THE QUIET VICTORY
The story of one woman’s successful journey out of debt and into financial wellness.
Recorded by Suzanna Stinnett
Resources included
SMASHWORDS Edition
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Published by:
Suzanna Stinnett on Smashwords
Copyright(c) 2010 by Suzanna Stinnett
All Rights Reserved
This e-book includes the story of Patricia’s journey. At the end of her story, she also explains the four simple, powerful steps she took to resolve her debt. In her case, combining these steps with practices of presence, gratitude and helping others were all key elements to the change she desired. The process is different for everyone, of course. This story is not a guarantee of your own success, it simply offers guidance for implementing the many tools you may already know.
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The Quiet Victory
One Woman's Revealing Story of Rising from Debt to Financial Wellness
When the soul wishes to experience something she throws an image of the experience out before her, and enters into her own image. ~Meister Eckhart
Have you made it to this point, where you are willing to deeply explore the path to financial wellness? If so, it could be that your soul has now decided to experience this new plateau. Your soul is casting this image of wellbeing, in its many imagined forms, in front of you. You see it, you see the life it offers, and for reasons that are completely unique to you, you have chosen to step into this image.
This is the story of Patricia McB., a middle-aged woman from central Oregon, who decided the same thing: to step into the image of wellness her soul had presented before her. Her story is so inspiring, and her descriptions of how to create a life are so easy to follow, I decided to publish it - with her approval - for everyone's benefit. This is a story of courage, of love, and of the blessings that follow surrender.
I met Patricia at a bookstore in Ashland, Oregon. We were standing in the magazine section, thumbing through the same issue of TIME magazine. Both of us shook our heads at the same time, caught the motion, and looked up at each other. I smiled and turned the page around to show her what I was looking at. It was a pharmaceutical ad for a drug for depression. She turned her page for me to see, and yes, you guessed it, it was the same page. We stood gazing at each other for a second, and then we both smiled. "Okay," I said, "I'm Suzanna. Here we are. What do we want to tell each other?" I had no doubt she understood the language of synchronicity. This was a thought-created meeting.
"I'm Patricia," she said warmly, holding her hand out to me. We shook. I took in her elegance, her tall frame, and her expensive-looking but playful outfit. She had a calmness, a centeredness, that was both magnetic and totally reassuring. I liked her instantly.
"I was about to sit down for some tea in the cafe here, would you join me?" Patricia nodded and smiled brightly. She moved like a person with all the time in the world.
Sitting in the cafe with a big pot of green tea, I spoke first, telling Patricia about my work. I write books, guides to the imagination and brain health. Patricia's eyes narrowed, and she leaned forward, smiling gently as she spoke. "I might have a story for you."
I wrapped my palm around my warm tea cup. "I don't doubt that for a second."
This book is that story. Patricia has not always carried herself with such grace. She has not always worn expensive clothing. In fact, less than two years ago, Patricia was homeless. And that's not the worst of it.
I decided to publish Patricia's story because she has shown us all how to use our thoughts to transform our lives. She has shown us how to use the desperation of being deep in debt as a rope ladder to a life we have imagined.
As you read this story, you will discover the answers to the practical questions so many are asking. We have many resources helping to guide us as we learn how we create our lives, and become ever more conscious and deliberate with our creations. Still, there are few places we can really get inside the process and understand exactly how it is done. Many people understand the dynamic called "Law of Attraction," and use it regularly, yet they still find they are not quite creating the life they want.
For example, what does it mean when we are told to "experience the feeling" of a desired outcome? Not everyone knows how to do this. And what does it mean to "let go" of certain feelings or attitudes? How can this be accomplished? What can be done to create new, healthy habits, strong enough to undo the wiring in our brains which has been in place for so much of our lives? And biggest of all, how can you get across the bridge from the intention for your desired change, to living the actual outcome?
These are big questions. And whether you relate to the soul's quest or not, these answers Patricia has provided are so illuminating, so uplifting, and so downright exciting, I think you will benefit no matter what your goal. Along with Patricia’s story, I have included my own comments from my studies in current brain science. Understanding how we are triggering thought from the physiological side is proving to be a useful tool in manifesting our desired creations.
That day I met Patricia in the bookstore started out with no particular sense of significance. Like so many pivotal moments in life, however, looking back on it fills me with a sense of synchronicity and pure gratitude for the force of love.
Patricia stirred her tea with the tiny spoon, gathering thoughts. “It’s still hard to talk about my situation back then,” she said, shifting in her chair. She looked at me for a moment and took a deep breath. “But I think it will be helpful if people see how far I had to reach. There is a strong belief that you are stuck in your level of society, and that it is foolish to reach beyond a certain point. I think this may be the first and biggest hurdle people face in creating a new life. No one wants to waste their energy and end up looking like a dreamer, never really improving anything. So I’ll tell it to you straight. I was living on the road. It would not be far from accurate to say I was living on the street. But I will tell you, I was careful how I viewed it. I knew that my perspective on my situation was very important in creating my way into a better life. So I watched those thoughts and those messages I was giving myself. I had friends who cared about me. I didn’t tell them the details of my situation. I carefully acted as if I was in better shape, and I always tried to relax with the moment. That is so important! To deeply relax into the moment, and see that in that moment, you really are okay.”
