I felt the hand of Destiny at work.
It’s an odd feeling; like you’re a part of some pattern larger than just you. I’ve read about it — it’s a common enough convention in novels. But I’ve never quite experienced it like this — with the possible exception of meeting my wife.
Here’s what happened.
For a while I’ve been struggling with this whole issue of living in this flawed world while maintaining a sense of balance, honor, and integrity. Forced — challenged — by life to become more outgoing and extroverted than I’m accustomed to being, I’ve found myself agonizing, floundering, trying to push forth with energy while cowering with weakness.
The form this challenge has taken in my life’s circumstances has been the clinic situation. Though I love the medicine, the administrative support around the clinic is pretty shoddy; this, combined with the many ethical issues about the act of pressuring people into healing has felt, well, dirty to me, as I’ve written about before. At any rate, the bottom line is that we students are forced to recruit our own patients, or run the risk of graduating late or not at all.
Going into this semester, I knew I was going to have to do something to bring in patients, something to project my name and presence into the community; but I wasn’t sure what.
It started during my two-week summer vacation last month. Abigail and I were driving through Sedona, Arizona, which is well-known as a New Age mecca. We decided to stop and have a psychic reading at a local shop. Our reader did tarot cards for us, and, while in some ways accurate, was not terribly insightful. But, the one major thing that stuck with me was that she predicted that in order to succeed in my business, I would need to do something to stretch myself, “such as public speaking,” but that I would succeed phenomenally.
It was something I had been thinking of anyway, so it struck a chord in me. But I wasn’t sure anything would come of it. Setting up a presentation or talk like that is a lot of work, and like most everyone else I have a great fear of public speaking. So there was enough resistance and fear to the very idea that I doubted that I would even attempt to initiate it on my own. It would have to come easily. It’d have to fall in my lap.
The fall semester started the next week. On the very first day of class, I overheard two classmates talking about a presentation they were doing. I asked what they were talking about. It turned out that they had set up a talk at a library in a nearby town, and that another talk had been set up at a closer library here in town — but, no one was signed up to do it.
Opportunity was knocking on my door.
I leaped at the chance. Somehow it fit. Somehow it felt right. The pattern was in place.
I spent some time putting together a Powerpoint presentation. One of my classmates agreed to help. We were to meet last Sunday to finalize our presentation.
When I arrived at her apartment, she was in pain, in tears. She had just broken her toe.
Even though I’ve been taught about how to treat someone for shock ever since my days in the Boy Scouts, I’ve never actually seen someone go into shock before. A small part of my brain was marveling, “Wow, that actually happens?!” as she started getting cold and fainting. I quickly covered her and elevated her feet and let her sip some water.
So didn’t want to go to the ER, so I researched a bit and found an immediate care center that was open on Sundays. I brought her there, then picked up her kids and spent the day watching them. I have almost zero experience taking care of kids, except for a brief stint student-teaching at a nursery school. So that was a raucous few hours.
I went home utterly exhausted.
But somehow, this too felt right. I felt that invisible hand of Destiny hovering. It was once again presenting to me a challenge, asking me to bring my energy and presence into the world.
Here I was called upon to spend an entire day totally focused on handling the external events of the precarious moment. I was stepping outward into the world, because I could afford no other option. It was empowering, if frightening.
Moreover, my classmate wouldn’t help me with the presentation. It was to be mine and mine alone. This I knew the instant I entered the room, that somehow this was my opportunity to prove myself, and always had been. And indeed I had something to prove. I needed to see that I could reach into myself, discover the inner force to face down my fears and insecurities and anxieties and become something more than myself. I needed to extend myself into the public sphere, and do it alone.
This felt absolutely right.
I spent the next day treating patients in clinic, and stayed up late at night finishing my presentation.
The entire next day I was in fight-or-flight. The talk was in the evening. I was jittery, nervous as hell.
But I did it. The instant I started speaking to my audience, I felt myself slipping into a flow. It’s remarkable when that happens. All of the preparation, all of the anxiety, everything melts into this one-pointedness of intent. I heard myself telling stories, being authoritative, being funny, being comfortable. Being someone that I knew I could be, but have been afraid of being.
It was remarkable.
So now, after 72 hours of adrenaline-filled externalization-of-being, I’m totally wasted and took the day off from school. The past few days have drawn on all of my resources — emotional, mental, and physical — to survive and thrive. But I have no regrets whatsoever. Powerful lessons learned.
And to top it off, a woman who was in my audience last night just called to set up an appointment with me!
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Quite a moment! And you really did a great job.
[...] wrote last semester about a big push I made to get patients, which was quite successful in some ways. Unfortunately, I’m beginning [...]
[...] in the push to get patients for clinic at my acupuncture school, I gave a talk at the local public library. It made me extremely anxious, not least because I didn’t [...]