Miles To Go Before I Sleep (39 page)

Give Thanks for What I Have and Who I Am

I'm constantly giving thanks for the people and things in my life. Some people may think it's going overboard, but I even thank my material possessions. I talk to things and thank them for letting me use them. People say I always have good luck with the vehicles I buy, and I wonder if it isn't because I'm always talking to my cars and thanking them for safely transporting me where I want or need to go. I tell my cars how pretty they look. I also thank my dog for being in my life. I think it's important to give thanks during the good times and the bad times. It makes me feel good to thank and acknowledge the things around me and not take them for granted. I give thanks for who I am in many ways.

Take Several Vacations Each Year

This isn't necessarily about spending money. It's about getting away and exploring new people, places, and experiences. I like to do this with people I love. It doesn't have to be a quiet vacation, either. I like spending time with people, so my vacations are full of people. It could be going camping, taking a cruise, or whatever. The important thing is to get away from your routine so you can come back refreshed, with a new perspective on the environment you're in every day. I get to do this a lot because my job requires a lot of travel. When I go off on trips, I get that time away.

Surround Myself with Loving, Supportive People

I'm very careful about whom I spend my time with. In planning my daily activities, I always try to ask myself,
Is this person or situation going to give me energy or take away energy?
It could be something as simple as listening to the radio. Is that going to fill me with energy, or drain energy from me? If I'm thinking about meeting with someone, I ask the same question. If it turns out that I think meeting with a particular person is going to drain me of energy, that doesn't mean I don't go ahead and meet with him or her. Some people I love take energy from me. It just means that after I meet with someone like that, I have to give myself time to rejuvenate. I do try to limit the amount of time I spend with people who are negative. If we spend too much time with negative people, their negativity starts to rub off on us.

Communicate from My Heart

For me, communicating from my heart is about being real, about being true to myself with others. I do this in many ways. When I talk to someone, I do my best to give him or her my full attention. I try hard to listen to what the other person is saying instead of distractedly thinking about my response. I also watch the words that come out of my mouth. For example, if I am having a conflict with someone, I don't go around bad-mouthing that person behind his or her back. I always try to be as direct as possible in my communications with others. Sometimes, I succeed better than other times. When I slip and get a message that I need to put things right, I will contact that person and talk it through.

Maintain a Positive Attitude

Gratitude has a lot to do with maintaining a positive attitude. It's about not getting up in the morning and saying, “Oh, look, it's cloudy or rainy out—I'm going to have a bad day.” I try not to judge even things like the weather.

When I go to sleep at night, I have already thought about what I'm going to do the next day. I've looked at it in a positive way. Some things I may not want to do, but I try looking at them in a positive way. For example, it's been hard for me to read through the many drafts of this book prior to publication. Reading is so hard for me. When I saw that I was starting to get down about this, I worked on changing my attitude about the reading. I told myself, “I bet I'm going to find some positive things when I'm reading.”

Instead of looking at the bad of things, I constantly try to look at the good of things. If I'm still dreading something, I work to find out why.
How do I feel about it?
Usually, some kind of fear is involved.

Laugh Often

Finding the humor in situations or events is such an important part of maintaining a positive attitude. More than that, it's really one of the most effective ways I know of coping with life's ups and downs. If we get too serious, life can start to close in on us. We can end up letting little things get us down because we exaggerate their importance. When I lighten up and take myself a little less seriously, I find that most problems are not as bad as I might imagine or fear.

I try to watch funny movies, spend time around people who have a good sense of humor, and like to laugh out loud.

Live in the Moment

Most of us spend a lot of time in our heads, listening to the tapes that endlessly remind us of our responsibilities, worries, fears, duties, and obligations. Usually, we're rehashing some painful or uncomfortable experience from the past, or imagining some dreaded event in the future. It's hard to just live in the moment, yet that's really the only place we can fully experience life. The present is where we experience the closest thing to Heaven. As the author C. S. Lewis once wrote, “The past is fixed, and has already happened; the future is an illusion.”

Living in the moment means appreciating and accepting who we are and where we are right now. For example, if we are at work and are worrying about making a phone call at four o'clock, my advice would be to go make the call—and then come right back. When we don't live in the moment, we miss out on the many wonderful things and opportunities that happen right in front of us. If we're in a long, slow-moving line, it's so easy to get all frustrated and mad because we have to wait. As someone once said, “Life is what happens when you're waiting for something else!”

I've learned that life flows much more smoothly when I make a choice to just stand there and wait my turn. I stop and look around, maybe watch some kids go by. When I'm living in the moment, I have time to be curious about other people. I am often wonderfully surprised by the unexpected people who come into my life when I choose to live in the present.

Accept and Love Others Just as They Are

Accepting and loving others just as they are has been hard for me, probably because it's taken a lot of work to accept and love myself just as I am. I discovered that it's often hardest for me to accept and love the people who are closest to me. I get angry with them more easily when they don't act as I want or expect them to. Usually, my anger or frustration comes when I decide that the person isn't acting or behaving as a boyfriend or parent
should.
If that person doesn't fit in my little mold, I might get mad. At times like these, I try to stop and reflect on what's going on. In some cases, I may have to end a relationship. In others, I have to change my expectations. In either case, the goal is to accept people as they are and not try to change them.