Relax into the moment. You really are okay. I made notes. Patricia watched me writing.
“Details. I know people need to know this.” Patricia took another long breath. “I had been in a bad wreck and had been out of work for two years. My marriage had reached a termination point. I had to leave, even though I had no income and no place to live. Between the accident and the divorce, I had no savings and no credit – only debt. I couldn’t work full time, or part time for that matter. I had a problem with fatigue. Understand this, Suzanna. I had no safety net. There was nothing left. I had a little weekly job and was living on about $50 a week. I had health problems. This went on long enough to tap my friends and family to the end point. Are you getting the picture?”
I looked up from my notes and locked eyes with Patricia. We both had tears in our eyes. “I am. I’m getting it. Whew,” I said, dabbing at the corners of my eyes, “your situation was really scary.”
“It was,” Patricia said, “yet it was also completely freeing. I had creditors calling, the car needed work, there were pressures. But what could I do about any of it? Worry? That would just use up the little energy I had. Honestly, all I could do was surrender. I was finally at the point where there was nothing to do but stand there stripped of ego and say to the cosmos, ‘take me, I’m yours.’ And I did this hourly, some days, whenever fear swept in. I stopped and opened myself to the force of love. Over and over I surrendered, when I didn’t know where dinner was coming from, when I didn’t know how I could pay my cell phone bill, or my car insurance – the two things I was still paying – and over and over these things resolved. I gave in to darkness, and as the months carried on, I discovered that the fear was losing its grip.”
I tapped my pencil and looked at Patricia. “I think your courage is rare,” I said, pouring more tea in my cup.
“But is it courage?” Patricia leaned toward me, searching my face. “Is it really courage, when there is nothing left to do? I think it may be a form of grace, to come to the point where there is nothing left. Where death holds no charge, it is just another transformation. This place of surrender is very rich. I remember at one point I felt like I was drowning. I felt I was in that swirl, going under the water, complete loss of control, teetering between panic and the sweetness of finally giving up.”
An involuntary shudder went through me. Drowning is a strong metaphor, and I couldn’t hold it in my mind for long. “Patricia. What did you do when you felt like you were drowning?”
“Go ahead and drown,” she said, reaching for her water glass.
I frowned and looked at Patricia. “I don’t think so.”
“Well,” she said, “then you haven’t been there. Maybe there is courage involved. I think this is the point where I locked arms with the force of love. I went into the power of it. Suzanna, really, I had already drowned in the life I had created. Where was I going to find strength, illumination? I wanted to open to the source I knew was inside me. If I had created the feeling of drowning, then better dive in and experience it. I know this is a very uncomfortable image for most people. For me, it was a way of honestly exploring my own darkness.”
“But what happened when you said that? When you told yourself, ‘go ahead and drown,’ what happened?” I was feeling very nervous.
Patricia laughed and sat back in her chair. “Nothing. And everything. I was empowered by saying it out loud. Go ahead and drown. It was almost like sarcasm with myself. That I was creating such a drama when life really is full of choice. I had created one more fear for myself, and I wanted to go through it. I haven’t thought about it this way before, but that really was the pivotal point. The day I said ‘go ahead and drown,’ I came out with the power to create real change in my life. Wow,” Patricia spread her hands out on the table and sat up straight. “I’m glad we’re doing this,” she said, “it’s giving me a new level of completion.”
I looked out the window at the clouds forming. “Do you think this is a way to get the ego to let go?”
Patricia nodded. “I think that’s exactly what it is. Something bigger in me, what I call the force of love, was shepherding my ego through the changes. That something stood back like a big genie, huge arms crossed over his chest, laughing at my struggle. It’s the genie who told me it was just fine to drown. Hmm,” she said, sitting on the edge of her chair, “sort of like God. A mildly sarcastic God.”
Suddenly I felt deeply excited, almost an agitation swirling in me. I wanted to hear the progression. I wanted to know how she did what she did. I sketched in my journal, drawing a box for the past, one for the present, one for the future. Pointing at the past box, I said, “Okay. You were at the bottom. The place where things can turn around.”
“Exactly!” Patricia grinned, “that’s exactly what it is. The place where things can turn around. You got it!”
“Tell me what you did! Your thoughts. Your feelings. Your actions. Patricia, a lot of people will want to know how you did this.” I got out a new pencil and prepared to write with a fever.
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Here's what Patricia told me.
"I was living in my car, mostly, and sponging off friends, doing the occasional house sit. I was just bewildered. I'd been through a bad accident that took almost three years to recover from, and in that long process, my marriage had fallen apart. I don't know when I lost myself, but looking back, it sure didn't seem like me, that person. I was used to being on top, or close to it, anyway. While I had never had any real financial wherewithal, I was always able to support myself and pursue my interests. I lived pretty well. Maybe not what people would call successful, but still.
