Tặng Đại Tiểu Hỷ - Let The Magic Begins
(Riêng tặng DTH, các bạn Ki-tô hữu cấp tiến, và cũng... cho chính tôi.) :smile:
Let The Magic Begins
Cathy Lee Crosby
(Tự thuật về kinh nghiệm tâm linh của một nghệ sĩ người Mỹ )
"Your vision will become clear only when you look into your heart…
Who look outside, dreams. Who looks inside, awaken."
Carl Jung
About six years ago, I seemed as if I had achieved everything I could ever imagine. I had international fame as an actress, producer, writer and star of a top-ten television series, That’s Incredible! In addition, as a former international champion, I was an all ground-athelete in top physical condition. I was also involved in an extraordinary, loving relationship with someone I believe was the man of my dreams. To top it off, I enjoyed the comfort of seemingly tight9knit family, I had become a multimillionaire and I had even started my own charity foundation! Everything I had ever dreamed was coming true-fame, success, wealth, happiness.
Then, in a matter of months, I lost it all! I lost everything I had worked my entire life to achieve, everything I thought mattered. My fall was as meteoric and dramatic as my rise had been, so when I hit bottom, I landed with the reverberating thud.
The first of the four devastating “that triggered my “crash” were three deaths. By beloved grandmother, Francesca, died at the age of ninety-three. She had always been my special “champion.” From the moment I was born, I felt she gave me permission to be as spirited, as spontaneous and as adventurous as I dared, simply by her presence alone. Emotionally, her death numbed my heart.
Then, in a matter of months, my father died as well, because he was living in Australia and I was not notified of his death in time to attend his funeral, I missed my any sense of closure with him. I was left with some very painful, unresolved issues concerning that I had kept buried since childhood.
Not long afterwards, my mother also passed away, leaving me in an even greater experience of loss.
A short time later, the second trauma occurred. I was diagnosed with a virus call Epstein-Barr. It zapped my once-endless energy, completely draining me both physically and emotionally. It is a disease; by the way, that even today many doctors say doesn’t exist. But when you’re suffering from night sweats, fevers, loss of memory and aching bones, as well as ensuring depression, it’s hard to believe that Epstein-Barr is psychosomatics. Especially when it lasts, as mined did, for almost six tortuous years.
Then, just as I began to show some meager signs of recovery from the virus, I was hit by the third catastrophic event. I was forced to end my seven-year relationship with Joe; the man I believed was my soul mate. It had become painfully clear that the person who stood before me was not the same man with whom I had fallen deeply in love. His behavior had change radically; heightened by the emergence of a personality I had never seen before and didn’t understand.
Although I made every possible effort to heal the situation, eventually I had no choice but to leave the man I had considered the love of my life. After I ended the relationship, I closed down and turned inward in an effort to heal. Joe’s reaction to the pain, however, was to lash out in the form of legal action.
He sued me all right – oh boy, did he sue me, asking half of everything I had ever earned! I had to part with an unbelievable amount of money to extricate myself form the situation, including almost one million dollars in legal fees alone. I was an enormous drain on my finances, given the fact that for four years I was practically bedridden with the virus and unable to work. My coffers were bare, and I was unable to stop the downward spiral. I was advised that the only solution was to declare bankruptcy. Thus began my efforts to survive the fourth and final traumatic blow to my psyche.
I was soon emotionally, physically and financially exhausted, and soon retreat to the safety net of my home to heal my body and soul. I had been beaten to a pulp!
One of the worst days in my six-year saga was my first day in bankruptcy court.
“Ms. Crosby, I want to inform you that, as of this moment, you are nothing, “barked Mr. Haberbush, a trustee of a U.S. Bankruptcy Court at the beginning of my initial hearing.
It was the introductory court session that was supposed to simply acquaint the debtor with the legal morass of going belly-up.
“Everything you ever work for in your entire life is now mine,” bellowed Haberbush, “Basically, I own you and you are nothing. Is that clear?”
I am nothing!
Though I sensed this was merely a legal tactic to intimidate, the trustee’s words ripped away any last shreds of self-esteem I have had. I’d gone bankrupt all right. Not only that, the insidious disease had also found its way into the center of my psyche.
