Anneke Lucas: I Was a Sex Slave to Europe's Elite at Age 6 (ORIGINAL)

The Gift of Finding You are Perfectly Imperfect

The Gift of Imperfection
As author Brene' Brown teaches through her best selling book, The Gift of Imperfection, "You must do your own heart work"  She also states, " You cannot give from what you do not have ".  This book, along with all her others on vulnerability should be right there next to Netter's Anatomy on every pre med student's book list .

How many times did I tell that to my client with "no time" to treat her fibromyalgia or discuss the scientific rationale behind persistent cognitive pain? How many strained bodies have I mended after suffering from the ill effects of being the perfect mom, the most dedicated athlete or the strongest CEO and then skip my lunch, fail to drink my eight glasses of water and beat myself up for hours after missing a show at my child's school?  I still struggle but before 2001, I thought it was okay. I was happy to sacrifice my health in the name of taking care of others.

Where Do You Fit In? 
Right now, I don't care about ICD 10 or who values me.  I just want to help 100 more wounded healthcare warriors take the leap I did into healing themselves and using it to be a better version of themselves for others.  I want to remind western leaders to lead with spiritual leadership and embody their authentic self. In the process I want to see if we can collectively shine and learn how to heal the broken western health care system. So Belly Guru 2.0 is focused on coaching the holistic health of any care giving leaders.   There are just too many fellow warrior goddesses, just like the younger me out there.  I know because they are coming to see me as clients under the illusion of being unable to perfect themselves.  They are filled with things to do and drowning in their own abundant knowledge wisdom all the while they are dealing with unhealed strains or stress related bowel and gynecological dysfunction.  I feel for them. I do because I know the painfully slow process of meeting the truth in their heart.  I am 43 years old now but I began my similar heart work as a 25 year old, burnt out physio who was on a fast paced trajectory towards the top of my field. For the previous ten years I strategically navigated how not to be vulnerable and collect my value with awards on my wall so you can imagine my paralysis when I had the paycheck, the apartment, the man and the job I thought I wanted and was miserable.  Tapping into my core connection felt like a shot in the gut.

Circa 1998: Realizing core values
I remember the unraveling like it is yesterday.  The night before I was looking through some continuing education offers in a magazine wondering how I could better myself.    It was before my Monday work shift at a fairly new "dream" job that had my schedule open for 18-24 patients per day, It was Sunday evening and I was already feeling nauseous going in.   That Sunday morning I just about decided I was going to be adding an OCS credential instead of a SCS and for whatever reason I saw an ad about yoga training and started to cry.  I wanted to do it but it was not on my list of things I HAD to do.  At the time taking a fitness training and making it physical therapy was a step down and backwards in my monkey mind. Somewhere between the tears I fell asleep but the next day I called in to work , stayed in my pajamas and loaded on feeling guilty as hell.  I was actually the bread winner in my newlywed family back then but within a week I gave my notice. I was gone. I was officially depressed for just over a month. My therapist said I must be tired of learning and doing and wanting to be so many things for so many people.  All I remember is that at 25 years old I found myself crying day after day about my stressed out life while sitting on my balcony in a great apartment in NYC telling myself that despite a crap load of success  on my walls, I was such a loser.

I graduated  high honors from Physical Therapy School without a class in self compassion.
Can you believe not one of my medical friends dealing with death and disease all day feels he or she was ever educated in the value of self compassion?  Outside of my yoga, I know I was not.  I have such compassion for that ignorant linear minded girl without some real world tools of her own.  She just did not have any mentors who understood what it means to be a heart centered creative in a western science based healing profession. She did not have any integratives around her yet and she DEFINITELY  did not see the bigger picture or an alternative solution then to quit so she did and assumed she made a big mistake.

