Day by day we’ve got to get up and start over, connecting to Spirit and trying to stay connected. It’s not an automatic connection. In order for the power to be realized, we need to stay plugged in. Sometimes, it’s downright discouraging. Sometimes, it takes more commitment...much more commitment...than we seem to have or the “stuff” of which we’re made.
This spiritual journey, we wonder, why bother? What’s the point of it all?
WAIT!
Before you get too carried away with my line of thinking, believing that, ”yes, she’s so-o right...I’m gonna chuck it in.”
Stop.
I need you to go and watch something now on television, NBC: The 2008 Summer Olympics!
As you do, suspend all judgment about anything. Just watch a few competitions... take a pause in between...and think about what you just saw on the television.
Yes. Physical Prowess!
It doesn’t matter what sport is currently under way in Bejing when you decide to watch, you’ll still see a phenomenon!
You’ll see strength, power, courage, determination, perseverance and true grit!
Now, go beyond this and think:
*What is making these athletes do what they do?
*What is the power behind them, allowing them to reach such heights in Sports?
*How can these athletes become so focused and determined?
On a local talk show recently, I saw Dominique Dawkes, an Olympic Gymnast in the 1992 and 1996 Summer Games. Dominique is now a poised 31 year old woman who is doing newscasting from the Bejing Olympics for Yahoo! On the talk show, she said that she learned three important things from her years in in Sports:
1. Believe in Yourself.
2. Use failure and/or setbacks to build strength for the future.
3. Reach the Power within you.
Seeing Dawes and the serenity she displayed about the new path of her life reinforced for me the TRUTH that I continue to reach for on a daily basis:
The Spirit within us is our greatest weapon against life’s odds. It is our greatest power!
It is our very being! It is our strength and our Peace.
It was Presence within Nancy Kerrigan that allowed her to continue to victory in the 1994 Winter Olympics in Lillehammer. In January of that year, companions of Tanya Harding, her chief rival at the Olympics tryouts, set out to eliminate Kerrigan from the Games by clubbing her in the knee. The tactic made Kerrigan unable to continue competing, thus allowing Harding to secure a place on the Olympic team. But the U.S. Olympic Committee allowed Kerrigan to continue onto the Olympics, and we learned some important lessons in strength.
Kerrigan taught us about believing in yourself when people would hate you...just because you’re you. We also learned how to never, ever doubt yourself and become discouraged... when people would choose to...disrespect , dishonor and disparage you.
Kerrigan rose to new heights in her skating after the attack. She was able to transcend the negatives, and she not only survived the knee injury, she thrived! She brought home the Silver medal in Skating for the U.S. in 1994.
Names of other Olympians remain with us through the years: the late Florence Griffith-Joyner (Flo Jo), Jackie Joyner Kersee, Evelyn Ashford, Mary Lou Retton, Mark Gastino, Bruce Jenner, Mark Spitz, Carl Lewis, Edwin Moses, Brian Boitano, Viktor Petrenko, Sergey Bubka, Brian Lewis, Kristi Yamaguchi, Olga Korbut, Nadia Comaneci and Oksana Bauil.
We can remember all the stories written about these athletes, i.e. the ones that are written about them when they’ve made history, but also the ones they wrote themselves when they overcame their own personal challenges and made their way to center stage. Stories like Oksana Bauil’s, an orphan in the Ukraine, when she was saved from a life of destitution with her tremendous skating abilities. It’s the stories about the Spirit within them.
The lessons from these Olympic athletes should serve to teach us more than about the individual sports in which they excel and should have much greater meaning beyond the medals they bring home for the United States and other countries.
If we choose to look, we can see these athletes serve as useful models for a way of life those of us not in Sports can emulate. They model for us...
...the discipline and determination to keep getting back up when you fall down.
...getting back in the Game when you’ve felt such shame.
...not giving up when the going gets tough and the competition is on your heels.
...Keep on believing in yourself.
...Keep on reaching and moving and pulling out all the stuff that you’ve got.
Who could forget Kerri Strug,the gymnast, in 1996? It was her second trip to the Olympics, at age 18, when she made a name for herself! So determined was Strug to help her team win Olympic Gold that year, she sprinted on an injured foot, risking even more serious danger. The picture that will forever remain in our memory is when Strug lifted her injured left foot in the air, balanced herself fully on the right foot, obtaining a score of 9.71 to ensure the U.S. Gold!
Who can forget that moment of courage, determination and strength!
Every day serious athletes get up at the crack of dawn to begin practicing their sport. They often work through the day, into the night, to perfect their routines and to fine tune their performances.
Once an athlete gets recognized as being able to reach the Olympic track, the intensity of training becomes even harder. How do they find the will to keep on going and believing in their abilities when experiencing a period of total and absolute failure?
Is it just their coaches’ words and his or her expertise that help them reach perfection? Is it just a drive within them that you and I don’t have?
...Or it something else at work, enabling them to fully unleash the Power within them to do its work? Watch the athletes closely and see how they are moving through...gliding through...to victory. What you’ll see is that they seem to get out of their own way...and just follow the guidance coming to them and through them!
Athletes don’t have time like you and I to ponder or wonder whether they have “it” within them. They reach in and they grab hold of it...and they keep on moving forward.
There’s no debate...no thinking no...doubting.
They just do it!
Observe the following winning attributes in the Olympian athletes:
Individual Competitions--A strength and power emanating from within, even when they falter, helping them to continue on and make it through to victory.
A time that they absolutely cannot doubt themselves...but simply BELIEVE THEY CAN DO the task before them!
Team Sports—Reaching beyond our own needs and goals and working for the good of all.
There must be a coming together as ONE, i.e. ONENESS in Spirit, in order to experience victory!
Track and Field—Strategy for going the distance, even when the “opposition” is at your heels, trying to close in!
Today...tonight...tomorrow...and over the next two weeks, as the Olympics play themselves out in Bejing, watch the sports with new eyes. Despite the recent stories about athletes and their “habits,” there still is substance there.
Get past your disappointments of those athletes who may have fooled you and the world and try to see the “Spirit” within the various competitions.
And if you’re feeling off-track spiritually, don’t ponder your issue.
Just get out of your own way and let the guidance come from within!
Relax your mind. Open your heart.
If there is one particular athlete whose style touches you at this year’s games, take the “Spirit” of that athlete with you...even when the games are over.
That Spirit within your favorite athlete is the same one within you! Let that Spirit be your guide.
Like all the Olympic athletes know to be TRUTH, let it be your truth that you cannot do or be anything without the Power coming from within.
Namaste’,
Che’
1 comment:
bravo. outstanding. I am energized and ready to run to the roar. thank you.
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