I eventually formed a partnership with Bill and Marcia Behring. Together, we developed a series of presentations for business, educational, and religious organizations. It was an exciting time. A whole new world of possibilities was opening up to me. I hadn’t felt this excited about life since I first left home to teach in Norway.
At the same time, it became more and more clear to me that there was a price to be paid for my new growth. My career horizons were expanding, and I was feeling better about myself, but my marriage was foundering. Scott and I continued to grow further apart and, eventually, we separated and later divorced.
Out of respect for the privacy of those involved, I choose not to disclose or describe the intimate details of our relationship after the hijacking, or the specific events that led to the end of our marriage. That story is beyond the scope and purpose of this book.
Scott and I were young and had only been married for three months when the hijacking occurred. Under the best of circumstances, we still had a lot of work ahead of us to build a solid foundation for our future together. The hijacking only made the task harder. In the aftermath, as I struggled to cope with my physical and emotional wounds and accept the “new” Jackie, our paths diverged. In different ways, the tragedy served as a catalyst for dramatic change in both our lives.
I remain very thankful for all that Scott and his family did to help me after the hijacking. I don’t think anyone could have been more understanding or patient with me through all my emotional ups and downs and confusion about who I was and where I was going. I learned a great deal about myself—my strengths and weaknesses—during our three-and-a-half-year marriage. Most important, I learned to be true to myself, take care of myself, and really listen to my heart.
Working through the painful feelings that followed the end of my marriage was just as hard as coping with the anger, sadness, and resentment I felt after the hijacking. Knowing it was something that I wanted and knew had to be done didn’t make it any easier.
Yet I knew in my heart that I was growing. My eyes were being opened. Deep in my spirit, I knew that, for me, there was no going back.
I was getting a lot of encouragement to keep sharing my story. As I gained proficiency as a speaker and traveled more, I got cards and letters from many people all over the United States and Canada who heard me speak and identified with what happened to me. After seeing a Canadian television documentary about my life story, a young man in prison began writing to me.
Some of the people wanted to know what I thought about what they were going through. Others wanted to know if I could suggest a doctor who could help them or help their daughter or son. One writer said, “My mother had a stroke, and she has been having the same kinds of memory problems that you struggled with. I didn’t understand before.”
I got a call from a woman whose son recently went blind from a hereditary eye disease. Although he still had his peripheral vision, his straight-ahead vision had been destroyed. The woman’s friend had heard me speak in Montreal, so she called me and said that I was talking about the same thing that her son Martin had been telling them. Martin’s mother was very upset and was crying. I really didn’t know what to say other than just be there for support.
I used to think that I had to have all the answers, because I wanted to help and was a caretaker. That’s still part of my personality, but it’s not so strong anymore. I was learning to let go of caretaking and let people take care of their own lives.
I received hundreds of letters from people who had experienced great hardships and pain, yet they were healing and my story seemed to help them. Teachers, coaches, housewives, secretaries, salespeople, executives, and managers wrote to thank me for some inspiring or comforting word or thought they had taken away from one of my speeches. No matter what issue or problem they were dealing with, they identified with the same issues and struggles I had gone through in my healing journey.
I was encouraged and inspired that I was touching so many lives through my speaking. I felt like I was a teacher again, only this time I was working with adults, helping them deal with the problems and challenges in their lives. A woman recovering from brain surgery and the death of a close friend wrote to thank me for telling my story. “You do have an effect on people,” she said. “You did on me.”
As I opened my eyes and ears more and more, unexpected gifts started flowing into my life. I was listening more and more to my Inner Voice, and things were happening. I was excited about the many changes I was making—and needed to make—in my life.
It was an exhilarating and exciting period of growth and healing. The blinders over my eyes were being lifted, revealing a world more beautiful than I’d ever imagined.
When I healed from the pain of leaving my dog Spike with Scott, I got a new dog, a bichon frise that I named Oliver. When Oliver was very young, he barked and ran around my apartment a lot. He was extremely nervous and excitable. In time, he settled down and became a very important part of my life.
I was also gaining confidence that I actually had something worthwhile to say to people. I started seeing how my speech could help inspire people to work and live better, to reach beyond their limitations and fears to become the best they can be. I was gaining a new faith and confidence that I would have a life after teaching. I’d been sharing my story with people in churches and schools. Now, the business world was warming to my message.
I really enjoyed getting to know people in the new world that was opening up to me. In December 1989, I was invited to be a guest on the television show Twin Cities Live to talk about healing from post-traumatic stress disorder. Being on that show once again reminded me of how far I’d come.
I felt sad about the other guests on the show. Their bodies were slumped in their chairs, and I could see the sadness in their faces. I could hear the anger in their voices. And they said they had already worked through their pain! They seemed to think that all they had to do to work through their pain was to talk about it.