Blind ambition for a Bigger Voice
I needed to quit.  It was the right thing to do and I did not make a mistake but at the time I was blind to the fact that I was sick (most likely adrenal fatigue) from the choices I felt I HAD to make. in 1998 I made a choice to align with my energetic integrity but sadly it still took me a few more years of fatigue (suffered on and off since a bad case of mono in 1994 being perfect- the first sign) and a second post-partum related depression in 1999( the second sign) and 9/11/01 ( knock number three) to get a clue that mind and body required a spiritual connector.   Apparently my strategic timeline on how to become a kick ass everything was actually the part that was completely flawed.   I felt like a hypocrite. I was not healthy nor  valuing my mind and once my daughter was born, I just had very limited energy to meet the demands of that high traffic sports therapy practice I thought I wanted.  I jumped off  that trajectory and although I  questioned my move away from athletic training I occupied myself trying to figure out how to use my birth experience to service "other families" in health.  I seemed to have to take a class because I was not admitting that my interest in maternal health was actually all about helping me.

Wanting a Voice & Finding it through the Silence of Yoga
All I wanted in 1998 seemed very simple.  I wanted to offer what I went to school to do.  I wanted to be respected by the entire medical community. I wanted to feel energized and alive with how I spent my energy and I wanted to be a good mom and work but just not in that typical clinic way.

Before I decided to make my bigger move into letting go of traditional perspectives,   I was two kids in and down to three quarter working hours.  I was doing all the right things but still getting burnt out.  I said it was poor work life balance but now I know it was an internal imbalance of my 5 realms of being.  I was very likely several years into adrenal fatigue and my psychosocial integrity of being mom was shot keeping up with the Joneses.  The lack of energy I complained was being zapped by an overactive mind and misalignment of my personal core beliefs, I questioned my value way too many times and I realized it was actually an attempt to feed the realm of dharmic integrity.

 In psychology we call this inner conflict cognitive dissonance. For a good two more years I labeled it "a phase" like PMS and jumped onto my yoga mat.  I knew if I didn't work hard finding myself that someone would tell me who I was and provide me the evidence to medicate myself again for resolution. I worked too hard getting off it the first time. There would need to be another solution.
Luckily my yoga pill worked great but I need to keep consistent or down the slippery slope of perfectionism I would go.  I moved to a better environment for work /life balance, bit my lip and stopped working on my career for a year just because I could.  I used the time and dedicated more time to being home with the kids as my off the mat yoga practice.  I began identifying myself as a yogi, with many roles and I began to use my own medication called getting real and dirty . Before long, with the roles of wife, mommy and all the other things ,  Belly Guru version 1.0 came out in a birth of beautiful, imperfect, professional health leadership.

Having a Voice became Wanting Someone "Better" to Listen
Fast forward to 2015. I am the creator of the Belly Guru Yoga Training System which is an integrative system of yogic lifestyle coaching and teaching.  It has evolved into a Registered yoga school, an entry level yoga therapy bridge program for licensed health care providers and a personal heal the healer system.  Up until October of 2013 I owned an integrative free standing clinic with nutrition, massage, yoga classes, private therapy and counseling contracted in.  I have never seen myself as other than an integrative PT but I grew muscles to angle the filters to my audience.   Along the last ten years I feel I have come full circle and am creating again.  I have enjoyed seeing how all the jagged pieces have became a bigger picture and I consider looking at that yoga ad in 1998 as my breakdown of divine intervention. Brene' Brown reported that 2007 it was her year and first step to the successful life she is living.  Mine was a decade before.

Becoming a CEO is enough

Now I am onto Belly Guru 2.0. Besides helping my integrative PT clients, I want to help other female healthleaders find their clarity faster.   I want to help them create their unique brand of balancing awesome because I now realize that making a difference in the world is a force of  nature you can not deny,  The change will come to the world by connecting feminine values into a collective flame.  My blue ocean of Belly Guru 1.0 was about putting my big girl panties on and knowing I am actually better than the summation of my professional credentials.  Now with Belly Guru 2.0, I can actually share the process.  In fact I let go of my wellness clinic to focus on this and despite 16 or 17 letters after my name I am the most comfortably I have ever been calling myself just plain old Dr.Lisa, PT.

