RESPONDING TO GUT FEELINGS
written by RON EASTWOOD,
submitted to finerminds.com
I am 68 years of age. A number of years ago I was sort of adicted to personal growth seminars. I give credit to each and every one of the dozen or so that I attended for adding immensely to the richness of my life. However, there is one experience that in my mind outshines fire walking, deep breathing, meditation, sweat lodge and all the rest. I have only shared it with a hand full of my closest friends. I think it may hold meaning for this readership.
The particular seminar was like many others. Two or three hundred people meeting in a large double wide hotel conference room, the kind with an accordion type separator which may be opened to make two large rooms into one even larger room. As typical of this kind of seminar it was hosted by one well known motivational speaker whom in turn invited several other presenters each with a specialty. I do not have permission to use names so out of respect for those whom I discuss we shall leave them nameless.
It was Sunday afternoon/evening the final day of a three-day seminar. Our speaker had just returned from a tour of Africa I believe. It was a long presentation which nearly put me to sleep. I only remember one major theme. That was the wisdom that we often fail to see and experience miraculous events because we go through life with blinders. The speaker stressed that one needs only to stay fully aware of every chance encounter. And to ALWAYS trust that often fleeting sense that something unique has or is taking place moment to moment. Trust your intuitions.
Our host came to the microphone and dismissed us all for one hour for dinner break. He said be in your seats by 7:00 P.M. sharp. Our final speaker will be worth the entire cost of the seminar all by herself. Do not miss a minute.
The Moment My Heart Skipped A Beat
With that I sprinted out the door and ran up to the next corner where there was a Denny's restaurant. It was crowded and it took fifteen minutes for me to place my order. As I waited anxiously I reflected on the previous speaker. I had noted that in my own life there has been an amazing sychronicity between little things I have done and subsequent incredible events flowing from them. For example I was hitch hiking from California to Florida to visit my parents. I was in downtown Atlanta, Georgia. A young boy came running toward me on the sidewalk with both of his tennis shoe laces completely untied. Almost instinctively as a former paramedic and First Aid Instructor I bent over and caught him in one of my outstretched arms to slow him down.
I asked him if he would let me tie his shoe strings so he would not trip on them and fall. He was about six or seven. He let me tie them and as I was standing up from my kneeling position I felt a hand on my shoulder and heard the deep voice of a very large black man saying, "Hey Boy, where you from?" My heart did a flip flop. Here I was in strange surroundings, not another white person in sight and this booming voice from a towering man holding me down with his massive hand. "California," I said hesitatingly.
The Lead-Up To Martin Luther King's Family
He released his grip and as I straightened up into a standing position I was aware of a broad grin coming across his face. He extended his hand for a hand shake as he said, "I knowed ya wasn't from these parts. No self respecting white man in the south would stoop to tie a little Nigger boy's shoe strings." With that I relaxed. He asked me what I do in California. I told him I was a taxi driver. He asked me if I could read a street map. To which I said, "Certainly." He said, "If I give you these car keys would you be able and willing to drive that big black hearse full of sacks of mail over to Dr. King's home and give them to his wife?" [Martin Luther King, Jr. had just been killed three days earlier in Memphis while assisting the local garabage collectors in a strike.] That led to me meeting Coretta Scott King and the three children. I ended up working as a volunteer as the family chauffeur all the rest of that summer.
I was now leaving Denny's and the time was 6:50 p.m. Just enough time to get back to the seminar for the final speaker. I rushed into the parking lot nearly bumbing an elderly woman who was leaning against the side of a big black Cadillac. I just caught a glimpse of her face. She seemed to have tears in her eyes. I continued on to the hole in the chain link fence which would allow me to shave a couple minutes off the time it would take to go clear to the corner. I started through the fence. I had one of those flash feelings. The right thing to do would be to return and see if the woman needed assistance. I remembered the words from the afternoon seminar. Was this one of those moments which may have some significance? Could I close my eyes and mind and get back to the important speaker? It was a no brainer. I did as I usually do in such cases. I returned and spoke to the crying woman.
A Chance Encounter Between Life And Death
We spent perhaps fifteen minutes. She had just taken her three adult children to dinner at Denny's to discuss the terms of her will. It turned into a greedy argument and nasty scene. She had left the three inside arguing. She told me she was going to go home and change her will and then take her gun and kill herself. I gave her a big hug. We held each other a long moment. I felt her relax after a short time. I stepped back and asked her to promise me she would keep in touch and "Please don't kill yourself." We talked some more and she told me she had spent her life as an educator and motivational speaker, but couldn't get through to her own children. I suddenly remember that I was missing the seminar. I crawled through the fence and ran all the way back to the hotel.
Outside the conference room I could hear the speaker. I waited for an applause and tried to quietly open the door during the audience reaction to her presentation. The lights were out with only the spot lights on the podium. I stood quietly in the dark waiting for another audience response to seek a seat. She started to speak and stopped in mid sentence.
Everything Is Connected
"Someone has just entered the room. I have a very strong intuitive feeling we need to know who this is." The moderator stepped to the microphone and asked me to identify myself. "Ron Eastwood," I said, feeling embarassed.
There was great laughter because it seems throughout the conference I had been one of those who jumped up first to volunteer every time volunteers were asked for. I was the one who removed an iron spike from an 8" x 8" timber with my bare hands completely ruining one of his demonstrations (see below)*. Jokingly he said, "We should have known it would be you. Find a seat please."
The speaker said, "No. I want Mr. Eastwood to come up here." I went forward. The moderator stepped aside and said, "Here, you may have my seat." Another round of laughter. I was really feeling humiliated. She did not let me sit down. She said, "Ron you must tell us why you are late. I have a tremendously strong intuitive feeling that this will be important." I briefly told what had delayed me. I mentioned the name of the woman whom I had stopped to comfort. When I finished the speaker was visibly shaken.
More Than Just A Gut Feeling
"Ladies and gentlemen I now know why I had such strong energies when Ron entered the room. My very first mentor after I finished graduate school was (the name of the woman in the Denny's parking lot). I have not seen her in years."
The silence was immense. With the bright spot lights in my eyes I could not see faces, but I sense there was not a dry eye in the house. The wisdom I gained that evening has only increased every time I consciously respond to gut feelings that I should take note or be involved in situations or lives often of perfect strangers.
- Ron Eastwood
* The demonstration was to show that often we use only the same old methods because we are unwilling or unable to think outside the box. Volunteers were given a claw hammer and asked to remove the spike. Several tried. Some bent the nail a little, some jerked on it, some even got a block of wood to place under the head of the hammer for better leverage. None were successful. I took the entire block with nail and all and raised it over my head. I brought it down as hard as I could catching the head of the spike against the metal trim on the stage. The spike flew out. It dented the stage. It was not what he had planned, but he said, "Folks, you can always depend on our Ron to think outside the box." Laughter abounded. The momentum of the heavy block moving at such speed gave hundreds of foot pounds of energy to the head of the nail. Mere leverage with a claw hammer could never have achieved such a power ratio.
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