The Numbers that Matter

Posted by Dr. Dina Evan _Featured_, Inspirational, Love, Spirituality Friday, March 30th, 2012

On March 12^th, I passed the speed limit and turned seventy. Turned seventy is such an odd phrase because there were no yellow caution lights, hand signals or blinking arrows. There was simply an easing into this odd number for which I have no affinity, and with which I am not engaged. Numbers, however, are funny things and I am irrefutably engaged with life and the other numbers in mine,

For Instance, I feel forty-five inside and people tell me I look fifty-five outside. I can’t sign up on Match.com which promises to help me meet hundreds of potential life-mates, because if I tell my true age, which seems pretty basic to the process, the Matches I am sent are in their eighties. They are people, who live in retirement communities, many, understandably, no longer vibrating at warp speed like me.

I left home at thirteen, and have worked every day since and no doubt will until I drop simply because I love it. That is fifty-seven years, or seventeen thousand, seven hundred and eighty-four days. In that time, I have had zero real vacations, mostly because I never felt I had anything from which I needed to escape.

I have had one true love who, gratefully, broke my heart open and although gone, still hangs out in it now and then. I have five precious true friends who stayed throughout my life and continue to be inextricably woven into my soul. I have four amazing children I am passionately in love with, four grandchildren who keep me in awe and two miniature poodles who keep me in line.

I put myself through college and have married more than twelve thousand people, ten thousand of whom I married on the steps of the IRS in 1987, during the March on Washington for human rights.

In 1982, I fasted longer than Gandhi…thirty-seven days on water on behalf of Equal Rights. I have taught thousands of people about an energy they can’t see called love, and hundreds more about character issues they cant see either…things like ethics, honesty, impeccability, integrity and personal character.

I have written five books, created one meditation CD, composed twenty-seven songs, created one perpetual calendar and one website and a partridge in a pear tree…no wait that one wasn’t me. I have, however, written over five hundred and sixty thousand words, or eight hundred columns for several magazines, and taught more than three hundred classes or more than 10,000 students.

I have no doubt pissed off countless numbers of people in my life simply by being who I am. I have pushed at a million edges and invited hundreds of people to step into their true purpose and greatness, some kicking and screaming and gratefully flipping me off.

I have also made a million mistakes, some that took my breath away, and brought me to my knees in humiliation and pain, and others that gave me gifts too profound to be contained by words. Every mistake and every person who hated me, loved me, hurt me or cared for me became a master teacher. I cannot imagine having traded any of them or any challenging circumstance, for anything. The numbers of our years are so less meaningful than the numbers of our lessons learned.

So, here I am looking back over the years from 1942 to 2012, wondering what the next few years will bring and feeling as if I have that Board in the movie, Mission Impossible in front of me and I get to pick the numbers that matter. Okay, let’s do it.

The numbers that matter are the million moments that made me cry and the ones that caught my breath during this life. They are the two handfuls of people who have journeyed through life with me, each one knowing we had a contract with each other that was more important than any circumstance or words that might have broken it. The important numbers are the seven principles that were often painstakingly earned and frequently took too long to own. (1) Stay present to everything. (2) Take personal responsibility. (3) Judge nothing. (4) Love to the point of letting your heart break open. (5) Tell impeccable truth, and (6) remember that nothing real is ever lost and finally, (7) there is no end to this journey. Life just simply is evolving, beautifully.

Well, maybe there is one more… to learn to stand back with a huge grin on your face as life happens and you ease pass the speed limit, with a big ”Aaahhh so.”

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© 2012 Dr Dina Evan, Phoenix AZ

Dr Dina Evan is a licensed psychotherapist and nationally recognized presenter and activist for human rights and spiritual consciousness. She works with individuals and couples in California and Arizona (602) 997-1200 www.DrDinaEvan.com