You see, I had suffered from depression, or something like that, most of my adult life. I just didn't have the emotional strength to work through life's challenges. I had discovered a way to live without having to work too much, something I could do that didn't put too many demands on me. I didn't really have a network. I was kind of a loner. Then I had gotten married, and a few years into it, I was in this bad accident. I had a shattered femur. I had to have several surgeries. My husband took care of me as best he could. I tried to learn how to do things on the Internet, as that was about all I could do. I was house bound. We were going deeper in debt every month. Finally, I was able to work a little again, although I was still in pain, and got worn out quickly. Around this time, my husband just lost interest. I can't blame him. It had been hard. He had his challenges too. We split up abruptly and I was on the street, with no real income, no health insurance, and a long string of debts haunting me.
I know it's not easy to look at this as a blessing. But that's what it was. You know, it's about hitting bottom before you can start up again. Once I was really on the bottom, with no home, almost no income, and no idea how to make my life work, I was in a position to surrender. I took the last shred of self-esteem I had, and I told myself, 'this is a matter of faith.' Faith in what? That's anybody's guess. But I knew I couldn't claw my way out of this grave. I had to relax and trust that there was something greater than me, and float in that. This was something I had to do over and over during the next two years. This was the thing I had come to learn. If my soul wanted an experience, it was this: the experience of floating in the love we exist in, love, or energy, whatever you want to call it. Surrender. So I gave up.
Giving up is the key. It's how you get to the open-hearted flow where everything comes clear. As long as you think you can "fix" your life, what you are doing is resisting all the energy that is available all around you. That idea about fixing your life keeps you isolated too. You don't benefit from the natural connectedness of the cosmos.
Giving up does something else, too, something powerful. Your ego, that limited structure that serves a purpose but can take over and strangle you, does not understand this 'giving up' thing. Your ego wants none of it. And your ego will keep telling you stories to reinforce its little identity until the day you die. If you let it. Giving up means saying 'I surrender' and the ego falls apart.
Believe me, this is not comfortable. This is not familiar. The ego wants everything familiar and everything comfortable. If you are anything like me, in debt up to my ears, insufficient income, no real plan for my future, you are going to have some uncomfortable and unfamiliar experiences on this journey. Listen to this part. It's the next most important thing after giving up: Get comfortable with unfamiliar. Know that uncomfortable means you are changing. Learn to listen in and smile and walk with that. This is pretty simple if you look at it this way. Ask yourself this: 'What's familiar in my life?' Well? Is debt familiar? How long have you dealt with it? Are money worries familiar? Did your parents worry about money? Have you ever had a time in your life when you were financially comfortable? How did you really feel then? Were you relaxed? Most of us have never experienced financial comfort, even when we had more than enough. We still fretted it and worried about expenditures or if there was enough for tomorrow or if we would weather the stock market crash or housing market or whatever. So take a look there. Financial distress may be the most familiar, most hard-wired into your brain experience of your entire life. So don't expect it to be comfortable while you travel the unfamiliar territory leading to financial wellness. Look for that unfamiliar feeling. It is your hallmark of change. You want change, right? Change is not comfortable."
I looked up from the paper, taking in Patricia's gentle face. So far, she had told me things I already knew, yet I felt she had a piece of the puzzle that was critical for me to hear. She went on.
"As I tell this story, those of you who have been studying thought creation or Law of Attraction for a while will recognize many elements of that world. I hope by seeing how I applied them, you will gain new insight into how to do it yourself. There is no one on this planet who cannot do this. We are all doing it, all the time. Becoming more conscious of it is how you actually reach the outcome you desire."
By now, we were both ready for a break. We agreed to meet again and continue with her story.
I went on a hike the next day. Finally, a little rain had fallen in a strange, dry winter. I went to see the creek along the rocky, moss laden trail. Passing the bee tree, I saw the intensely focused activity as the bees, gentle and persistent, swarmed the entrance at the base of the mossy tree trunk above the stream. The frond of fern grew out like a green landing strip as they tickled and waved it, landing and taking off.
I thought about Patricia’s story. My situation was not so different from hers. Change a few details and you have yet another middle-aged woman, living on the fringe of the culture, wide-eyed at the loss and wondering just what will rush into the vacuum that is her life.
I craved more details of her story.
We met again the next afternoon. Patricia was serene, energetic, clear-eyed and clearly happy, along with the obvious signs of wealth.
“Where was I?” Patricia asked, unbuttoning her soft lavender sweater and folding it on the back of the chair next to her. “where were we…” I checked my notes. “Here. You were just talking about isolation, quiet victory…”
“Oh yes!” Patricia smiled and gazed at me as she took a sip of her cherry Italian soda. “Outreach. That’s what I wanted to get to. You see, I had always been so independent. Now, I was doing things I wouldn’t normally do. Asking friends to let me sleep on their couch. Acquaintances even. I took a minimal job as a caretaker. This was a hard choice, because I was carefully paying attention to what felt good. What did feel good was helping this elderly couple. By coming and staying in their home, I allowed them to maintain their accustomed independence. Most of my pay was in the form of a spare room. In this way they could afford to have me there. What I want to get to here is that helping others is a portal. Helping, and allowing help. These are two things which people in our situation bring back into balance when we open to it. If you need money, there is always some way to help someone else, and by doing that, be sure you are fed and housed."