Have Fun with Life

Having fun with life is what it's all about. When I plan my day, I always make sure to include some fun things. It might be something as simple as talking to a neighbor, going to a movie, or taking a relaxing hot bath. If I don't put something fun into my day, I usually feel more stressed.

I always plan my days ahead. For a few minutes before going to bed, I visualize the day ahead. First, I see myself having a restful, peaceful sleep. Then I see myself getting up in the morning and feeling great. I see myself laughing through the day, meeting and talking to people. I see myself doing things such as exercising or walking Oliver. I don't see myself as being on automatic pilot, drudging along from one obligation to the next. I see myself as happy during the day.

Even though I've done a lot of healing since the hijacking, I still see my neurologist, Dr. Leppik, about every six months. The check-ups are needed to make sure the seizure activity in my brain is under control. In August 1993, I had one of these appointments. Nothing abnormal showed up, but on my way out the door of his office, Dr. Leppik stopped me.

“It's been a while, Jackie, and I'd like to get a new electroencephalogram (EEG) done on you, just to make sure everything's okay,” he said.

I wasn't worried about what he was going to find on the EEG, a test used to measure electrical impulses in the brain. Quite the contrary.

The last time I'd had an EEG done was in Germany, shortly after the hijacking. Doing another test would allow Dr. Leppik to see how my brain was doing. If the results were positive, I might be able to reduce the amount of medication I was taking to control my seizures.

It seemed like a great idea. I was excited to compare the results of tests before and after all of my healing. I was feeling really cocky, certain that the test results would just blow my doctor away. Dr. Leppik is a speaker who travels around the world. I was sure he'd be so impressed with the progress of his prize patient that he'd want to tell everyone who I was and what I did to get better.

I went in for the test on a Friday. I remember getting into a meditative state. The nurse in the waiting room asked if I wanted to listen to music or read a book or magazine, and I said no. I wanted my mind to be completely relaxed during the test. I shut my eyes and quieted my mind. I became mindful of my breathing, taking a long slow breath in and slowly letting it out. I entered a state of deep relaxation. About an hour later, when the test was over, I pulled out of my meditative state and left the office.

For a few weeks, I forgot all about the EEG. Dr. Leppik never called and I didn't call him back. I figured everything must be okay and he'd just call me when he was ready.

A few weeks later, I was traveling to give a speech and had a brief layover at the Minneapolis-St. Paul Airport. I'd been on the road for a few days, so I called home to check the messages on my answering machine. I was excited to hear a message from Dr. Leppik.

I just knew he was going to say, “Jackie, I checked your EEG, and I was just amazed. It was so great, you wouldn't believe it. I can't wait to show it to you.”

As I listened, however, I noticed that Dr. Leppik's voice was calm and measured. He didn't sound like someone eager to report a medical miracle.

“I checked your EEG, Jackie, and there is still seizure activity in your brain,” Dr. Leppik said in his message. “Stay on your medication. Do not get off your medication. If you need anything, call me.”

Then he hung up.

I just went crazy. Seizure activity in my brain? How could that be? I'd come so far, done so much healing. How could it be that I wasn't aware of what was going on in my body? It seemed like all the work I'd done over the past several years was for nothing. I cried and cried until tears were streaming down my face.

I needed to talk to somebody right away. I desperately needed reassurance. I dumped all the quarters from my little change purse onto the pay phone counter and started popping one after another into the slot. With anxiety bordering on panic, I dialed five or six numbers. No one was home. Finally, one of my friends picked up. I told her what the doctor said and how frightened I was.

She was so gently reassuring. She said so many wonderful things about me—that I was such a good person, that I wasn't going to have a seizure, that I was taking enough medication and the doctor said I was taking enough medication. She was as encouraging and compassionate as anyone could be. It helped, but not enough.

When I hung up, I was still fearful and shaking. Was I going to have a seizure right here in the airport? I got on the plane and tears filled my eyes as we were taking off. I felt so scared and alone. What did this all mean? I didn't know what to do. I closed my eyes and I asked what was I to learn from this situation. Whenever something troubles me or I am in the midst of any type of conflict, I always get quiet and ask myself,
What am I to learn from this?

The answer that I got was
Be more thankful.

What? I knew better than to argue with a divine response, but I argued anyway. Then I got mad. How could I be more thankful? I'm always full of thanks. When I'm in the car, I thank God for a wonderful day. I thank God for allowing me to live through the hijacking, for allowing me to have all these wonderful gifts. I thank God for Jim, my partner. I'm always thanking God. I thank God for being able to see butterflies.

Be more thankful?
I didn't get it. I was still afraid. But I kept hearing
Be more thankful, be more thankful.
It didn't make sense—or did it?

Then it came to me. I'd forgotten to thank myself! I'd forgotten to thank myself for all the hard work I'd put into my recovery. Most of all, I'd forgotten to thank my brain.

Sitting on the plane, I put my hands over the top of my head and I held on to it and just hugged it. For a good fifteen minutes, I told my brain how much I loved it. I just held it as the tears started to flow. These were tears of sadness—not fear. I felt sad that I'd let so many years go by without thanking the part of me that did some of the hardest work in my recovery. I'd forgotten to thank my brain, the part of me that was most damaged in the hijacking.