Wanted to share an experience I just had yesterday, that lit a fire of inspiration within me – & so I hope it helps you too.
Rewind a little: abt 2 wks ago, I got an email from an old season ticket holder of mine from one of the teams I’d previously worked. The guy wrote me saying – I probably wouldn’t remember him, as a good number of yrs had passed, but he said he saw my name affiliated w this organization, had been dealing w some “stuff” & looked up my email & decided to reach out to ask for some help.
Each workday, I try to schedule at least one of these “personal” calls for help (often late at nt), w ppl who reach out looking for some form of peer-to-peer guidance. In this case, we’d scheduled to speak last nt. If you’ve been following recently, I haven’t been feeling my best, so I’ve not been so sure what good I can be to folks on these calls. That said…we spoke last nt.
Putting it bluntly, this guy’s not doing so well presently. He sounded an awful lot like I did down in Florida when stuff was hitting the fan for me. He feels like he can’t concentrate, is constantly on edge, like the next shoe’s gonna drop, & maybe even more challenging, his fam has noticed how short-tempered he’s been & how he’s even been lashing out at his kids uncharacteristically. Simply put he feels in a bind to “do something” right away, & was looking for advice.
I spent abt an hr on the phone w him sharing the whole cumulative stress/trauma situation…how it builds over time…how we need to release & rewire it out thru active practice…& then intro’d him to one of the docs on our alliance to give him more formal help/direction.
Here’s the inspirational part: he calls me late late nt, after talking to the doc. He’s fighting thru tears as he’s thanking me for reconnecting & giving him an ear, & then he drops this: “Eric, I’ve probably read your website & every celeb & everyday hero story on it, 5x. At first, it was comforting- I’m not alone. Then frustrating I’m not healed like those who’ve written. But after tonight’s talks, I realized, I can write the next chapter of my story…& picture myself getting over this, just as most of those stories on the site now read. I can be one of those stories.”
I can get lost in the day-to-day operations, that I don’t frequently take a step back to view things from a new perspective. Most ppl who write/call to share, are already on the upswing. My mind puts those ready to share, in that “gliding/thriving” category. But, what this man showed me is, not only CAN we heal to write our own inspirational stories…but amidst our struggles, we can ENVISION our next chapter- reading about others who’ve overcome before us, & just by envisioning it, already start to write how our story will read. Powerful!