I was happy that I’d gone through the hijacking, but the other guests on the show continued to hate the people who had hurt them. It made me realize that many people don’t find a way to work through their issues—they just end up being lost.
Somewhere I read a study done by a national trauma research center that found that one-third of people who live through a traumatic event experience psychological deterioration afterwards, another third stay the same, and the final third actually use the trauma as a springboard for personal growth and development.
What makes the difference? Being open to new things, new people, and new ideas was so important to me. I committed myself to doing whatever it takes to be whole again. Sometimes, I needed to be open to ideas or thoughts that other people saw as “far out.” I tried everything, because I thought I had no other choice. I wanted to be happy again, and I needed to do whatever it took to be happy. I knew that happiness was down the road, but I had to work at it.
Steve Edelman and Sharon Anderson, hosts of the former Twin Cities talk show Good Company, decided to do a show on healing through mental imagery. They invited me to appear with Shakti Gawain, a noted author and speaker whose books meant so much in my healing process. It was so exciting to be on the show with someone I admired and respected so much. I saw Shakti as one of my spiritual guides and teachers. It was such a thrill for me, as a student, to meet my teacher face-to-face!
I was excited to be touching so many people’s lives with my story. While the vast majority of questions people had for me were loving and supportive, I was also learning to better handle the few hostile reactions that came up.
The Wisconsin Teacher’s Association invited me to deliver the keynote address at their conference in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. After my speech, there was a question and answer period. An elderly woman raised her hand. “I want to know more about your faith,” she said with a challenge in her voice. “I want to know more about your religious beliefs.”
I stiffened for a moment, fear
ing the wrath and suspicion of an angry fundamentalist. The question brought back unpleasant memories of people coming up to argue and push the Bible on me. They were angry about how I described my relationship with God. I could tell some people were uncomfortable when I talked about my near death experience and the lessons I learned in my recovery.
At first, I was confused. Their response didn’t make any sense to me. Then it slowly dawned on me: They might be scared. How could I be so positive and have healed so much if I didn’t believe exactly as they did?
“I believe that each of us has to live and seek the truth that is within us,” I told the woman. “You can call this the search for God, a Higher Power, the Christ Within, or our Inner Voice. It is a power beyond our limited human understanding, but it leads us in the direction of our destiny if we just tune in.”
The questioner abruptly got up and left. To those who remained, I said more: “You need to choose whatever or whoever it is that you need to get where you want to go. I can’t tell you there is only one way, because I don’t know what that is. I only know what the way is for me today.
“I believe everything that happens in our lives happens for a reason,” I continued. “Events or situations that first appear as tragedies are really opportunities to learn more about ourselves and what life is really about.”
In December 1990, I decided to make an audio tape of my speech. I wanted to be able to reach more people with my story and was continually getting requests to put it on tape.
Yet I was having a hard time working on it. The old self-doubts were creeping in—the old self-limiting beliefs that said I really didn’t have anything worthwhile to say. This was happening despite the fact that I shared my story all over the United States, had been on national talk shows, and written up in national magazines, and even had a Canadian television documentary made about my life.
I used affirmations to encourage myself to go forward with the project:
My motivational tape is very popular and loved by all.
I am safe to work on my tape.
I am capable to produce a powerful, uplifting tape.
Making the tape was a necessary and important step in my career as a professional speaker, one that would allow me to reach more people with my message and story.
In my mind, I’d visualize myself working on my tape, being happy in it, smiling. But I was still having a hard time seeing the final product. I focused on doing the part I could see myself doing: producing it and working on it.
Later that spring, I sat in a recording studio, preparing to make a tape of my speech. (A generous friend had given me the studio time as a gift.) Doing the speech one more time, with no one watching or listening but me and the engineer, should be a piece of cake. I’d spoken to thousands of men and women around the United States and Canada.
I hit a brick wall. “I can’t do this,” I said. “I don’t have a degree in this. I’ve never made a recording before. What makes me think I’d be good at doing this?”
I sat in the studio for another ten minutes, staring blankly at the microphone. This was too hard. I couldn’t do it. I got up and walked out the door.
A year later, I had another chance to make my tape. This time, I was smarter. I asked for help long before driving to the recording studio. I remembered listening to a tape by James Robinson, a well-known motivational speaker. I decide to play it again before going to the studio.
On the tape, Robinson asked his listeners to recall a time when they pulled back from something their heart wanted to do because they were afraid. He was certainly speaking to me. First, Robinson had me close my eyes and picture a goal or a dream I really wanted to achieve. That part was easy: I wanted to make the tape.
“Now,” Robinson instructed, “close your eyes and see yourself a year from now and you haven’t done what you wanted to do.”
I shut my eyes and saw a lot of disappointed people. During my speeches, I had told my audience that I was making a tape, when it would be ready, and how they could order it. I had a long list of people who wanted to buy my tape, but it was a year later and they still hadn’t heard from me. My body started to slump down.
