Miracle Book One ( Preview Edition) Author of "No Worries Mate" Joy Phoenix

Karin La~ — Mon, 23 Apr 2007 17:58:16 GMT

Miracle Book One Miracle Updates; Book One Chapter 1: Trapped in a Mexican border town I think the only reason I haven’t collapsed from grief and fear is because I believe that somehow I am going to wake up from the nightmare I am in, and find myself home with my daughter Harmony in Austin Texas. I’ll be safe in my bed in my dear little apartment, far from the terrifying ghetto of Nuevo Laredo. But the hours drag on and I am forced to acknowledge this isn’t a dream. This morning; Wednesday May 12th 2004, I kissed my little girl and sent her off to school telling her I would be home in time to tuck her into bed. Then I came to Nuevo Laredo for the day. When I went to re-enter the States the computer said my paperwork was not in order, and my New Zealand visitors visa was cancelled I was told I could reapply again - in a year. I have only the clothes I walked across the border in; I don’t know anyone in Mexico; I don’t speak Spanish; and my 13 year old daughter is now on the other side of a glass wall I can’t even ask to cross for another 365 days. Staying focused on the positive things I can do in this moment is the only thing that keeps me from falling apart completely. I am a life coach and whole health practitioner from New Zealand. For the past ten years I have lived a Shamanic life dedicated to being a channel for Divine Will. I made these choices after doctors told me I would be dead or brain dead by 30 after a car accident at 24. I did what it took to heal myself, and now I teach what I learned during that process. I live as an example of what can be done, proof that while we can’t always choose what happens to us, we can always choose how we are going to feel about what happens, and that it is this choice that matters, because it is this choice that determines what happens next. I believe that totally; and right now all I can feel is pain so great that I can’t believe it hasn’t killed me. I am at the Fiesta Hotel, where I’m paid up till Sunday in room 124 - the same number as my Austin apartment where Harmony has now been told that I won’t be coming home. I tried not to cry as I talked to her on the phone. “God must need me to do something REALLY huge to pull me away from you like this” “Don’t think of it like that,” she said, “You are not being pulled away; you are going toward, stepping in to the next part of your life. Don’t make it harder by dragging your feet. If you are going there anyway, step up, look forward!” Do you see why I love her so much? I wrote down her words and stuck them in the mirror, and then I cried some more. I don’t want to be apart from her, it was hard enough knowing she was going to live with her Dad in Dallas at the end of July. I don’t want to be away from Austin, it’s amazing to think that we were only going to be there for 3 weeks. We went as part of our world tour, traveling in our RV, just passing through, but every time I tried to leave, wonderful people would say “Please don’t go, we love you and we need you here” and so I’d put it off again. There was always a ‘can’t miss event’ just a few days away, always something I needed to do first, I loved it there, the people of Austin had become my family. I never wanted to leave. I hadn’t wanted to leave our home and loved ones in Queensland Australia either. I had a great life on the Gold Coast and baulked in 2000 when ‘Upstairs Management’ made it clear that it was time to sell everything I owned, take my daughter out of school and travel the world teaching what I knew about self empowerment, holistic health and personal happiness. I thought this was a horrible idea, I had no desire to travel; but I can’t teach what I don’t live, and I teach ‘follow your Guidance.’ If I didn’t go, I couldn’t continue teaching. I presented a long, impressive list of reasons to stay in my Australian comfort zone, and told God “If You want me to travel, You organize it, I like it fine where I am”. That night a grateful client offered to give me two tickets to L.A. A few weeks later I arrived at L.A. airport with two suitcases, a briefcase, a Macintosh laptop, and my 9-year-old child. I had no idea then either, of what I would do, or where I would go, or how I would manage; but from the first day we were inundated with miracles. Those miracles have never stopped. As long as I follow Divine Guidance I don’t believe they ever will. Now here I am again, on the verge of another terrifying adventure. But this time I am alone and very far from anything familiar, in a scary border town where no-one speaks English, and I ache with need for my child. What on earth am I supposed to do now? Chapter 2: A miracle I don’t understand yet. Thursday May 13th: after an endless, sleepless night in which all of my thoughts revolved around “this is the worst thing that