I am nothing!
I sat in that courtroom for nearly eight hours, enduring all manner of humiliation. Once outside, I made a beeline for my car, and the minute I got inside, tears began streaming down my face. Within seconds, the tears had become sobs-deep, hysterical sobs, the likes of which I had never experience before. The dam had finally burst.
When I got home, I collapsed on the living-room floor. Time passed in a blur. Then suddenly, I heard a phone ringing on the table beside me. It was my sister, Linda Lou, in Washington, D.C.
“Hi,” she said. “How are you doing?”
I couldn’t utter a word. My entire body was racked with sobs.
“What’s wrong?” she asked. “Tell me. I can’t hear you. Talk to me.”
No words came. Only more sobs.
“Talk to me, please.”
Nothing.
In the inimitable Crosby family, my sister immediately called our aunt, Gene, for help. My aunt assured Linda Lou that, Gene, for help. My aunt assured Linda Lou that she would take over and drive straight to my house. Because she and my uncle live in Pasadena, which is a forty-five-minute drive away and drive straight to my house, she decided to call first. Interestingly, when I later sat down to write my book, LET the MAGIC BEGIN, I would have sworn that she had made that drive and had stayed on the telephone for almost five hours, because once I had me on the line, she was afraid to hang up and lose connection.
“Nothing can kill your spirit, Cathy Lee, nothing,” Aunt Gene kept repeating. “Even when you could barely crawl, you were always ready for life. You wanted to try everything now. You would even wake up laughing, raring to go, raring to explore. Remember? You were this free spirit always ready to climb the highest mountain. Even though so much has been taken from you, you’re still Cathy Lee. You’re still you. Now is not the time to give up. The sun will come up tomorrow, I promise.”
And on it went, hour after hour, aunt to niece, friend to friend, soul to soul. Finally, at about two o’clock in morning, I began to fall sleep.
My aunt whispered, “Sweet dreams, Li’t Kitten,” and we both sleepily hung up the phone.
I slept for only about three hours, but what actually happened during that time I wouldn’t fully understand for quite awhile. Maybe Mr. Haberbush, in and odd twist of fate, had been right. Maybe I did become “nothing” that night. Whatever the case, those three hours of sleep would turn out to be a gift so magical that it would change my life forever.
When I awoke in the morning, I felt as if I had landed in the whole new world. It seemed as if every ounce of the scar tissue I had acquired during the last five years had been miraculously ripped away. The “me” I had known no longer existed. I felt strangely peaceful. Interestingly, I had “nothing” – no viewpoint, no opinions, and no judgments. I had no desire for anything and no need for anything. There was “nothing” to win, and likewise, there was “nothing” to lose. All that remained was a clear, calm connection to Everything.
I couldn’t believe that someone like myself, who had experience such a life of activity, energy and passion, was actually enjoying the feeling of nothingness! The magnificence of the feeling astonished me.
Even more remarkable, perhaps, was the total absence of fear. For the first time in my life, I felt that there was nothing to be afraid of. Nothing could ever stop me, or hurt me, or betray me, or do anything to me again-because I realized that my “experience” of life and who I was were actually one and the same. More precisely, how I experienced the events in my life had very little to do with the “facts” of those events – yet everything to do with my “interpretation” of those facts.
My slate had been wiped clean. It was as if each moment of my experience was a mirror, and in that mirror I was looking straight at myself and my connection to Everything.
In my journey through “nothingness,” and back onto my destined path, I reconnected with the magical real of pure possibility we all knew as children, a place I call the Bliss Zone”, I became aware that a distinct, "Divine force” alive with joy and wonder and unlimited potential.
I realized that being aware of and connecting with this flow in each and every moment allows us to join in the “dance of the Universe” and infinite possibility within.
Step into the “Dance” allow us to bring the full potential of our essential nature into physical form. This is the key to our journey back into the “Magic” of life in all its passion and wonder.
Of course, God had been trying to tell me this for a very long time. It’s just that finally I learned how to listen.
Cathy Lee Crosby
(Trích từ Chicken Soup For The Soul)
