It was a pretty rough one at the Goudy house. I had major dental surgery on Friday and my husband realized he had Lyme the night before.
Suddenly, there were a million prescription bottles on the counter and someone was always asking “did you remember to take your antibiotics?”
We were the walking wounded, though neither of us should have been walking anywhere. My husband is notoriously terrible at taking it easy, while I am rather skilled at shutting out the world and taking to my bed when I’m sick or need to recover from something as massive as a 2.5 hour tooth extraction.
Nonetheless, we got through and we’re somewhat less pathetic now that it's Monday morning. (Though it’s still tough for me to talk for more than a few minutes. It's like my face is recovering from an ultramarathon I didn't train for.)
Fortunately, we had a healer on call
Seeing her parents weren’t themselves, our seven year-old took it upon herself to start making remedies.
A neighbor, a consummate garden witch, had told our daughter that the little purple flowers that grew wild in the spring grass were edible.
So Mairead scoured the yard (a marvelous collection of wild plants and useful weeds we mow and call a lawn) and filled her pockets with wild violets. Turns out, they’re very high in vitamin C, but she didn’t know that when she started to forage.
My husband and I each got a glass full of water and a healthy handful of the sweet purple flowers. She came in at regular intervals to be sure we’d drunk our healing elixirs and she was always ready with refills.
(After I texted my friend and verified that the plants were both non-poisonous and actually beneficial, I actually started to take a few tentative sips rather than surreptitiously pouring the love-drink down the bathroom sink!)
When I wasn’t utterly obsessed with my own aching jaw I could see the healer blossoming in this girl.
She has grown up in the house of an energy healer, after all, and she knows we’ll treat a sickness with both an herbal tincture and a drug from the pharmacy, when necessary.
The light in her eyes made me realize it was more than nurture, however. She has the nature of a healer and is offering skills and insight that she has gained over lifetimes, not in a mere seven years.
And she’s dedicated. Before she got ready for school today she made sure to set up my day’s tonic. I’ve got to make sure that my husband and I appear to have taken our full doses before she gets home!
Why am I telling you this story?
In part, it’s because I couldn’t possibly focus on anything else as my body tries to recover from the trauma and my mind tries to integrate the insanity that is having a dentist spend a morning in your mouth.
As I am finally coming back to myself and feel able to sit up and type, it was either tell the story of the moment or say nothing at all.
Plus, it’s part of my job to model how all the little real life moments - the painful experiences and the sweet love - can be and want to be part of your stories.
As a healer - or as a creative entrepreneur or transformation professional whose work makes like a little more beautiful, bearable, or bold - you’re here to meet people in the midst of their struggles.
As a writer, you’re here to tell authentic stories, either from your own life or from our gorgeous, terrible world. You guide people toward you and your life-renewing work based on the stories you tell.
You're a healer with a pocketful of stories.
You're a storyteller with a pocketful of tales.
A rough weekend at our house gave our girl a chance to offer her empathetic magic. And on Monday morning, that floral concoction gave me just what I needed: the bit of beauty and hope that makes a story worth telling.
Next Monday at 7 PM ET we’ll be visiting the Story Source. In this free workshop I will be offering a series of exercises to help you find your own source of inspiration so you can tell more of the stories that have meaning for you and your audience.
Join us for the free workshop.
What are you doing with your Monday evenings this May? This free workshop is a preview of the storytelling course called Sovereign Story, Sovereign Brand I am teaching next month.