could happen to me.” By the time sunlight started filtering in through the cracked and dirty windows of my hotel room I knew I had to get ruthless about what thoughts I would and wouldn’t allow myself. I am going to need every bit of strength and courage I can muster if I am going to survive the next year – or the next day – or the next minute. Permitting myself the indulgence of even a single negative thought at this time will be fatal, I need all my wits about me if I am going to get myself out of this mess. Right now my thoughts are taking me nowhere I want to go, they are weakening and terrifying me. If I allow them to run their course I will never survive Nuevo Laredo. I have learned that if I don’t like the direction I am going, to turn around, find a road that takes me somewhere I want to go. If I don’t like the thoughts I am thinking, do the same thing, turn them over; find one I do like and choose it instead. There is almost always an equally valid, much more pleasurable thought on the other side, waiting to take me to a much better place. I look for the exact opposite of the thought ‘this is the worst thing that could happen to me’, it is ‘this is the best thing that could happen to me’. I can’t accept that thought, I don’t believe it. For this exercise to be effective the opposing thought has to at least have a possibility of being equally true, and I can’t imagine this as a good thing, it feels like the worst possible disaster: I am a woman alone in a very dangerous area of a foreign country where police travel in groups carrying machine guns; I don’t speak the language, I have no money, no possessions, I don’t know a soul, and this grim hotel room with its ironic name and even more ironic room number is a horrifying place to be. My whole being cries out to be with my child, I am a block and half from everything safe and familiar and it is as inaccessible as the moon. I have to find new thoughts; these ones will send me mad with fear and grief. I search until I find an opposing thought that I can accept as valid and possible; I found ‘this is a miracle I don’t understand yet.’ I hold tight to this thought, it is my lifeline out of hell. I know God doesn’t make mistakes; I’ve long learned that I only have a piece of the puzzle and the jigsaw isn’t in my hands. I can and must trust that however grim this looks, everything is happening as it needs to Just because I don’t currently understand it, doesn’t mean there isn’t a reason for this –it had better be a damn good one! Beloved Goddess please help me remember these truths. I’m so afraid. Chapter 3: Reflections Miracle Update - May 14th: I’ve done my best to make my room at Hotel Fiesta a cheerful place that reminds me I am loved, as opposed to it being a bleak place that makes me feel abandoned. My tye dye silk scarf decorates the mirror where I’ve written out my personal Mission Statement and stuck it next to Harmony’s words of wisdom and a list of my blessings. My mission is to ‘Make each life that I touch better for my having passed; and all life better for my being. I bring awareness of choice, new perspective and positive resolution in all pleasurable ways for the greatest good of all’ At the top of my blessings list is my wonderful daughter, wisdom personified. I refuse to worry about her, I know that not worrying doesn’t mean not caring, it means being able to care more effectively because I am unclouded by worry. She deserves the best care I can give her, and right now that means ruthlessly focusing my thoughts on everything that I have to work with in this moment. Evaluating resources in a crisis situation is always wisdom. I have dear friends caring for my child; I have great skills that I can take anywhere; I am a channel for Divine Will and healing; a teacher; a writer. I have a body and a mind that functions adequately, and I have BIG angels walking with me. I write down each friend; each skill; each gift my body provides. I can see and hear and speak and write and walk, and I know how to triumph over tragedy, in fact no-one is better at that than me. I can do ANYTHING as long as I take it one step at a time. These familiar things help a little, that’s always better than nothing. I went into meditation and asked God for a sign of what to expect in Mexico. As I left my room I heard a “sqwark!” and saw a baby parrot at the other end of the corridor looking like he had his head stuck in the bars of a cage. I went to see if I could help. The corridor ends in what looks like a bomb blast; that part of the wall has fallen through, and I can see over the roof of the next building to the building beyond. As I walk closer I realize first, that the parrot is fine if a little scrawny, and second, that there is a huge sign across the top of that far building. It says EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED Oh ha ha! Very funny. I am coping by staying COMPLETELY