Throw Your Heart Over The Wall

Be like the bird that, pausing in her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings,
knowing that she hath wings.
~ Victor Hugo~

Coach Tom Coughlin recently advised his now Bowl- bound New York Giants to "Throw your heart over the wall, and your body will follow." His players have quoted him in the press and credited that statement with giving them a winning mental image to hang onto as they faced the playoffs.

Not to take anything away from Coach Coughlin, but I was curious about the statement and did a little research. After all, great quotes are meant to be quoted, and I knew the minute I heard this one that it held a powerful message for cancer
survivors and caregivers.

The earliest version of it I found was in Dr. Norman Vincent Peale's book The Power of Positive Thinking published in 1952. According to an anecdote in this most famous of all Dr. Peale's books, a master trapeze artist, having provided lengthy lessons and demonstrations to his students, instructed them to demonstrate their ability on the high trapeze bar. One student froze completely when his turn came. He was filled with terror and could only visualize himself falling. Unable to move a muscle, he gasped, "I can't do it! I can't do it!"

The instructor put his arm around the young man's shoulder and said, "Son, you can do it and I will tell you how. You must throw your heart over the bar and your body will follow."

Reading this anecdote, I recalled the day twelve years ago when my oncologist took my husband Roger (who had also just been diagnosed with cancer) and me into a small conference room, seated us at a table and handed me a thick document. I had agreed to participate in a clinical trial, and this was the consent form for that trial. I had to read it, the doctor said, and initial each page to indicate that I understood the risks involved in the experimental treatments
for which I had volunteered.

I recall only these few things: We were both still in shock from our simultaneous diagnoses, barely able to keep it together for more than a few minutes at a time. It was hard to read the consent form because my eyes kept filling and spilling. Words like "thrombotic event," "sudden respiratory failure," "cardiac arrest," "sudden death" and "potentially fatal allergic reaction" jumped out at me. And my hands trembled so violently that Roger had to hold the papers still and steady the pen
so I could initial all 13 pages.

When we finished, a nurse handed me a six-month calendar with approximately 70 notations of appointments for tests, lab work, scans and x-rays, surgeries, chemotherapy and radiation treatments. She began to go over them nonchalantly, as if they were no big deal, even a bit boring
like chores or errands to run.

And that's when I panicked. I looked at Roger and, like the trapeze student frozen with terror, I said, "I can't do it! I can't do it!" He took my hands in his and said, "Yes, you can. Don't look at the whole calendar. Just look at today. Tomorrow we'll look at tomorrow. All we have to do is show up
one day at a time."

I struggled to breathe. Finally, slow, deep breaths replaced the shallow, choking ones. I was facing a brick wall. It was so close I could smell my own fear breathing back at me. There was no turning back, no way through it and no way around it. No shortcuts, no secret tunnels, no windows or doors. The only way to get to the other side of the wall was to acknowledge its length and strength and then to find a way over it.

After a few minutes of deep breathing and giving the wall its due, an other-worldly sense of peace settled over me. Some of it, I'm sure, was exhaustion, but I know now that sometimes that exhausted place is where we find what we need. I was letting go, trusting, giving up control of the universe, acknowledging the fear and, knowing that I could not plow through the wall, making a consious decision to find a way over it. And at last I thought, "I can do this. I can get over it, little by little, one day at a time." I handed the consent form to the doctor and said, "Let's do it."

Without knowing what it was I was doing, I was throwing my heart over the wall
and trusting that my body would follow.

What follows is quoted directly from Dr. Peale's book because there is no way I could put his message into my own words without them losing much of the power and beauty that have made his teachings so timeless:

"Throw your heart over the bar and your body will follow. Copy that one sentence. Write it on a card and put it in your pocket. Place it on your desk top. Tack it up on your wall. Stick it (on your bathroom) mirror. Better yet, write it on your mind.

"Heart is the symbol of creative activity. Fire the heart with where you want to go and what you want to be. Get it so deeply in your unconscious that you will not take no for an answer, then your entire personality will follow where your heart leads.

"'Throw your heart over the bar' means to throw your faith over your difficulty, throw your affirmation over every barrier, throw your visualization over your obstacles. In other words, throw the spiritual essence of you over the bar and your material self will follow in the victory groove thus pioneered by your faith-inspired mind."

Thank you, Coach Coughlin, for bringing this empowering statement into the headlines so that all warriors - from the football field to foreign battlefields to the fields where cancer warriors fight - can find renewed strength and courage in its wisdom. Thank you, Dr. Peale, for reminding us of the divine in each of us, the spirit that propels us forward and bids us move with dignity and grace through the most difficult times of our lives. And thank you, dearest Roger, for walking beside me on this journey, one step, one mile, one day at a time.

Dear God, thank You for the wisdom and strength of others, for the boldness of spirit, the courage and heart, the hand that reaches out to me when I stumble, lose my way or am frozen with fear. Thank you for all these things, God, because I know that it is through others and their gifts that You touch and heal us.
~ Amen ~

Mimi