Monday will mark the 8^th Anniversary of the night I almost died, and by all accounts, should have died. It is a day, for many years, that left me feeling lost, unsure, and sad. It took me a while to process the event, something I still don’t know what to call, a slip, a fall, an accident, I still don’t really know, but what I do know is that against all odds I did survive and I know I didn’t do it alone.

If you’re not familiar with my night on the beach my blog, A Power Greater Than Myself, can be found by clicking this link, A Power Great Than Myself, I talked about that night, the little bit of memory I do have from it and how I was saved by an unknown man who never left his name. I believe he was an angel, in every sense of the word, he most likely saved my life, a life that should have already been taken by a severe concussion, the ocean, and hypothermia. I still haven’t been back to that beach in Malibu, that place where I surrendered to a power greater than myself when I could no longer help myself, no longer walk, no longer fight what was, I was hooped, I thought I was going to die on that beach. And as angry as I was to be there, in the dark, shaking uncontrollably with no way of helping myself, or getting help, as angry as I was with God for having me go through all that I had been through, for seeing me through fighting my way to a better place, and for seemingly letting me die alone in the dark cold night, I realized I had gotten myself there, I had stayed out too long, too late, and I had decided to leave my phone in the car to cut myself off from the world to find some uninterrupted peace. Well, I had done just that, and now that I needed help and had nowhere to turn, I had no one to turn to but the God of my understanding to ask for help. Damn I was angry. But God isn’t there to do it for me, I have the power of choice, and my choices got me in that place, not God. It was a sense of entitlement that had gotten me angry, that sense that I had turned my life around so now I should be protected from bad things, from harm, but I hadn’t protected myself that day, and, just because we are living as our true selves and living in the light that doesn’t mean we are never touched by the darkness. I don’t think I articulated quite that well that night shivering in the night, but I did come to the realization that I had gotten myself there and all I could do was surrender. And surrender I did. I looked up at the night sky, the stars, and surrendered to whatever was next, and when I did that, I felt a wave of calm come over me. That was the last memory I have on that beach. My next memory was waking up the next day in emergency room in Santa Monica.

A lot has happened since that night, and as I had mentioned, it took me a while to process what had happened and to come to terms with why I survived, why I was saved. I’ve shared this before, I feel I am here to be of service, to give back, to share my light with those who may be sitting in the dark, and I think we all have that gift to give. For me it took something almost catastrophic to realize that lesson, with me it often does, but what it taught me is, even though we do have the ability to make our own choices and take our own action, there is something out there watching over us, protecting us when we get ourselves way off track, even when it doesn’t seem like there is, if you look back there were signs, mine were more than signs, I heard a voice that night, it told me everything was going to be OK, and it was, and that voice is a reminder on days that might go dark that there is a light waiting for me to reach for the switch, because when I surrendered and stopped fighting, an angel appeared and saved my life.

If you are struggling or fighting today I encourage you to surrender, I don’t mean give up, I mean stop fighting because you feel like you should have been given better, stop fighting yourself, stop fighting for things to only looking a certain way and embrace what is, and what can be. It is only then that we can rise above the darkness, that we can live in the light, and, we can spread our wings and fly.

SLAY OF THE DAY: Do you fight what you know you should do because you want things to be or look a certain way? What is the result of that? Do you think it helps? How does it hurt you? Are you open to new things? Do you see that your best thinking, or your way of doing things, may have brought you to the place where you are not happy and quite possibly stuck spinning your wheels? How can you change that? If you are unsure of how to take positive steps in your life, who or what can you go to ask for guidance? If no one comes to mind, where can you look? The answers are out there SLAYER when we look, when we have an open mind and an open heart, the answers, and help, is all around us. Surrender to the light, to the good, to the unknown of doing things differently, you just may have more help than you ever could have imagined. SLAY on.

S – self L – love A – appreciate Y – you