Yes transitioning thru your own crap from an amateur perspective of success to a professional has a new level big league self care responsibility.  It is a scary process but yoga helps.  So does...

• Having a mastermind of collective weirdos lovingly K.I.S.Sing medicine like me 
• Knowing how to blend coaching my clients and treating them  
• Being there for that one client who needs more of a partnership than another prescription
• Creating enough revenue to make my own hours to make a healthy breakfast, pack nutritious lunches and get to my kids games and travel with my husband  and son's lacrosse travel team
• Creating my own definition of success as an extension of the authentic me in a healthy balance between fire and resiliency is amazingly restorative in it's own right.  

So I am here to tell you you have all that in me and so much more because my fellow wounded soul,

1. "You do not need another letter after your name to feel valuable" you are plenty valuable already to me but you MAY need a coach to know and breath and sell your value in an abundant way everyday. 
2. Stop taking classes for a little while "You do not need another tool to help you have success now" but you do need a mirror sometimes to know if you are acting like a tool and could use some training on social connection.  
3. Become  your best by being the CEO of our own life first.  Soon you will naturally know if your happiness equals the need to be the CEO of a company but don't worry, you won't be wasting time. The second comes naturally by way of the first.

Rising Shakti

Shiva and Shakti balance out health

In the Science of Yoga the female energy of creation and growth is named Shakti. Her role is to do something with what is left over from the destructive Breakdown through Shiva's tears and force.  She connects the pieces left and remodels them into new. She sees the potential after the storm created by man's will and desire to change and establishes balance from chaos.... Besides God, She alone is the force through which everything new is created.  Oh why oh why would you ever deny your strength is Shakti Power in flow?????

My Guru Gal 2004

Claiming Shakti Pride

The feminine power within every living thing is essential for mind-body health. After the diligent and strategic execution of germanic cells by our Shiva, it is our flow of Shakti that revitalizes and refreshes the new form or is able to mimic the old. Which path is taken depends upon the environment presented. It depends upon the system's perceived need for survival first and then mindful sustenance second. Long term peace requires a switch from surviving to sustained thriving. We can only destroy what is stable so long before we have no grounding, no well from which to pull our creative Shakti from. So let's celebrate International  Day of the Girl today, Aim to rise awareness of your Shakti, through the subtle forms of intelligence such as relationship, creativity, inspiration, group consciousness and enlightened potential all day long!!! 

Xoxo. Lisa 

The Perspective of Happiness

Seeing things as they are....

 September 1996... I got my white lab jacket ( the short one as not to confuse the patients ) ,my official hospital staff badge, strung my stethoscope around my neck and went out onto the acute care floors. Everyday was exciting but a bit overwhelming especially the first with my four new patient that day.  

Cleaning old wounds....

Newbies had acute care rounds.  Acute care meant being on the floors and wound care assignment.   You had to be on your toes. One day you were sent to the psych ward and another day you might have been at orthopedic rounds.  You really did work with some very sick people and there are nerves attached to that but you found your happiness.  Charts were interesting, people were medicated and very funny sometimes.  It was a a really great day if I would be able to scrub in and observe a future acute care patient's cervical decompression or witnessed a brain injured patient without inhibition curse out an ego laden resident.  I have to laugh as I write that because I can not even imagine the scenario presented among the manged care, manged time mentality. Would I even have ever seen a surgery as a PT?  Healthcare is much more stressful now. Everyone's role is so segmented and I doubt anyone eases you in with four patients for a few days. Maybe they do; but, that only means someone is carrying the guilt of not going to see someone. There is only so much time in one day to be seen and supervised for your work.   

