However, I’ve never really followed the crowd! Back in the day when All the girls were getting 80’s perms, I had straight hair and when Everyone I knew started smoking I didn’t and so it went on. I have my own mind and I have never really been swept up in peer pressure. I do things because I want to not because other people are doing them or because I want to appear cool or fit in. So I don’t personally choose to do this challenge at this point. If I want to experience delicious cold water, I’ll More than Happily go back to Iona and leap nakedly with Wild Abandon into the Amazing cold sea again – Such an incredible raw, powerful, primal energy!!!
I had a strong sense my contribution that would Really push me, challenge me and seriously pushed my buttons, freak me out and scare me to bits was to donate blood! This would test me so much more than a little water.
I have Type A- blood and supposedly only 6.1% of the Scottish population have this, so even my blood is a little bit unusual. My dad also has this blood type and I know I’d be there in a heartbeat if he needed my blood. But I don’t forget that there are other people’s dad’s, brothers, sisters, mothers…. Who have significant health challenges and need beautiful lifesaving blood as well.
I’ve been nervous and untrusting of medical staff and procedures for a Long time. I have had 6 operations on my left ear since I was 8 years old (8,10,12, 15, 16 and 20) and I truly wouldn’t have wished any of that on anyone. I had that many as there were problems and complications and I had No trust in my doctor basically but was young and had no voice, no one would listen to me and my opinion. I am 80% deaf in my left ear and some of this deafness has come from the scaring from the operations. I have had awful infections cleaned up, a gromit inserted, a large polyp removed and the mastoid bone removed – unless I tell people I am deaf, no one actually knows as I have learnt how to deal with it and I can actually ‘hear’ better than a Lot of people as I pay attention and get really present! Deafness is often a hidden condition and all my life I have seen how people don’t make allowances and are quiet intolerant and sometimes don’t make it easy for me. One reason I am not keen on needles is that during one particular operation when I was little the anaesthetist tried multiple times to roughly shove the needle into different bits of my hands and arms to put me to sleep. I felt he was joking way too much and I was utterly terrified. He caused a Lot of pain and actually for several years afterwards part of my hand was very tender and sore.
That shows why perhaps I wouldn’t normally Choose to go to any medical place, have any medical staff near me, be anywhere near needles and blood but STILL I am pulled to donate!!! I am a vibrantly warm, loving, incredibly giving person and this is something that I can do. I Can give my blood with an open grateful heart to help another soul.
I have actually donated before and I have had Many horrible experiences that race through my mind and try to haunt me with their ghostly illusions of memories. I also have a memory of the last time I donated and how I broke through my fears. This was shortly after I did my Incredible Firewalk adventure with 10,000 people in London and I felt so amazingly Invincible and Powerful and 100% a girl on Fire! I was Soooo in the flow and So full of flames!
I remember as I marched up to the blood center with some loud upbeat positive music playing in my ipod, I used the Anthony Robins ‘hour of power’ coaching and felt So alive and Queen of my World! I was very focused on where I put my attention and what I wanted so I dived deep into using my creative visualisation. I saw my sweet love infused in my DNA and my subatomic particles. My blood ran fast and vibrant with LOVE and brought peace and joy to join the party. I visualised my blood as vibrant passionate red (my favourite colour), flowing fast and strong. I visualised the walls of my veins strong and healthy and easily accessible. I felt the entire area around the vein become deliciously numb so I wouldn’t feel a thing. I visualise Every person that comes near me to take Exquisite care of me and do their Very best work, I saw them smile and I felt their warmth. I believed that Every hand that touches me is a healing hand. I saw the person that introduces the needle into me do so with expertise, precision, care, love and presence. I saw Everything go so very easily and Completely pain free. I saw my blood collected, quickly and effortlessly. I saw my smile and glow as I rest gently afterwards. I saw me deeply honour myself for this journey and I see me take exquisite care of myself afterwards and go home and rest.
This was All in my head before I even took a step into the building. Everything I had visualised and focused on materialised and the experience was powerful. There was also a large group of bikers donating and the guy next to me was Such a gift – he just kept me laughing. It was a Stunning experience but I didn’t actually go back again and keep up my donations and now several years have passed.
I feel finally ready again and as I remembered that experience I was literally pumping up and preparing again with new juicy visualisation exercises to enable me to go and donate my blood this week and Then…. I reread all the online information for donors as I had a feeling I had missed something. There it was… I’d been on holiday to the Dominican Republic in June and because of the malaria threat now I have to wait until December before I can donate. Argh!!!!!
For a second I felt so crushed and crestfallen and disappointed as I was completely in that open, expansive, giving vibration and this seemed such an important thing for me to get over any remaining fears and to offer up my blood. I watched the thoughts drift through but they didn’t actually have Any impact on me and I really felt no resistance to the change of plans and I could Still touch peace. The experience wildly reminds me YET again to Constantly drop All expectations, All plans All thoughts, surrender it all up and really deeply let go. I Really am in control of Nothing. I keep feeling the message to loosen the moorings this year and to step into the unknown. Everything changes. I like this Anthony De Mello definition of freedom – “Absolute co-operation with the inevitable” and I dance with Whatever life gives me.
I surrender deeply into this gift and give deep humble thanks for my beautiful blood and the profound miracle of this body. I send love, praise and gratitude to all those who do donate blood and are helping the lives of so many people, you are all such Incredible heroes, you inspire me and I thank you!
(I have donated to the British Heart Foundation - http://www.bhf.org.uk. My magic mum had a heart operation when she was 10 and my magnificent paternal grandmother was a pioneering recipient of an artificial heart valve.)