The Real Story About My Car Accident

THE REAL STORY ABOUT MY CAR ACCIDENT

(THIS IS EMBARRASSING AND I DIDN’T WANT TO SHARE BUT NYE IS THE TIME FOR ME TO COME CLEAN. IT’S A LONG READ BUT WORTH THE TIME. I PROMISE.)

When you are crushed under a moving vehicle, turns out quit a few things get thrown into question.

I’m going to tell you the real story about what happened when I got pinned under my mini-van on December 23rd but first, you have to understand something about me.

I decided on my goals for 2017 but these goals came with a problem. When I achieved them, the person I am today will be gone. In a weird way, when we set goals, we set our intention to kill our current self.

Think about it – let’s say you had a goal to have a child. Once you have that child, you are no longer the childless person who “wants kids”.

Or let’s say you want to be a college graduate. Once you get that diploma, you are no longer a “student.” 

One of the reasons it is hard for you to reach your goals is that to reach them, you have to give up being the person who set those goals. Your past self will be clinging to hold on for dear life while your future self marches boldly toward the finish line.

There is the part of you that likes the devil it knows and the part of you that is ready to break free to the other side.

It is your ability to deal with the tension of these 2 opposites –between who you are and who you want to be – that determines the speed and grace of your growth.

It was the tension between these 2 opposing forces that lead me to run myself over with my own car last week.

I made a “dumb mistake.”

Here’s the truth of what happened: I put my mini-van into reverse. Noticed my coat was stuck in the door. And stepped out of it, forgetting it was in gear. Almost instantaneously, I was sucked under the vehicle and crushed under the full weight of the tires.

Now I can find plenty of people to agree with me that this was just a dumb driving mistake that could have happened to anyone. But I know that isn’t true. I know there are no dumb mistakes. I know that everything happens FOR ME and not TO ME. And I know this because I decided it almost a decade ago.

Everything happens FOR ME and not TO ME – because I CHOOSE that reality.

And in choosing that reality I push myself to grow because for me, growth is life. I have chosen that I will not, when I come to die, discover I have not lived. And so growth is a choice I make with every breath.

So now, here is the ACTUAL TRUTH of why I had the accident:

My past self decided to try to kill my future self.

This entire week all I have wanted to do is hide. The shame and embarrassment of making such a dumb mistake as running myself over with my own car has been killing me. I have been utterly humiliated. I’ve spent hours in therapy sessions and body work and hypnosis processing the sheer mortifying reality that everyone who knows me is going to think I have just been “too busy” and this was my way of “forcing myself to rest.”

How can I be offering to teach people how to improve their lives and make a difference if doing that in my own life put my own safety at risk? That’s pretty low on Maslow’s Hierarchy of needs!

I’ve been thinking about quitting. Feeling not good enough to continue serving. Feeling embarrassed by my humanity and how ugly the bruising and swelling is.

But this morning, on the last day of 2016 something hit me.

• It doesn’t take courage to think up all the ways I suck.
• It doesn’t take strength to ruminate on my mistakes and weaknesses.
• It doesn’t take bravery to cogitate for hours on how I was seconds from being drawn and quartered by my own car.
• It doesn’t take heroism to blame the woman across the street for watching it happen and not coming to help.
• It doesn’t take intelligence or creativity to keeping being scared and wishing this didn’t happen.

THAT SHIT IS COMING TO ME EASILY! No effort required. I am a master of beating myself up, shaming myself, avoiding feeling humiliation by stuffing my face with pizza. Got it. Those skills are mastered – my past self is very proud of her accomplishments in these areas and like to show off.

COURAGE. STRENGTH. BRAVERY. HEROISM. INTELLIGENCE. CREATIVITY.

Those are the exact traits I need to evolve into my future self and meet my 2017.

I created a situation that requires MASSIVE doses of COURAGE. STRENGTH. BRAVERY. HEROISM. INTELLIGENCE. CREATIVITY.

How can that be a coincidence!

• It takes courage to face my own death and move forward anyway – with gusto.
• It takes strength to reflect on how I can learn most efficiently from my circumstances.
• It takes bravery to seek, find, and invest in best-in-class service providers to help me heal.
• It takes heroism to give myself credit for continually having my own back.
• It takes intelligence & creativity to say I look forward to running myself over again. I look forward to whatever the universe serves up. I look forward to being scared to death.

My future self created the MOST GRACEFUL AND EFFICIENT way for me to grow and stretch and evolve.

I am glad I had that accident.

In fact, I realized yesterday, this is my 5th Christmas-time car accident! Apparently, I like the speed and efficiency of transformation through close calls with tragedy right after I sent some goals. Okay so sure, I get it, it is not the only way to grow; but doing the same thing I was doing all year wasn’t going to work, right?

I shock myself into exponential growth and I kinda like that about me!

So what would jolt your whole being into becoming your future self?

What reality would make it worth it to KILL YOUR CURRENT SELF AND CREATE SOMEONE YOU ARE RIDICULOUSLY PROUD OF in 2017?

Just to be clear, I am not recommending you throw yourself under a moving vehicle and I am going to actively try to avoid that in the future.

But the truth is:

Everything in life that we want requires action, and with action there is the potential of consequences we don’t want but to get what you deserve in life, you’ve got to face the fear and do it anyway.

I’m not going to tell you that taking action means everything works out perfectly. Leap and the net will appear is some serious bullshit. (Sorry Successories fans)

But here’s what I am saying, it’s not living if you aren’t growing, giving and expanding.

Growth, generosity and expansion require REAL, actual risk and discomfort.

And however that shows up – you can handle it.

Is it messy? Fuck yes.

I am actively in a process of growth and healing and everything isn’t neat. I am still human. I am still growing. I am still evolving and expanding exponentially. And this is what it looks like.

In my work with clients I see how fast transformation is possible when you are ready and will to KILL the person who got you here so you BECOME the person you want to be.