My perspective early on in my career was that I made a difference.  Even on acute care, length of stay was a few days and I would see them maybe graduate from a walker to a cane. A decade of experience later I often wondered why I was even being paid to be there. By 2009, working acute care meant a decent per diem hourly wage but half the time it felt like my role was getting people from chair to the bed for the nurses to avoid or being the escape goat if Mr so and so fell. I know the last time I worked on acute care , going into a random person's surgery was a HIPPA violation and my optimal stats included 10 patients on a 6 hour day.  The extent of my intervention across the board of diagnoses was an order to get the person out of bed and to walk to and from the bathroom or commode so that the physician could write the discharge order. In the event someone else felt this occurred ,such as an aide over the night shift dragging the medicated and tired patient across the floor,  with an early am round of discharge orders, I might not see Mr. so and so again. So again I made my happiness.  I did things a different way, massaged swollen legs and taught them some yogic breathing.

A Blast in the past....

Back to 1996...My first two years out of physical therapy school I had the option of requesting a 6-9 month rotation among three divisions: In patient sub acute rehab you taught group exercise and one to one visits. Outpatient rotation was where it was at.  That was what you went to school for.  This was what you were paying your dues for . People came greeted you , for the most part, with a smile and took home their troubles. You did not need to put away your fears you killed someone yesterday in ICU getting them out of bed or dump bed pans to get the person ready for PT.  At 23 years old I thought being able to work in outpatient meant you were experienced.  You were worthy having paid your dues on acute care and were rewarded with never having to literally clean out an old wound again.

Now...... Outpatient to me means burnout and acute care means watching a broken system move patients down an assembly line.  Believe me, I wish I could see things from the rose colored glasses of my youth but somewhere along the early 2000's I shifted back into my sports medicine roots and smelling the antiseptic floors began to remind me of cleaning old wounds on med/surg. While always interesting for an anatomy geek like me, suddenly nothing became as deflating as being asked first thing in the morning to take part in the cleaning of a human gross anatomy lesson for a smelly infected wound.   But,  I remember being excited about those things.  I do not remember exactly when my perspective changed an I stopped being happy. After less than two years I remember leaving that first job bored but I think now that I was being impatient. I thought i was missing out on more knowledge.  I deserved to expereince more money, more dynamics , more ...... who knows.  I was Eve and that serpent was talking.  My perspective on the future haves made me miss out on some things.  That first job was a great one. I left it a little too soon by focusing on what it wasn't verses what it was. 

 I sometimes miss living by luck of the draw....

At my first job I would try to get to work early so that I could have the pick of the litter on cases that day.  It really was a crap shoot but like any lottery, people played for the chance of getting that one case on the VIP floor.   Being in NYC also had it's advantages after work and being on the floors had some of the most colorful moments.  I know because I laughed a lot more than on outpatient or than in in any other outside position since then.  I still laugh remembering the stress breakers like a funny assignment nurse or walking into a patient "escaping".  It may sound awful but sometimes dealing with pain all day or life and death situations makes the silliest things funny.  It is all perspective and I can not believe I turned into the person that never wanted to do a wound care again.  

  

"If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you'd best teach it to dance." George Bernard Shaw — 

What I remember wanting most when I would go see a repeat acute care patient was to know that he or she would smile when I walked in the door.  That would mean  that he or she was alive and not feeling worse by my intervention. The reality though was that it would mean their life was not turned upside down, that they felt cared for and were not in pain.  I liked to make it about me but it was really about them.  That is one thing I desired about outpatient orthopedics, the fact that the patient always seems to greet you with a smile even if it was a fake one when you say hello . Working on the floors brought all the skeletons out of the closet and you had to make them dance.  A smile was successful treatment for me and my vulnerable feeling patient.  So maybe I smile at those acute care days more because I have a better perspective of those challenges.  Maybe now I see those opportunities were great perks.  Maybe I value the obtainment of  grace under fire, courage to think on my own, suffering with good friends and great memories.  I am surprised how thinking about that now feels very similar to my thoughts on leaving high school. I was the prom queen dating the high school basketball star and while not every moment was a laugh I have my rose colored glasses on over it all the time. Despite that, the truth of why i had to leave will always be there. I know I say that my senior year was one of the best experiences of my life but somehow I would not want to go back knowing I would have to live every tear since then again.

Ever notice how life is like high school over and over again? 

