed up immediately with an ultrasound.  The fluid levels were low around our baby.  She wanted to induce immediately.  I was terrified but intended, as I did before and throughout my pregnancy, that we would have a different outcome this time.  I called my mother to come up and be with us again.  I was sent up to labor and delivery, and the induction was started.  Six hours and three minutes later, our beautiful and perfectly healthy son, Colin Carl, was born on October 28, 2010.  Words cannot describe the gratitude and elation that my husband, my mother, and I felt when that little boy started screaming as he was placed into my arms.  Every day with him feels like a miracle, and I feel like I am finally fulfilling my intended purpose.  I still miss the baby that we lost, but my heart is filled with overwhelming love and joy for this tiny little soul that would not be here if it weren't for his brother's death.
 

                                                          Sarah Salvia, 34, Appleton, Wisconsin, USA

Next month, we'll be featuring stories of BLISS.  To share yours, please click here.

 

Lisa Vihos, 50, Sheboygan, Wisconsin, USA, is a poet, literary journal editor, and college alumni director who has in the past three years seen herself move in the direction of greater trust in and connection to the universe. www.lisapoemoftheweek.blogspot.com.

It all started with the caftan I saw draped on a hanger on the clearance rack at T.J.MAXX. It looked like a pair of drooping wings from a monarch butterfly, that beautiful deep orange.  But when I held it stretched out, it had the pattern of a tiger--an orange tiger with black stripes. To my surprise, I simply had to have it! I, Sariah, a 200-pound woman who was most comfortable in denim skirts, turtle neck shirts and Birkenstocks! I paid for it, brought it home, and put it on the closet shelf.

The next day, while playing Scrabble, I suddenly looked at my husband and said that we had to go "right now" to get a CD of the song I Believe I Can Fly. I simply had to have it! I startled my own self at my willingness to just abandon the game of Scrabble-- especially when winning--but off we went and got the song.

We came home, and I put the CD on the stereo and fixed it so it would repeat and repeat. At first, I stood there listening, hands out to the side like someone in prayer. But the truth is, I felt like the song was a prayer entering my own heart. My chest expanded, and my breath deepened as I stood there, weeping, with a fullness of being. I wept joy and sorrow, abundance and lack, hollow and full, soft and hard, things for which I had no words--all of it okay, simply part of the texture of being.

After "communing" with the song like that, just feeling my state of being, my body started moving, dancing what my whole self felt--knew--was. I had been part of a modern dance team in high school.  That 200-pound-grandma body I had just called up remembered what it used to do, and found its own way to express things I thought long forgotten. Over and over I danced the song, my heart, my being. Soon I realized I was choreographing a dance, to perfection, each step memorized by the very cells of this reawakened body I was moving.

Hours later I was done.  Simply done. I turned off the stereo, put on my shoes ,and joined my husband at the kitchen table to eat the meal he had prepared and to resume our game of Scrabble.  My husband asked what that was all about, and I told him that it was something I just had to do. I said I wasn't sure how or when, but I knew that someday I was going to dance that dance on stage for an audience of some kind of therapists gathering. It wasn't bewildering to me at all. I trusted the knowing--this inner communing, this prompting of my spirit--as a matter of fact. I didn't have to know when, where, or for whom--just that it was. I didn't really even think about it after that. It was a peaceful knowing, that's all.

Well, many months later, I had finished doing a Reiki session on a woman I had met at a coffee shop. She had left, and within moments, knocked at my car door . She had a bewildered look on her face as she asked me if I was a dancer. "Yes, I have danced," I said, a smile of knowing creeping onto my face.  My heart warmed.  My chest expanded. She told me that she was organizing a conference at the health care center.  Many therapists, doctors, and other clinical staff from the region were coming, and the last piece that had to come into place was the entertainment.

"Yes, I will. I have a dance prepared already," I said even before she asked the question. We stood there a moment, eyes full of things that needed no words.

The day of the conference came, and I took my shoes off and 'flew' onto the stage with my "tiger wings" as open as my spirit! At the end, there wasn't a dry eye in the house, and people stood as they applauded. That tiger-striped monarch and I fully emerged from the whisper of a cocoon. To all of this I say...."Yes! And ha cha cha!"

Sariah Daine, 63, Madison, Wisconsin, USA, has been blessed with knowing love her entire life.  Among other things, she has marched with Martin Luther King, Jr.; became an artist in her 40s; and has been a Big Brothers and Big Sisters program coordinator for a tri-county area.  She has learned to trust life's promptings.