focused on the present moment. Nothing exists for me other than whatever I am doing in each moment. I breathe in, I breathe out. If I eat I focus on opening and closing my mouth to mulch the food; my mouth opens, and it closes, food is crushed, I swallow, my mouth opens, and it closes, I breathe in and I breathe out… I will not allow my mind to wander outside of the moment; I’m afraid I will explode with grief if I do. I know if I can just stay focused on doing the best I can in each moment, the larger picture will be revealed, and the separation will eventually become bearable. If I can just stay focused now, there will be enough time to weep later, when I’m alone in a safe place… I do feel better than I did, how could I not with so much love and support? My Austin community sprang into action when they got the email I sent from an internet café telling everyone what had happened. Every one of them is an angel bringing me everything I need to make this next step, letting me know I’m not alone, taking turns caring for Harmony, packing up my flat, organizing what I need, passing round the hat - three people offered to give me a laptop so I could continue my work and be in touch with yall! My heart overflows with gratitude at the love being directed toward me, lifting me out of my pain, enabling me to go on. THANK YOU! I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to express my thanks for all you are doing. I will take you all with me in my heart on this Grand Adventure and we will never lose touch. Read Richard Bach’s ‘There’s no such place as far away’ and know that I am only ever a thought away So dear ones, this is where it stands right now: I am gratefully accepting all prayers; suggestions, help and especially love directed at my wise, brave, beautiful daughter Harmony, and my Mum in New Zealand who will worry even though she has read my book ‘No Worries, Mate!’ and knows who walks with me. Do you know someone who knows someone in San Miguel who needs to experience JOY!? Someone who might be interested in exchanging a place to stay for healing and an in-house personal happiness coach? At this stage I leave on Monday night. I can’t wait to get away from the horrifying squalor of Nuevo Laredo. I feel OK about going to San Miguel, it sounds like Mexico’s answer to Austin after all, and anywhere will be an improvement over this place. It is so loud and filthy, its people so desperate and grim. The men harass me openly; to them I am American prey. The women look at me with accusing eyes. Such a dark unhappy people. I wish I could speak Spanish. I despair. Open sided jeeps loaded with soldiers carrying machine guns cruise the garbage littered streets. My senses are assaulted even through my shields. I hurry back to my stark hotel room, grimacing at the stink of sewerage. I feel bereft; I should be home in my little green nest, surrounded by oak trees and loved ones, cuddling my baby, planning the summer. Not here among hostile strangers. The phone rings in my room, the first outside call to get through. His name is Robert, a friend of a friend of friend got an e-mail concerning me last night. This morning he awoke with clear awareness that I was to go to Sayulita, a coastal village near Puerto Vallarta. There I would find the contacts and the break I need. AND if it doesn’t work out he can take me to San Miguel in June when he was planning a trip there. Something tight and terrified released inside me as he spoke. And I finally shifted from knowing everything was going to be just fine, to it BEING just fine again. I went to the internet cafe to send out an update. As I walked I was amazed to notice so many pretty town squares in Nuevo Laredo, with gazebos and fountains and musicians. And the people were suddenly so friendly, not one failed to meet my eye and return my smile. Such genuine smiles, I can’t believe I was ever afraid. The young soldiers in the open sided jeep wave at me as they pass, and I wave back. Suddenly not being able to speak the language isn’t such a problem. I see only angels grinning back at me through the eyes of my fellow adventurers. Phew, how much better the mirror looks clean. Chapter 4: A new look May 15th: A friend of a friend of a friend who owns a clothes store was dispatched from Laredo with a change of clothes for me. You would laugh if you could see me now, IF you recognized me! I am in an internet café typing to you in hipster jeans with heart studs and buttons, respectable knickers, a 38B padded bra and a Playboy bunny Spring Break 04 T-shirt that says “let the fun begin”. Can you tell it was a man who chose this outfit? The bloke who brought the clothes insisted I try them on, then immediately invited me out on the town. I politely declined. I need more peaceful adventures at the moment, though peace really isn’t possible in this hotel. Every night there are cars honking in a continual