When you finish all the requirements and reach a certain expected level of knowledge and maturity you just graduate.  Some chose not to eat from the tree of knowledge but I ate the forbidden apple of knowing more by wanting more and once I tasted the possibilities outside of that temporary Garden of Eden, the willpower proceeded to follow an ongoing lust for that taste.  Sometimes I have  too much and am unhappy.  Sometimes I have too little and am unhappy so the lust or desires I have need to be controlled though my taking the time to listen.  I need to look and listen to the present need every day. The view from a distance before or after is farther from that truth. My high school mind didn't understand too much of that present perspective. My twenty year old mind didn't either.  My thirties are a blurr but now at 41 I know I had plenty of boring regular days  I just don't remember.

I want to remember those boring regular days in the past.  I would like to know my mindset when I wasn't on a high or low. I am saddened at the realization that my focus on the future well into my thirties was an attempt to make detachment to things in the past and present easier.  Unfortunately the moments I missed or avoided are behind in Neverland but tied to the true experience.  I should have journaled more because everything in the future and past a bit biased.  In high school I intuitively knew that.  I had a diary. Somewhere in my twenties I stopped . No one writes to themselves anymore. Now we let everyone know everything so now I blog. We all have the desire to manipulate our memories into only being the things that made us laugh and grow. The evolution of the blog is therefore quite interesting.  It is as if society is hoping to record proof of our present experiences because if left to our physiology, we would rather foster an illusion.  The truth is we are not receptive to reality.  The program is nature's plan of survival at all costs.

Happiness is a perspective.

It seems , according to author Rick Hanson, PhD., and his research on neurophysiology, that our brains are wired to remember the trauma as if it were in the present because subconsciously we know the information obtained surrounding those moments are very important to our survival. As ugly as they are we are not pre- programmed to forget them. It is a survival feedback loop so that we avoid past real dangers. Thanks to that Insulary Cortex, if you are a die hard planner and an over achiever you might just make up the reality of future dangers. Unfortunately you are also evoking a made up visceral response to accompany those experiences before you actually have them. Thank the deep brain's Insula for that too.  It anticipates the risk of the future and reroutes the experience to optimize a certain stress or non stressful reaction. This is especially the case in chronic pain because the Insula is a major relay point for the pain tracts. This is why you really need to replace the experience of physical pain with a happier perspective of the situation.  With all the pleasure points of the brain ,  you need to practice for a desired pleasurable outcome in order to rewire your brain.  You are better off seeing the reality of what is sad  but focusing on the perspective of the present moment leading to happiness. Call it optimism if you want but it appears that you can buy your ticket to the island of happiness.  Here is the problem most people have. It is not free and not everyone has the skill set to save enough experience points to buy it.

If you want guaranteed success, find an uncomfortable but healthy discipline this year.

The yoga practice I picked up along the way has made me realize that the present perspective is my reality to make. I need the discipline more than I need the postures.  How else will I look on the bright side of feeling a year of avoidance in my muscles and my mood?   It takes earning points from being present as well as understanding that I already spent all my points I failed to save from the past.  Finding happiness looking forward to a future feeling is mute. Why make it there when I can make it here instead?

So I try on some yoga techniques such as meditation. I teach it to my patients. I request my family try some too.  For me, the practice keep the lenses clear and the motivation to experience truth strong. I am more receptive when I practice and I am more accepting of the pain.   I am sure we all wish some days we could go right back into every happier moment of the past or jump into happier moments in the future but in reality we know we can't experience anything more than a blurred memory or hopeful wish. Don't worry.  By now you have made anything happy in the past seem 10 x better than it was and anything sad in the future 10 x worse.  So this year focus on the now.  What building blocks for contentment are there in your present state?  Have faith the greater plan wanted it that way . Tap into that faith sooner verses later and settle your mind.  A recheck grounding for a few moments into the present will grace you with the ability to be greeted by a smile of self reflection every time.

I get it!!! I need to stick to my practice....

