After all the healing shamanic work I had done and after my wonderful visit to Peru in May 2015, I thought that I was much happier ‘in myself’ but, last November, as I approached my 42nd birthday, I faced the painful realisation that I had let the exercise and the healthy eating slide – I was overweight and, frankly, I did not like the look of myself in the mirror. I certainly did not think that I was ‘beautiful’ in any way, shape or form.
Yet, in August, whilst in Glastonbury, on the Spirit of the Inca’s Munay-Ki course, my group were sat around ‘chalice well’ (incidentally, one of many Glastonbury venues which claim to be the final resting place of the Holy Grail) and we started singing a Shaina Noll song, which begins, “How could anyone ever tell you / You were anything less than beautiful?”
We repeated this verse until everyone in the group had looked down into the well at their own reflection in the water. I was moved but I was also thinking – “Yes, but I’m in my early forties, I’m balding and I’m overweight – I’m not really very beautiful, am I? No-one would ever truly call me that.”
You know that story, where the man is caught in a flood and he calls out to God for help? Well, a huge piece of driftwood comes along and, rather than grab it, he says to himself, “No, God will save me”. An old man in a rowing boat comes by and offers him help and he says, “No, God will save me”. Then the RNLI show up and he still says, “No, God will save me”, and then he drowns. He gets to Heaven and he angrily asks God, “How could you abandon me, your faithful servant, and let me drown like that?”
And God responds, “What are you talking about? I sent you some driftwood, a rowing boat and the RNLI!”
Cool, bear with me…
So, I put a new profile photo on Facebook in November, which my lovely friend Nay had taken of me in Cusco, Peru. I’m content and I’m smiling. An astonishing 58 people chose to ‘like’ this photo and compliment it. That’s nice, I thought. I was surprised but I didn’t really think too much about it…
The next thing that happened in this particular journey was that, my friend, Susan Earl, asked me to go and see the Carole King musical – ‘Beautiful’ with her but I still wasn’t ‘getting’ the message from the cosmos. The musical, incidentally, is about how Carole moved on from the sadness of her divorce to become happy and successful…
So, it gets to the final song of the musical, which, funnily enough, is called ‘Beautiful’ and I find myself oddly moved –
“You’ve got to get up every morning with a smile on your face
And show the world all the love in your heart
Then people gonna treat you better
You’re gonna find, yes, you will
That you’re beautiful as you feel”.
I thought about Chalice Well, about the photograph on Facebook, about the message of the musical and of this, its title song, and I thought to myself, “Dan, the universe is trying to tell you something here – what do you think it could be?”
I jest a little but it’s an important point – because all of us have moments in our lives where we don’t feel beautiful, maybe even some of you who are reading this post now?
But, of course, we are!
I know that you, dear friends, will not require the universe to conspire on numerous occasions to tell you before you realise.
You’ll catch that driftwood sooner than my good self, I’m certain.
“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another”.
Carl Sagan (1934-1996)
So, in November last year, I began a 7 day ‘juice diet’ to kick-start eating more healthily. I joined a beautiful gym in Canary Wharf in January and I started regularly exercising again, throwing everything at improving my tone – swimming, Pilates and circuit weight training – and I slowly started to see some results.
Just as all my ‘mindful’/healing work had not been enough in isolation, however, I recognise, that all this ‘body work’ would be pointless had I not first accepted that maybe I was just a little bit beautiful and worth preserving…
You are too.
For now, with love,
Dan