“See yourself five years from now,” Robinson continued, “and you still haven’t done it.”
I was getting a headache. I was disappointed in myself because I knew I could make the tape. I was smart enough, but I still hadn’t acted.
“See yourself ten years from now and you still haven’t done what you wanted to do,” Robinson said.
My body was aching now. My back hurt.
“Now pull yourself out,” Robinson said.
I was relieved, but I also felt sick.
According to Robinson, the main reason people don’t get what they want is that they fear the pain involved. In this exercise, he wanted us to see that there’s even more pain involved in not following our dreams.
Before doing this exercise, I spent a year and a half procrastinating about making the tape. A week and a half after listening to Robinson, my speech, “Choosing Your Road to Success,” was in polished tape form.
CHAPTER 14
BE MORE THANKFUL
I LOVE SPEAKING TO CHILDREN OF ALL AGES in schools across the United States and Canada. They are always on the edge of their seats when I recount the story of the hijacking and my long recovery. Their eyes completely focus on mine.
Talking to kids is special to me because they are so direct, real, and honest about their feelings, especially young children. They are so full of hopes and dreams and the spark of life.
They also ask me great questions, such as “Do you dream half or whole?” and “How do you put on your makeup?”
To the first, I answer; “I don’t usually remember my dreams, but when I do, I remember thoughts, not visual images.”
To the second question, about putting on makeup, I say, “Very carefully.” I have to be very patient when I put on my eyeliner. I can only see half of my eyes, so I have to put on a little bit, then move it slowly to the next section and the next. I do the same with face powder. I put on a little bit, then move on to another section and cover a little bit more of my face. I have to hope that, somehow, it all connects and I don’t end up with blotches of eyeliner or gaps of face powder.
The two subjects kids are most interested in are my divorce and my out-of-body experience.
About my divorce, I say, “You have to be truly, truly committed in a relationship. You have to always try new things to make it work out. Whenever one person isn’t truly committed, it kind of breaks down. My ex-husband and I just started to go our separate ways and do things separately and, before we knew it, we had grown far apart. To tell you the whole story of what really went on, I’d need three and a half years, because that’s how long it lasted.”
Sometimes, kids follow me to my car after I’ve spoken to their class. They want to ask me more questions: “Do I have any kids? How did the guns get on the plane?”
Some of them just want to stand by me, be with me.
Kids are more direct than adults about their fears as well as their curiosities. Most adults, for example, live in denial of their own mortality. Kids, on the other hand are more interested and open to talking about death. They haven’t yet learned to fear it the way most adults have.
On one of my Good Company appearances, I talked about my near death experience. My friend Sandy’s young son, Anthony, came with me to the studio. He was puzzled and curious about death. How could I see my grandmother who was dead?
How could I explain it to him? Then I remembered watching a television movie a few years ago. Richard Thomas, the actor who played John Boy on the Waltons, starred as the father of a young boy dying of AIDS. In a very moving scene, Thomas tries to explain to his son, William, what will happen when he dies.
The father takes an ordinary glove and dances it around, saying, “This is your body.” He holds his other hand up in the air and says, “This is your spirit. When you are up in Heaven, your s
pirit comes down and goes into a body.”
Then the father puts his hand in the glove.
“It’s a little bit restricted,” he continues, “but your body gets you around here on earth. So, here you are, your name is William and now William has AIDS and he has to leave his body.”
The father removes the glove and leaves it on the boy’s bed. “Your body goes to the graveyard,” he tells the boy, “but here is your spirit—it goes back up to Heaven. Your spirit is who you really are.”
My message to kids, and adults, is that death is not the real tragedy in life. The real tragedy is not living while we can here on earth. It happens when we withhold our gifts and talents from others, and never feel the excitement, peace, and joy that comes from sharing our deepest selves.
The message I give to kids is the same message I give to grown-ups in suits and ties, and business outfits working in major corporations, to teachers, medical personnel, insurance executives, salespeople, secretaries, nurses, and physical therapists: “You can be and do anything that your heart desires—if you believe you can. Attitude is all.”
The power of belief, attitude, and expectation always amazes me. With belief, I’ve seen people accomplish things they never thought possible. I remember one experience from my first year of teaching first grade students that made me begin to appreciate the huge impact teachers can have in shaping a young person’s life. I learned that if I truly cared about my students, I’d have to look deeper inside myself and be willing to learn from them. It had to be a two-way street.
As a student of psychology and learning, I was especially interested in how our expectations affect our relationships. I was aware of studies showing that we make our first judgments of people seconds after first meeting them. But that was something other people did. I was far too educated to be guilty of that kind of shallowness. I never saw myself as a person who prejudged others.
Miles To Go Before I Sleep Page 21