Encouragement

All of us have read endless writings on the power of intention, and we all know the value of visualization and believing in ourselves, no matter what. Sometimes though, when results are slow to manifest, we get discouraged. I was having one of those episodes of feeling discouraged, and then I saw the headlines about the Chilean miner who ran in the New York Marathon over the weekend.

I read about how, while locked deep under the earth, he visualized running in the marathon, and even practiced working out to get ready.

Imagine that. Imagine being buried deep under the earth, every logical indication being that you would either starve or suffocate in a matter of weeks, and rather than give up or resign yourself to a dark end, you start to train for a world famous marathon in a country far away. Did his companions think him mad? I hear they encouraged him! Imagine the visualization process, and the determination and optimism. “I will run in the New York marathon”. He saw it. He felt it. And he took all the steps he could to get ready for it.

And for me, here’s the key part. He did what he could, and he knew that others on the outside were doing what needed to be done to get him to the point where he could run in that marathon. Hundreds of people from all over the world were digging that tunnel and devising that life-saving pod and all the mechanisms necessary to bring those lads to the surface. And what a surfacing it was. It was like watching each one of them be reborn. The long, slow, dangerous ascent through the tunnel; the claustrophobia; the bright light; the embrace and back slapping.

Did this Chilean miner ever get discouraged? I’m sure he did. It can’t have been easy to be buried deep in the earth and be told that no one knew how to get him out, but that they’d sure try. But he obviously didn’t let his discouragement remain for too long.

The word courage has its roots in the Latin word for heart. To be encouraged is to be strengthened in the heart. To be discouraged is the opposite.

I think intention and manifestation are exercises of the heart. Sure the brain plays a role too. And the other sentient areas of our body assist. But I feel it is of the heart. My heart swelled as I watched those miners surface. My heart rose in my throat and I was empathing so hard I had to take a couple of breaks.

Fast forward to the Marathon. He ran. He did it. That dream, conceived in the womb of the earth at a time of great uncertainty, manifested in great glory this weekend.

So who am I to be discouraged? Who are any of us to doubt the power we have to achieve all we dream of?