My body has been one of my greatest teachers.
When I was a teenager, I used to wish I could have a miracle, so I could see 20/20 and no longer need glasses, which I’d worn since I was 10 years old.
Then one day when I was around 18 or 19 years old, I woke up in my University of Oregon dorm room from a short night’s sleep after a late night studying. Oh, shoot! I had fallen asleep with my contact lenses in. I removed them and discovered I could see perfectly. Wow! I walked to lunch, looking around the cafeteria and was amazed to see clearly all the way across the room. (My contact lenses prescription was around 20/800, meaning usually I couldn’t see clearly even a foot from my face.)
At the time, I had a rather cynical roommate, and I was embarrassed to believe that I really could’ve had a miracle. I knew that near-sightedness involves an elongation of the eye, so there was part of me thinking that maybe my contacts being in had caused my eye length to shorten in those few hours of sleep. I was vacillating between REALLY?? and Naw, it couldn’t be… And, after a few hours of perfect sight, my vision slowly faded back to 20/800.
I was disappointed, and now I was embarrassed to think that I might have rejected a miracle from God. I’ll never know what really happened to my eyes on that day, but that doesn’t even matter now because my first teaching had begun. I said I was sorry (to God and myself) if I had rejected a miracle and that if I ever experienced another miracle, I would accept it.
As it turns out, sharing the miraculous experiences and their teachings as they have come my way over these many decades is not something I can describe in 500 words. These joint efforts on the part of my body, God, my Soul Self, and Life itself have revealed to me unique spiritual teachings needed for each phase of my development. The learnings have varied, all speaking of the love of God and the mysterious ways the temple of my body honors Life and my unfolding growth.
If you’re enticed to read the chronicles*, they include various healing experiences related to a pulled hamstring, hypoglycemia, sugar cravings, brain chemistry, diabetes, Normal Tension Glaucoma, astigmatism, and stretched sprained ligaments. Of greater significance, they reveal many ways my relationship with my body presented expansive learnings. Underlying these many adventures is my belief in Albert Einstein’s words: “There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” I guess it’s pretty obvious which I choose to believe.
—Jeanine DuBois
*For those who are interested, the link below will take you to the expanded story.