It is amazing to me how many people want the rewards of yoga yet are afraid as hell to have faith in following the classical study and practice of yama and niyama. It is amazing to me to see my ego at work and realize I am one of them.  It is far more likely for someone such as myself to spend hundreds of dollars attending workshops and buying equipment for attaining a pose than it is for that same person to attend to hundreds of minutes self reflecting upon their impact on the world and their ability to manage the ugly parts they see.   All of that would of course help us solve our own problems , is laid out and requires no outside guru, no clothes and very little pockets of time or money but that is not the yoga many people want.  So you can imagine my amusement when Russell Brand's take on seeing life through the process of meditation and yoga hit social media and made perfect sense to me.   I was actually quite amused at the way he is riding out the concepts of classical practice parameters while "working the system".  I am not sure he is for real or if he is using the acquired knowledge for manipulation; but, either way, it is very apparent he gets it.  

You See "getting it" or what I would consider understanding the practice can make you very powerful   It will manifest the exact needs you have for your targeted focus at that time. So if your mind's focus is a killer body than the body will follow , like a puppy dog, to all the important achievements in your mind and in a few months of practice you will glow like a Griswold Christmas light show. Just remember,  do not be confused with every eye catching light show being the meaning of Christmas.  What if the lens you filter your experiences through is clouded by greed, impatience or fear? Is it really green and red light you are seeing on the tree or is it a single light wave coming through a colored piece of glass.  This is why it is imperative to not delve too deep into the practice of yoga without Limbs 1 & 2 under your belt.

The fact is many powerful yogis do not physically look the part but they still feel their grace because they are masters of limbs 1 and 2 and dabble for health needs in asana ( all the postures). It is very true that circulation and body awareness is important because we need to take care of the house of our soul but this can be accomplished by a clean diet and general physical fitness exercise.  You do not need yoga asana to do it but yoga asana is a step by step path.  We do need to live in this world of form and structure but the goal of yoga practice is self realization not headstand. The idea is to obtain flow and strength of mindset and form, to literally turn your world upside down but to be settled in meditation there as if you always knew it as right side up.  It is the goal, if there is one in yoga practice, to be able to perceive your max potential through the finest subtleties of poor health as well as the over abundant joys of a good lifestyle.  The lens should be clear and direct pure light.  I thank Guruji for teaching me that, especially when I am but a struggling yogi in progress.   

So I get it and keep looking for the yogis in hiding. I keep looking in the mirror. I keep looking outside for the small, round, unpopular and mistaken ones longing for a clear consciousness. I keep looking for myself as I look for the one behind a powerful figure or the homeless man on the street. I look forward to meeting the saints or spirits that will manifest in human form at a moment when I needed the words, the spiritual connect or a smile.  I keep looking and welcome the ones suffering or misunderstood.  I keep looking  because they dutifully carry the sorrows of the world in their hearts like me because I can teach them to find contentment through their strain.  I keep looking for the bruised or talents in the ruff because I understand that pain is real and a part of life.  I want them to see that while they do not like it, they can understand how to be humble and continue on until they are not of this body or mindset to do so anymore.  I keep looking because I know there are people out there that will always make their mark and I want to support them.  

 I said I get it!   I am a human in practice for a spiritual existence just like everyone else.  I negate my practice needs to some extent almost every day but I can't even get away from the path because I see patients that want me to magically heal their pain and go through the suffering for them.  They want the answers minus the experience.  They want me to pass that experience onto them through my touch, my word or my action instead of doing their work alone. I get it , The ultimate guru is within but I am understanding the trials of being the guru through living the life of a physical therapist, mother, wife, woman and very hard on myself householder. I get it, I sell it and live it but it is so easy to objectively look at the entire 8 limb path of yoga and say, "Oh I can do that easier.  Maybe I can just skip being nice to everyone including myself. Maybe I can limit my compassion to my family, friends or pets and still resist the desire to complain about how I look , dress or talk." But I get it.  I get it!! I can not look the part enough.I can not forsake retreating into spiritual studies often. I can not mindfully redirect my light through a dirty lens. I can not live guarded and just say that is my style, that is my brand, that is me and me is great.  Because I get it.......I get it.....I get it! 