car-cophony (new word do you like it?) from 9pm till dawn. Their radios turned up full bore, pounding into my room overlooking the street. You have to raise your voice to be heard over the people screaming and yelling as they wait in line to go across the international bridge. I haven’t slept since I got here. Heather and Chance are bringing me my own clothes soon. I’m sending the Spring Break t-shirt back with them for you Harmony, it’ll look great on you, and you can smile when you wear it and feel the love I’ve poured in it for you, and share my grand adventure even as I’m sharing yours all ways, always. Let the fun begin! Here is a chorus to a song I once wrote: Life is an adventure, a chance to learn and grow, and if you treat life as an adventure, there’s no limit to how far you can go Chapter 5 : A new life is delivered Such a weekend; so filled with mixed emotions. Saturday I opened the door of my room to see Cheryl standing there. I hadn’t expected her; I hadn’t seen her for months. She had got the news only the night before, and had put everything on hold to come and see me. We had unfinished business, she needed closure, and wisely, wonderfully came to clear the air so that we could both move on with only love between us. What a gift! She also gave me a backpack filled with my favourite candies and foods – my dislike for Mexican food is well known. She had brought the backpack to travel around Mexico with, but now she is settling in Austin. I told her to take my bed and anything else she needs out of my apartment, I won’t be going back. We laughed ruefully about living one another’s dreams. Familiar giggles in the street announced the arrival of Heather and Chance. Suddenly the room was filled with laughter and excitement and anticipation. Heather had bought me a magnificent wheelie suitcase with lots of pockets, from which the girls proudly produced everything I needed to embark on this next part of my life. It was a million Christmas mornings all rolled in to one. “The phone hasn’t stopped ringing” they told me as the bed piled high with gifts of love and money. All that I needed and more! “You are so loved” Heather told me, and shared story after story of the support that was pouring in from everywhere. From people I don’t even know! My heart overflowed with gratitude, and the last vestiges of fear and doubt were chased away, I really DO have everything I need. I AM surrounded by loving friends and family even now. I got caught up in the delight of my soul sisters as they rejoiced in my new life, and the part they were playing in sharing my latest grand adventure. As we talked I realized; had I been allowed back in to America, I would have gone straight back into the limbo funk I’ve been stuck in since a freak accident I had in March just before my book launch. ‘No Worries, Mate!’ was the book I wrote that contains a process which guarantees to eliminate all worry at its source. It was divinely inspired and supported from the moment of its inception. Everything it needed in order to be internationally successful was provided effortlessly, including the perfect mentor – internet guru Dr Joe Vitale who showed me how to ensure it would be a #1 best seller on Amazon. This De-Worrying process is so simple anyone can do it, and so powerful that I used it to take my little business from struggling to survive in the spare bedroom of my Queensland home to the largest, most influential software support organization in Australia. Everything was set for a spectacular launch when less than 48 hours prior to the big day, I was sitting in a canvas swing at a friend’s place when the bolt holding the swing sheared off and dropped me several feet onto a concrete ledge, I landed directly on my tailbone cracking my spine like a whip. My spine has already sustained significant damage, first in a motorbike accident at 15 when I was declared clinically dead on the operating table, then in a car accident at 24 after which doctors reckoned my nerve damage was such that I wouldn’t make it to age 30. The pain and the shock from the fall was immense, it felt like my whole lumbar was blown apart with detonations at the mid back, upper shoulders and neck. C1 was knocked so far out I began losing cognitive thought and vision. X-rays and an MRI confirmed that I would be laid up for at least six months unable to do anything except try to heal. I determined to be back on my feet in two. They were intense months of focused healing, I called in every favour I was owed, brought in every healer I’d trained to have them work on me, and had every kind of therapy available in Austin’s more than impressive alternative community. I had one, sometimes two sessions a day, clearing issues I didn’t even know I had, getting more work done in those two months than I had in the past year. I became uncomfortably aware of how slack I’d been, I’d received a clear directive from