The Miracle of Ten Good Things

by Angela Treat Lyon

Last week as I was working with a client who's gone
through more challenge than anyone I have ever met,
we were clearing the energy from an incident he was
particularly stuck on. I asked him to list ten things that
were good about it.

He exploded, asking me how I could be so cruel as to
think there was even one good thing.

I waited. There was a long silence as he cooled off
and began to contemplate. Finally, sounding very
surprised, he said, "Well, I'm a stronger person
because of it."

He added a couple more, and went silent again.

I continued to wait. Silence is like a magnet when you
want someone to spill deep information. Most of us
are so used to continual blather, but when we're given
the space to consider , we can jump right in and really
mine the depths of ourselves. The rewards of a
conscious silence are huge. He did jump in and found
amazing treasures.

So today, I'm taking time to feel grateful for all the stuff
I thought of in my life as mean, ugly, unfair,
unwarranted and impossible to deal with.

I thank my brothers who I thought were so cruel by
calling me fat and telling me my ears stuck out and
that I was 'just a girl' so I'd never account for much.
Because of them, I am acutely conscious of the
miracle of this body, how I'd never be here without it,
and how incredibly strong, vibrant and alive it is.

I thank my father for thinking of me as contrary all the
way up until the year before he died. We had met for
lunch and were in the middle of a huge, finger-
pointing argument, and suddenly as I turned to stick
him with another barb, he was no longer the big man
who wanted power over me. He was just my father,
who adored his only daughter, and just wanted a nice
lunch with her because he saw her so seldom.

I sat back and looked at him anew; he must have had
a similar shift, because he said, "I've been wrong all
these years. I thought you were contrary, but what you
really are is super-curious."

Would my curiosity about the world, how it ticks and
the determination to do more than he said I could
have grown so huge without his perpetual saying, "no,
you can't"?

I thank my schoolmates for shunning me and making
fun of me in elementary school, because I got to know
the smooth comfort of being in the woods and down at
the beach by myself and finding so much beauty and
love in nature.

I thank my high school mates for making fun of my
terrible grades, impossible sense of dress and a face
full of zits, so I spent more and more time hiding in the
art room. Would I ever have developed the innate
sense of what to do with almost any material in the
making of art if I hadn't spent so much time there?

I thank my three ex-husbands, especially the last, for
waking me up to how much I needed to find out who
was in this body, what she really wanted and needed,
and who she really was. I would have continued on
with one crummy relationship after the other without
that pain to make me wake up, love Me and live Right.

I thank my two amazing, intelligent, innovative, creative
love-saturated sons for having pushed every single
mother-button possible. I grew to become a much better
mother than I ever dared think I could possibly be. I'd
never, ever want to send you back!

I thank the terrible depression that had me in living
terror, curled up in the fetal position for much of the
35-year period until I was 55 for making me acutely
aware of how indescribably beautiful life can be.

I thank all my wonderful close buddies who never
allow me to slip into self-pity or less-than-excellence,
and who give me the opportunity to be present with
and adore them whether they are up or down.

I thank Gary Craig for creating EFT, the tool that
allowed me to rescue myself from that hell, and gave
me the ability to choose powerful service with my
coaching.

I thank every single one of you, and especially you
who have taken my teleclasses and coaching - for
honoring me by listening to what I say and following
my suggestions and finding yourselves more free and
getting 100 times bigger results than you'd imagined.

Most of all, I thank my mother for being timid about
showing her portraits and watercolors. If she had not
refused to show her love ly artwork anywhere but in
friends' houses, I'd never have thought to put my own
in galleries and exhibitions around the world so more
than just my local buddies could see it.

I thank her for being a master of manipulation,
because I'd never have learned to spot it when it was
happening and make new choices for myself.

I thank her for being socially prim...and yet open to
admiration of someone who isn't.

One night just before she died, I was preparing to go
out to a party - by myself. She had agreed to watch
my 1 and 3 year-olds. She said, "You're so brave...."
and her eyes were full of tears.

I didn't know what she meant. She told me that it
never would have occurred to her to go out alone,
unescorted, unprotected by a man. She held the
space for me to be brave, inventive, creative,
outrageous, resourceful and really alive. Thanks, Ma.

And I thank Spirit for being so kind to me my whole
life, presenting me with opportunity after opportunity
to connect and be At Home in my Being - and for
sticking with me even when I chose to rebel and be
miserable. For being completely non-judgmental and
presenting me with more opportunities even after I
had blown so many.

And you - no matter where you live, I send you my
most heart-filled love and wishes for a simply lovely
day today, and may you be grateful and find good
things where only the bad seems to exist, for the rest
of your life.

aloha -
Angela
http://AngelaTreatLyon.com