Trust as a topic last month could not have been more appropriate. I got my trust lessons in the deepest sense messaged through a sick barn cat.

The day before Thanksgiving, I found Cottonball in the stable seriously injured.  She could not move.  I picked her up and placed her in a basket, and rushed her to the vet. She had a broken pelvis and a serious dog bite in her leg. It was likely her leg needed to go. It was not clear if she was paralyzed.  

The vet suggested we wait for the swelling to go down before any decisions would be made. As no one else was around during the holiday, I took her inside my home, where she let me feed her and take care of her.

Two days later, I picked her up to go to the vet for further exams. To my surprise, Cottonball managed to escape on three legs and a broken pelvis. Gone. She did not trust the vet and seemed to know this was going to be a bad idea.

It was freezing outside and she could not be found. We communicated through an animal communicator, who was able to tell me Cottonball was thinking things over and did not want to go to the vet. The communicator made it clear that Cottonball believed the vet would make the wrong decision about her leg.  She said Cottonball was in serious pain and shock, and was terrified a dog would get her.

I can not begin to tell you how many people known and unknown grouped together and sent Cotton long-distance healing energy on various levels. One person sent:  Trust, trust, trust...daily. On the third night of her escape, we lost contact. Cottonball was too weak to come out of hiding, and in too much pain. She was in and out of consciousness and her end was near, I was told.

I was at my wit's end not ready to accept we could lose her.  There was nothing more I could do. So I did what I had never done before: I asked Archangel Michael for help.

Nothing happened, and I went to sleep. I woke up with an experience that is hard to put on paper. Archangel Michael was there in full force, with a small, curled up body and two prickly ears.  He was bringing Cottonball to life. Engulfed was this little body in a fierce purple light that kept coming. I was fully awake while my body started to shake. I sobbed like I had never sobbed before. I became calm then, and a voice said, "She is alive."

In my mind, I asked Cottonball to go to a specific spot in the barn if she was able, so I could find her. That night I heard a voice again. "She is here."

I went to the barn and found Cottonball on the horse blanket in the very area I had asked her to go. I know it took a lot of trust for her to come out. I picked her up and her heart was pounding hard. She was very scared but she trusted me as I put her in her basket (where she stayed for two weeks, letting various people treat her like a queen).

Today Cottonball is walking on four legs as she is learning to trust humans. She also became a teacher to me in various forms.  Cottonball's trust has given me a  powerful understanding of the unknown, which is leading me to wholeness and freedom on a new level.  Cottonball is also bringing together people at the farm who formerly did not get along. I watch her brave steps and knowing ways and trust all will be well-for all-ongoing as it is. 

With trust, miracles indeed keep coming. 
 

Dutch-born Annemarie Minke, 48, Rhinebeck, New York, USA, is a flower essence practitioner and chef who has traveled the world while cooking.

Somehow as a young child, I knew how to work the field of intention--how to manifest what I desired out of a simple thought.  

This was the time before people like Tony Robbins and Oprah started urging us to create dream boards.  And yet I knew how to do this too, and fashioned my version of the good life out of Montgomery Ward catalogs and Redbook magazines. 

Invariably, the things I cut out showed up under our Christmas tree or at my birthday parties.  (The only exceptions to this being the white roller skates with pink wheels and the Easy Bake Oven I so coveted; perhaps my mother feared I'd crack my head open or end up with third degree burns.  Based on some of my childhood injuries, she may have been right.)

For the next two decades, I worked the field of intention for bigger things: career opportunities, my health, relationships.  Smaller things too.  By now I've gotten so good at manifesting my intentions that I can do so with little lag time.  What used to take weeks or months now happens within days, or even instantaneously.

A few weeks ago, while working in a hotel room on an upcoming speaking program--being a public speaker was on both my childhood and young adult dream boards--I found myself reading and writing about chocolate for an entire morning. 

I'm not a huge chocolate fan, and yet I got my mind set on eating a square-shaped piece of chocolate, the kind sold by Ghirardelli or Ritter Sport.  I could hear the snap of the chocolate as I envisioned biting into a corner.  Could taste and feel the bittersweet chocolate melting on my tongue.  The imagined experience became so overwhelming that I couldn't focus on my work.

And so I went off in search of a square-shaped piece of chocolate.  It was freezing outside, and yet I walked more than a mile, ducking into any shop I thought might have what I sought. I came up empty handed, but I needed to get back to work.  Disappointed, I returned to my computer and tried to shake off the thought of that elusive chocolate square.  I wasn't very successful. 