Upstairs Management at the beginning of the year, I was to trade at least once a week, receive different kinds of healing, go deeper, clear out any old remaining issues I might have. As usual I had started out with good intentions, but I hadn’t followed through. Now I had nothing else to do but work on myself. I was very, very angry with God. “We go to all this trouble to get ‘No Worries, Mate!’ out to the world and this ridiculous accident happens TWO DAYS before the launch? What reason could there possibly be for such a thing?! I thought I understood what needed to be done to get this book out, obviously I was wrong. My daughter goes to live with her father at the end of summer, I need to be on a fully launched book tour by then or I’ll go mad missing her. I no longer know what You expect of me, or how You want this book to be promoted, so just show me. Make it undeniably, unavoidably clear.” Be careful what you ask for. You will always get it, and it will never look the way you think it will. Apparently God’s ‘unmistakable way’ involves having me promote the book by living the De-Worrying Process under these most challenging circumstances to show by example how it works. Doesn’t that just suck?! So, I will not squander my precious resources on worrying, I know worrying is the worst thing I can do in the middle of a disaster, I don’t need that negative stress muddling my thinking. I choose instead to go forward in time to a year from now where I see clearly that I am living prosperously and well, so there is no point in fretting about what I know will turn out just fine. Meantime here I am, and before me is everything I need for my new life, from Jodi’s laptop to Adrienne’s ‘everything I wished I’d had when traveling’ care packages. There is even cash in bills large and small, some with sticky notes of support attached. Thank you, thank you ,THANK YOU ALL! The girls laugh with delight at my face as each miracle is presented. “See how perfect it all is?” they said, and I DID see, and the light of that awareness flooded all the dark, grieving places in my being, and for the first time in a week I didn’t need to cry. I held Cheryl close and didn’t say ‘good-bye’ as she headed back to Austin to start her house hunting. There was no need to say good-bye. We continue to share one another’s adventures. Heather and Chance and I went out to explore Nuevo Laredo. It was their first time out of the U.S. I was so happy to be able to show them around. I even knew where all the best markets were. All was right with the world as we laughed and oohed and ahhed all round town. Heather is the ultimate traveling companion. She is ecstatically awed by EVERYTHING. She reaches for my hand and draws my attention to the marvels all around us. “I love this Mexican culture” she says “Look” She points out an openly loving family of four, impeccably dressed in traditional style. “Family is so important to these people, they are incredibly accepting of differences and yet they are so traditional.” Everything took on a greater depth and perspective as I saw Nuevo Laredo through her bright shiny eyes. We had so much fun shopping for presents. Chance simply stunned the shopkeepers into giving them great deals; then left them all swooning in her wake. We had a wonderful celebration dinner, and confidently walked home in the dark; perfectly safe, admiring the good in this stark border town. I was even grateful for the nightly carcophony from the street because it meant Heather couldn’t sleep either so we got to talk all night. The next morning we went on one more quick adventure in search of last minute bargains. We walked till Heather’s blisters and time constraints, called us back. We rode a horse and carriage back to the hotel; then I walked them back to the bridge and took photos of them laden with packages, and I only cried a little as I watched them go. And I did not say good-bye. There was no need. We will never be apart. Then I went back to the room to ponder the gifts they had brought me, especially the gift of unconditional love. These women had put their lives on hold to step in and do whatever was necessary to ensure that I could move on. They had brought me more than things, and even more than the vast gift of knowing everything had been taken care of at home, including my child (bless you eternally Chance). They had brought me back my JOY! They were so excited for me, utterly firm in their knowing that everything is perfect. So what if we don’t know how it will all work out, we NEVER know exactly how, because it never happens the way we think it will anyway, all we ever really need to know is that God is in charge. They were so happy to bring me their awareness of this that the force of their knowing shifted my awareness to align with theirs. I love and trust these women; I know they are right, and their enthusiasm knocked me over the edge of knowing, into