Belly Guru Llc - Online : Services

Belly Guru Llc - Online : Services

Revelation of the Mind

Revelation 

By L. Holland

He who keeps me strong to stay in the present will be my God.

He who fulfills a desire of mine will be my friend

He who enables the will be my mind and

He who nourishes my heart will be my soul

May I find the will to calm the mind

May I feed my hearts with passion and unattached love

May I see through the looking glass of faith

And may I aim never to leave my spiritual home again

OM shanthi shanthi shanthi   ----------

The Mind

A mix of memories, sleep, misunderstanding, and right thought

It amazes me how deep some of my musing I doodle down are in comparison to some others.  It continues to prove how intuitive and yet deceptive the mind can be.  For as long as I can remember watching my mind, it has had a ton of things to say.   I remember being a toddler with complex thoughts. I have a strong memory from about 2 years on and remember needing to know why people acted as they did from a very young age. I remember the terrible testing of cause and effect during toddler hood and judgmental thinking that most of the adults in my life were not very mature grown ups. How I thought I knew or even cared to think about what maturity entailed is beyond logic at such a young age and only  explained by my present belief  that I am an old soul. If not old then definitely not a new one. 

 All I know that at 3 yrs old I distinctly remember being frustrated that the adults at my birthday party left the ladder to the pool down and I conducted an experiment to see how long it would take them to properly supervise me and attend to me climbing in.  I looked at my reflection in the water and decided what I needed to do.  I actually remember rationalizing that I needed to be in the middle of the pool to test my theory that they were not supervising me.  I might have dreamt about swimming on my own or doing something like this but I was three and determined to make it a reality.  Next moment I was the witness to the instant revelation that I did not yet attain the cognitive ( brain matter) maturity to comprehend that I could not yet swim.  As I let go of the rail there is the memory of a moment of fear that I was going to drown.  I remember some level of logic or ego was in charge because I looked up from the water and mentally focused intently with anger on the adults.  In the next second I watched the mind turn to it's instinct and I decided to float instead.  Just like that.  I calmly decided I was going to float because I did not want the horror of being unsuccessful in my attempt to swim.  What the heck was that?  In a 3 year old's head?  I did not think a bit about my present life's inexperience with floating. Right thought was that my parents needed to immediately respond and I did not want to go under.   Maybe I related the pool tomy memory of the womb as a safe place as I recollect internal conversations saying  "don't cry or else you won't float" .  Well long story short, in that same instant someone noticed me, my dad dashed down from the deck in lightning speed and got me.  I never went under. 

When I am mentally balanced I believe in the mind... 

Psychologists might say the fear is why I remember but  the experience  was profound . The moment was important because there was no trauma and only a moment of fear. I always remained very calm.  My mother would confirm this years later when I asked her if I was crying or said anything.  She said that stunt was one of a few calm and calculated chances I took to study everyone's reaction.  

There was a moment  of fear to witness  because the concept of mind is not the concept of the material brain.  My brain functions in response to stimuli in a certain way. I can stimulate the brain by thought or physical touch during cranial surgery and produce an expected response.  When the stimuli are engaged in the outward  sensations of taste, smell, sight,sound and touch I am momentarily insane with desire because of the mind.  The brain needs the mind( consciousness) to process the truth and rationalize an action.  The mind on the other hand does not need the brain.  The mind is constantly fluctuating between several thoughts and forming a state of consciousness.  There is mind in my big toe.  There is mind in a fetal cell deciding where to transport itself within the embryo and grow.  There is mind within the lining of my gut saying I have ingested an irritant and mind within the neurons in my nerves ready to direct a charge. When I am not distracted, this all makes perfect sense. When I am not asleep I know what the mind is saying.  When I am still I can discriminate better and as I saw at 3, I can manifest any needed reality.