Not more than 10 minutes later, there was a knock on my door.  It was the same pleasant housekeeper who'd shared a heartfelt story with me earlier in my stay.  She presented me with a card and chocolate.  Three squares of chocolate.  Just like the ones I'd imagined.

On Christmas, the topic of Montana came up at the dinner table.  I told my family that I'd never been there.  I pictured the stunning images on A River Runs Through It and other movies shot in Montana.  As my father talked about the Native lands in that part of the country, I thought, I'd love it there.  "We should go there in the spring," I said to my husband.  Three days later, I received an email from a conference planner.  She asked if I was free to speak at an event in the spring.  In Montana.  On a Native American reservation.

These two instances reminded me of something I sometimes forget: to be mindful with my thoughts.  After all, the same principles that can make a square of chocolate or a trip to Montana appear can just as easily make manifest our innermost fears.  And I experienced that recently too.

When I returned to the US this past summer, it was in part with the intention of giving back: to share some of what I'd learned in living and working alongside luminaries and little-known wisdom keepers in places as diverse as Bali, India, Honduras, and Finland.I thought that in addition to the new book I was writing, speaking about my experiences and introducing some of these amazing people and teachings through an eZine might be a great way to reach those who are for whatever reason unable to (or believe they are unable to) go on their own awe-inspiring journeys of inner achievement.  

But who are you to do such things? the tiny voice of my shadow whispered in my head. You've got two divorces and a bankruptcy under your belt.  You're a control freak, a drama queen, you're materialistic, and you've got a temper.  You haven't even done yoga in nearly a year.  Who will take you seriously?  Who are you to think you can offer anything to anyone? 

As I got ready to release the first issue of Inlightenment last month, this voice grew louder.  Despite my fear, and despite my insecurities, I told myself this eZine, like all I am doing now, is not really about me at all.  It's about all of you, and about giving a voice to those who have none or think they don't.  I intended to be a "bridge between the worlds"--the spiritual traditions of yesteryear, and modern, everyday life.  Remembering this and that my fear is not my truth enabled me to click send. 

Even I was surprised with the overwhelming response to the first issue. Dozens upon dozens of emails poured in from around the world.  The contributors had touched the lives of our readers, just as many of them had personally touched my life.  I couldn't have been more delighted! 

Or could I?  That voice was still there, and now it was practically a scream.  I told it to quiet.  I begged it to go away.  I feared it would take the shape of a negative experience in my life.  And so of course it did, in the form of an email to my speaking agent from someone in my old hometown. 

Remember the chocolate story?  I manifested three squares rather than just one.  That's how intention works once you've mastered it.  You get even more than you'd imagined. 

This email contained words harsher than any in my head.  In addition to echoing the Who am I? statements, it contained outrageous lies and accusations.  It went so far as to warn my speaking agent against working with me. 

Whether I like it or not, I am always working the field of intention.  Whether you know it or not, you are too.  We create our reality--the very world around us--through our thoughts.  Sometimes I think our negative thoughts are even more visible than our best actions, and louder than the yearnings of our hearts.  Do I want to create my reality, my world, out of fear?  Doubt?  Negativity?  Insecurity?  The worries of my lowest self?  Or do I want my life to be shaped by love?  Compassion?  Positivity? Service?  Grace?  The truths of my highest self?

Though her intent was obviously quite the opposite, the woman who wrote the hurtful email gave me a gift.  She prompted me to reaffirm my commitment to myself and and others, and to do some shadow work.  But as my friend Wesaki Emani Wi, aka Jean Reddemann, would no doubt remind me, "It doesn't have to be the gift that keeps on giving."  Standing firmly in truth and in the intent of my highest self, I will soon bravely click send on this email.  It is my intention that this--like all the teachings I'm honored to share with you, my fellow students in the school of life--speaks to your truth and your highest self.

As for the other gift I recently received--an Easy Bake Oven from my husband--I'll be keeping it.  After all, it took 31 years to reach me.  I'm setting it up next to my six-burner big-girl stove, and will make us a celebratory miniature confetti cake.  (Don't worry, Mom, I'll be mindful as I use it.) 

My husband was sad he couldn't also gift my inner kid with the white roller skates with pink wheels.  He was told by shopkeepers they're for kids and don't come in anything bigger than a size 6.  "That's okay," I said throwing my arms around him and blubbering tears of joy into his shoulder.  "It's the thought that counts."