being. How much more loving, helpful, uplifting and sensible than “Oh you poor thing, you must be devastated’. Sometimes you need someone else to see how perfect everything is before you can. If they can then hold that space until you can move into it fully, you are blessed and advantaged indeed. This is what my girlfriends did for me. Heather and Chance made me chant “I’m going to live in the jungle. I’m going to play in the ocean. I’m going to visit the mountains. Think of the fun I’ll have!” every time I looked like I was feeling sad. I chanted it again and tried not to miss them while I went through the notes and gifts and letters from Austin. Some from people I’d never, or barely, met. There were offers to marry me, employ me, smuggle me over the border, and to pull strings with high-level officials to get me back in. Financial aid ranged from a dear kind man offering to buy me a ticket home to New Zealand to Harmony’s friends offering their pocket money. Very few of the notes were fear full. It was all ‘We believe in you’ ‘You can do it’ and offering positive, practical help; ‘this will smooth the way’, ‘we are glad of this chance to do this for you’. My favourite was Lamar’s, in part in read “Truthfully I find that I cannot be overly upset about the situation because I have this overwhelming sense that this is the beginning of something that will absolutely prove to you the power of the universe; the miracles, the guidance, the support of your needs, the all-inspiring AWE that IT and YOU are!!! I know that Life had already been planning this since Harmony was to live elsewhere.” I feel that too, it makes the pain almost bearable. I was so grateful to have him confirm it. So many people believe in me and support me, I am not alone, I CAN DO IT, I must because they believe in me. My lover Hadley arrived a couple of hours after the girls left and stayed till Sunday evening. I was so glad to see him, grateful for the opportunity to be together one last time. To celebrate our relationship and share a laugh over all our mad adventures these past two years. This is how closure should be. Chapter 6: Forgive me Mum, I can’t be with you yet. If you stay exclusively focused in the moment you can survive anything. I am in a plane headed for the beach. It’s been four years since I saw the Pacific Ocean. Below me the mountains of Mexico City slide by, an appalling layer of smog hovers over the land leaving its mark even at this snow touched altitude. I ruthlessly suppress the part of me that wants to curl up in a ball and wail in protest at flying further and further away from my beloveds and from everything familiar. There’ll be time enough to weep later. Now I move forward, I stay focused; I am going there anyway, I do not drag my feet. I know everything is as it needs to be, but oh the pain of being separated from my child and my home and my community to go into a whole different world, truly alone for the first time in my life. I am not afraid. I am overwhelmed. The wailing part of me rises up at the first sign of weakness. I sternly remind it, I am not homeless. Austin is still my home. Planet earth is my home. I am in God’s hands, doing His work, I am safe; everything is fine. I think of Byron Katie’s definition of suffering from her book ‘Loving What Is’: Suffering is only the difference between what is, and what I want it to be. Accept what is and get on with it. Don’t waste time and energy wishing it was something else. I can’t help but wish I could have brought my rainbow dressing gown. The one my Mum gave me that we tye-dyed together, I always wore it when I needed comfort. It was too big to bring, I knew it was, even when I asked Hadley to bring it, in my heart I knew I would have to send it back. I got to wear it one more time though, and I took the belt, that’s something. You are with me Mum, always, all ways. I wear the belt and I feel your love embrace me through the memories we share. Guilt and grief hook savage claws into my heart and throat and stomach and eyes. I gasp at the pain of going into Mexico instead of to New Zealand, where my Mum is having another biopsy to test for the cancer that has ravaged her body. I want so much to be with her, I thought this had happened so I could go home and work with her to beat the cancer, but in every meditation, and every way I ask, the answer is firm and unmistakable. I am not to go to New Zealand or even Australia, I am not to attempt to re-enter the States; I am to go deeper into Mexico. Harmony told Mum I would be coming home, I thought I would be. Would she understand? I need her understanding so I can forgive myself for following my truth not my heart, yet again. I’m so sorry Mum, I wish I could be with you, but apparently I have to do this first.

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Miracle Book One ( Preview Edition) Author of "No Worries Mate" Joy Phoenix