Managing the Micro Moments...

"It's not what happens to you,
It's what you do before it, during it and after it."
Alan Weiss

​Moments in time, they can be so fleeting and yet so life changing.

It was Friday afternoon and nearing dinner time. Dinner was being prepared with the smell of onions being caramelised on the stove and I was multi-tasking looking forward to having my husband home for dinner.
The phone rang and it was someone from Joondalup Hospital.

"Hello Sorelle speaking.."
"Sorelle Miller, I am calling to tell you that you need to come to Joondalup Hospital as soon as possible."
"Is everything ok?" My heart raced at one thousand miles an hour...stay present, stay present, stay present..." replaying over and over quietly at the back of my mind...
" We need you to come to the hospital as soon as you can, we have your husband Craig Miller here needing medical attention."
"Can I ask what's happened?'
"Your husband has been involved in a motorbike accident and has been brought here from Barbagello Raceway."

Me being me, my first response was to call mum...to look after the kids...As I waited for her to arrive, I pulled an angel card. Archangel Micheal and Forgiveness.'
Be strong and forgive I thought, but what do I need to forgive anyone for?
Friday night peak hour was not much fun for the long trek between south and north of the river. All the way to the hospital I kept repeating in my head..."I trust the process of life..." over and over again. I looked out the car window to wonder what the other drivers stuck in peak hour were going home to...I'd rather imagine what their life had installed than to fast forward my own.

It was only when I saw my husband laying drugged to the eyeballs with morphine in the emergency department did it start to click.

"Darling, I've had the BEST DAY!"
he crooned...more than once.
'Darling today I did my best lap times".
..and here he was lying with gravel in his eyes, full leathers and smiling at me...so, so, happy.
Little did he know how he had changed our whole life in the split of an instant...

The smell of the hospital disinfectant made me feel sick...it was surreal taking it all in and then the doctor ushered me to the X-ray screen. Our life had changed for ever...smashed in a thousand smithereens was the remnants of his spine...T6 and T7 in hundreds of tiny fragments, C3 fractured. Both lungs punctured and a slow leak into his heart which would only be discovered a few days later...But I found a quiet space in my heart that could smile at my beloved, tell him that I was glad he had made it through alive and whilst I secretly suspected the road ahead was steep, I knew this had been placed in our life for a much bigger purpose than I could see. My being was radiant with trust...My belief system strong that we could overcome whatever the odds were against us...I still had Craig alive, here, now.

This was to be a new frontier for Craig and I...Everything in his chest cavity had born the brunt of a motorbike that had bounced off the tyre barrier and landed on his chest, as he lost control on the last lap of the day.
A week after the V8 Supercars had raced on the track.

Timing impeccable, as we were to celebrate our 9th Wedding Anniversary that night.

Still I managed to manage those micro moments. I wept tears of sadness and laughter as my brother in law walked in, pissed to the eyeballs after being a wine tasting judge, at a function that night. He had caught a taxi to Royal Perth Hospital and we both waited nervously, only to be told that they could not operate for a fortnight...
The spine and chest too badly damaged for anything to be cut open...

And so it unfolded, one emergency after another. I put one foot in front of the other, one day at a time.
You never really know your true metal until it's tested. I was living a nightmare I couldn't escape. I had two young children and the man I loved was so positive, despite all the pain and I had to keep moving forward. Moment by precious moment.


We all have these moments in life. There are the 'aha" moments, the "don't give a shit" moments, the "lucky to be alive" moments, the 'this really sucks" moments. However what I have learnt is that no matter how big the challenge, when you can witness the loving support in these moments, it moves you beyond the pain into the true depth of the human experience. To feel that moment cleanly, to be open to it. Means you don't have to go back and feel it again. Your heart guides you. When you do have a moment, a private moment of sheer grief, there is another moment of sheer relief, consciousness is constantly and wondrously changing. It's when we delay the pain and have not really allowed ourselves to fully feel it and let it pass, that we relive it over and over and over again. It's when we cling to the idea that "this was not meant to happen to me" that we resist the what is and we suffer. Change has already happened.

We live in a world where we are sold an illusion...we think that we have control, yet all of it can change in a moment...a micro moment can fully consume us. Ironicallly it also has the power in that micro moment of impact to create us, transform us and renew us. If we could just be fully true to the moment, stop fighting the moment and trust there is a bigger picture we cannot see.
Truth is, we may never experience that transformation if we stay in our world of hidden expectations. Each new moment is a chance to start afresh. When you are being tested to the limits, something needs to be felt, expressed and unravelled. It is okay to scream, it is okay to feel...this moment will not last and you will pave the way for the new by pouring out all of the old.

Yet too often feeling is seen as weakness. Life demands that we learn to feel the good as well as the bad. That we learn to process our fate.
That we learn to create from not just consume the pain. Expression is the key...through sound, movement and breath there is a way forward.

​ Life is continuously changing, our emotions have meaning and feelings need to be felt and acknowledged.
This is one path of true transformation.
We also learn through our expression, the golden elixir of brotherhood and sisterhood that have our back and share our pain ,making it possible to start again.
Gratitude for these moments of raw vulnerability, that allow us to reach out beyond what is comfortable and be heard, perhaps the biggest gift of all in these moments of extreme pain. These loved ones become like shining stars, when the sun has set and the darkness sets in,as they encourage us to never underestimate the power within.

You can feel and you will survive...having the courage to be honest with yourself will give you the edge to ultimately thrive. This is not about being the victim, this is about being real. This is about all involved having the courage to be real and feel.

I racked up a $1200 phone bill that month..in this process but the the support I received was priceless, as I chose to focus on what was working and did not sugar coat what I could not control...This is what I mean by pure intent. I chose my words carefully and I considered the impact of these words on my loved ones....
​
Pure intent, pure gratitude and pure love, have a way to move us forward with grace.
It is all a choice and through each heart felt choice, we learn and we teach.
​ Life is a constant cycle of change.

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