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Gifts
of the Heart’s Wisdom By Diana Rankin
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While lying on the side of the road in early September, waiting
to be Care Flighted to the hospital, I came to better understand
physical pain, and I didn’t like it. Gravel took my motorcycle and me
down in a curve. I didn’t want to go to a hospital by helicopter; I
didn’t want to go to a hospital. That meant I was hurt, and I refused
to believe I could be hurt. I liked my life the way it was. I had too
much to do, animals to take care of, editors and deadlines, bills that
only get paid if I work, and a motorcycle to ride. But,
I had no say in that moment in time. All I could do was just be. People
were all around me, asking me questions that I heard myself respond to,
but mostly I drifted off, away from the pain. I
would deal with my life later, when I got home that night, I told
myself, but it would be two months before I returned to my home. I spent
eight days in the trauma unit at Miami Valley Hospital, nearly a month
in a rehab/nursing home, and three weeks staying with friends. During
this time, I had to constantly find the gifts in my situation. It was
the only way I could remain sane. Many
of the gifts came easily. Friends and family gave me so much—flowers,
books, food, money, a laptop small enough I could lift it, friendship,
and sincere ways to help. Friends from around the world started sending
me prayers and healing energy. Family came from as far away as Florida
and South Carolina. One friend took care of my animals, another my
motorcycle; my brother called clients and associates to cancel
appointments and meetings, radio shows and speaking engagements, and
promised articles. I was amazed how much people did for me, wanted to do
for me, how much people gave to me, how generous they were with their
gifts and themselves. With
my every need met, all I had to do was heal. I believe “accidents”
have a purpose, so I constantly asked myself how to use this situation
to serve my life and that of others. I found joy in the deepening of
friendships and happiness in that which I had never given thought to
before. I never thought about tying shoe laces, until I couldn’t, or
about opening doors from a wheelchair, or how the brain stops sending
signals to unused parts of our body that need to be coaxed back into
performing they way we expect. The
list of miracles was long and ongoing, and I knew that I was blessed,
and I was grateful. This is enough. Still I knew there was more. In the
days of healing, I came to understand the physical pain of my hurt body
and the emotional pain of my life being turned upside down was for the
experience itself, and the experience would take me where I needed to
go, where Spirit meant me to go, my heart’s wisdom guiding me. During
my days and nights in the hospital and then the rehab/nursing home, I
witnessed the difference between health-care professionals who use their
intuition coupled with their medical knowledge and those who used only
their medical knowledge. I witnessed the lack of alternative medicine
and the lack of holistic health care in the traditional medical centers.
I felt called to be an instrument of change. As
I made the commitment in my heart, doors opened. Sometimes they were
heavy, other times they flew open. All I had to do was walk through. I
expanded my thinking and career. While still healing, I was asked if I
would talk to groups of health care professionals. I created
“Intuitive Care”, a program designed to guide health care providers
to develop their intuition for the betterment of their own lives and the
better care of their patients. I
also felt called to create a model for a healing center where both
allopathic and alternative medicines are used to treat the patients;
where music, art, color, visualization, meditation, and theater, are
combined with exercises and body movement; where every patient has an
advocate to talk for them when they cannot talk; where a foundation of
private funds cover costs when insurance companies fail; where the
patient’s care is put before the staff and administration’s egos;
where healing is encouraged and patients are allowed to take
responsibility for their own lives. I
don’t know how all this will unfold. I only know that my job is to put
one foot in front of the other and listen, listen carefully to my
heart’s wisdom. It will guide me to the truth of why I came into this
life. This I can trust. In
our culture, we don’t like pain, and I am no exception. We excuse it,
refuse to look at it, and are often even cruel in the name of helping
the less fortunate when a friend is in pain or, when we infer that if
they were in right alignment with life, they would not be having this
pain. When we are able to look at pain—ours and that of others—from
the heart’s wisdom, we are able to come to the understanding that pain
is not because we were incorrect, or even in dis-ease with ourselves
(although this can be part of our pain), but for the experience itself.
Pain may be a wakeup call, or it may be a calling to a new life in which
we understand that life always seeks to balance itself, and that if we
can see pain as merely a part of life, not something separate that must
be avoided at all costs, we can use the enviable pain that comes with
being feeling, breathing human beings. Then we are able to experience
the pain that comes into our lives as a way to enrich and deepen
ourselves and a way to find the truth of why we came into this life. Perhaps
our pain will open us to the gifts of love our family and friends have
for us, and this is enough. Perhaps, though, our pain will lead us to
become instruments of change in a way that the greatness of our creation
will live long past our pain and help to heal not only ourselves, but
others as well. Diana
Rankin is deeply grateful for all the healing energy and prayers that
are sent her way during her healing process. Diana
Rankin, the author of 23 Days/A
Celtic Journey, is a gifted psychic medium, radio personality,
internationally known speaker and storyteller, writer and poet, and
workshop leader and university instructor. She can be seen the first
Friday of every month at Gentle Wind in Columbus where she holds Sacred
Circle. Diana can be reached at www.dianarankin.com or by calling
937-593-6500. |