“Hurry up! I can’t wait any longer!”

Some columns are easier to write than others. This one has taken longer to write, because recently I have been preoccupied with the birth of my new granddaughter, Melisa Makay, on April 8th, weighing 6 pounds, 5 oz. Then I thought, “Every day my life is bringing me Lessons in Life. All I have to do is look for them.” So instead of trying to stop thinking about Melisa and her birth in order to write this column, I found myself deliberately thinking about Melisa and her birth and letting my mind take me to whatever lesson my first granddaughter brought for me. (The first of many, I am sure.)

It was truly a miracle that I got to be there for her birth. Even if I arrived only two minutes before Melisa, I still made it! As I rushed down the hospital corridor I could almost hear her saying, “Hurry up! I can’t wait any longer.”

It took arranging my flight just two hours before take off (thank God I got to use some air miles!), taking two planes, a two-hour car drive, and finding my way through Camp Pendleton military base all by myself at midnight, to get to the hospital. Only nine hours had elapsed from the time I’d heard that my daughter-in-law, Lana, had been admitted to the hospital and I decided I wanted to be there with her and my son, Paul, for the moment of birth. I knew it was going to be a race against time, since this was Lana’s second child, and I knew that second babies very often come much quicker.

Even after assisting and actually delivering many babies in my first five years as a registered nurse, witnessing the incredible miracle of birth has never lost its impact on me. Though it had been years since I’d been “in on” a delivery, all those feelings and memories rushed right back. Melisa was so beautiful, and watching her take her first breath and look around reminded me of a quote that Neale has often used: “Babies are God’s announcement that life should go on.”

Witnessing Melisa’s arrival also reminded me that attending a birth as a nurse in the delivery room is a much different experience, because we have been trained to know all the things that could go wrong, and especially all the problems that could occur during the pregnancy. With this knowledge, we are relieved and amazed at how rare it is that serious problems do develop. I was especially pleased that all went well with Melisa’s arrival.

When I was working in obstetrics, most of the nurses were in their mid-20’s and early 30’s, and many of us were having our own children during that time. In fact, that’s when I had my two sons. It was so comforting for me to have as friends all the nurses who were going to be with me during my delivery. We really had a great team.

One thing has struck me, though, as I remember all us nurses giving birth. While, in the general population, things seldom went wrong, when we, with all our knowledge of what could go wrong, were having our children, we sure had a high incidence of things that actually did go wrong. Both of my birthing experiences had complications, and I could tell the same story about many of the other nurses. We began thinking that the nursing staff was jinxed!

These days I wonder if having to prepare every day in that department for all the things that could go wrong, caused us to focus much stronger on those possibilities, bringing about just what we were concerned about in our own pregnancies and deliveries. Maybe it’s like the experience that many medical students go through, thinking they have every ailment they’re studying at the time. Some actually develop problems!

Consciousness is an amazing thing. It does have an impact on our lives. For instance, it’s a known fact that the observers of an experiment can have an affect on the experiment itself, actually altering the outcome. That’s why scientists do double-blind testing, and use placebos. Doctors can’t explain why a placebo can work as well as the drug it is being compared to—but often, it does. Experiments have also been done in which the same sugar pills create either a positive reaction or a negative reaction, depending upon how the sugar pill was described and explained to the person taking it.

It still amazes me that, with all the evidence we have on how the things we think about and focus on can affect life’s outcomes, so few people actually pay attention to this. As I nurse I knew about these concepts, but never really believed that continually worrying about something could actually bring it about. I just noticed that I was right to worry, because what I worried about usually occurred. It never dawned on me that if I hadn’t worried about it, it might not have happened.

It took my embracing the CwG material and living with Neale—who rarely worries—and hearing him teach this material, to fully realize that focusing on what I think, say, and do can create outcomes in my life. Now I am very observant of myself, and I keep my worrying to a minimum. When I catch myself doing it, I just drop it as soon as I can, by “changing the subject” in my mind.

When I got the call from my son about Lana actually going into labor, I made sure I didn’t focus on what could go wrong this time, and just focused on being there! And even though the odds were against it (I was in another state, had no plane reservations and nothing in place for a trip), I knew that I was going to be there—and I was! Melisa was born literally 120 seconds after I walked into the room. And there was not even the slightest complication.

P.S. I’ve told this story of arriving just in time for the birth, as well as a previous story I told you a few weeks ago about making a plane in Las Vegas (see Archives file) not to make me look good, but to get you thinking. What if — just what if — the things you mentally focus on might actually affect your reality? And, is it possible that the combined energy of many thoughts can create critical mass and produce collective outcomes? Conversations with God answers yes to both of these questions. And so, if these stories can get even one person thinking, if they could even get you to watch for signs in your life that confirm how this works, I will be thrilled. Here’s to all of you happy non-worrying creators.