A Truly Amazing Tuesday

I started reading a book Cheryl Richardson’s book, “An Unmistakable Touch of Grace” at lunch today. She was talking about noticing all the acts of grace happening around us all the time (as Byron Katie says: the universe is friendly and if we pay attention, we'll see that that is indeed true). She suggested writing this statement down and repeating it out loud:

"I am now open and receptive to the power of grace in my life. I ask to be shown clear examples of how this energy is operating in my life now."

So, I did and took my scrap of paper to back to work with me and repeated it a couple of more times throughout the day. I also started paying attention; watching for "grace" to show up. The book suggested that I might see the word on a bumper sticker or something.

When I came home from work there was phone call from a new friend of mine inviting me to go to meet a woman named Genie O'Malley, who runs something called a "Breathnazium" near where I live. My first thought was I don't need to add another "technique" to my collection and I was actually feeling tired and almost said no, but something inside me, said “just go.” The meeting started at 8 p.m. (I'm usually in bed by 9, so this was a commitment for me on a work night.).

So, I meet Genie, who is this remarkable woman from Australia. She proceeds to tell us (the 9 or so women who were there) the most incredible story of her life and I immediately started to see the comparisons to her story and Byron Katie's story and also that she's sounding very, very familiar to me.

The short version is that she suffered a lifetime of sexual, emotional and physical abuse starting at age 3; she was depressed, suicidal, addicted and then diagnosed with ovarian cancer at age 27. The day of her diagnosis she went to a cafe where a man beckoned her over and told her she wasn't going to die; she was here to help women and she would write a book. She was so freaked out she ran into the bathroom and then got mad and came out to give him a piece of her mind and he was gone.

She then became very sick from her cancer. One day a friend showed up at her door and Genie told her she needed to live in the forest, which to her, was very weird because in her words, she was NOT a "foresty" person. Her friend took her to the rainforest and dropped her off for 4 days. She said she sat in the tent and cried for those 4 days, her friend came back and she said she wasn't ready to leave. She ended up staying there for 9 months, crying almost continually. About 6 weeks into her stay, she heard a voice say to her that healing was as easy as breathing and she took what she termed a "funky" breath. She continued to do the breath for the rest of her stay. When she left the rainforest her cancer was gone as well as her addictions. She started doing the breathwork with troubled children, then troubled teens, then couples and now women. Her passion is women in need...battered, homeless, in prison, etc. She's running a very successful breath group at a women's correctional facility here.

There's lot's more to the story but suffice to say, but from my point of view, this woman gets it (she talked about our pure essence knowing that this is not a floor or a wall or a light...which is basically what I’ve learned from Byron Katie and doing The Work.)

Then we breathed together and I became filled with the color orange (I've never had this happen during anything else I've done). During the breathing, Genie came to me and rubbed my back. At the end, she asked how we felt and I said, "Orange." She said, "Orange? That's interesting because I whispered the word forgiveness to you and the color for that is orange." I just sat there thinking: weird.

So then she shows us these CD kits she's put together so you can do the breath at home (they were beautifully done...one for each color of the rainbow and it involves inner work in the form of short guided journaling). As she's explaining how it works, I'm listening and not listening (it's now past 10 p.m. and I'm feeling pretty overwhelmed) . Suddenly I tuned in and really looked at what she was showing us... the particular kit she was demonstrating was "Grace". I couldn't believe it and of course, that one came home with me.

Since then I've been doing the exercises (they take about 10 min. a day) and experiencing a wonderful feeling of integration (particularly with The Work) and also an overwhelming amount of gratitude for my amazing life and everyone and everything in it.