Bridge Builders: Ordinary Women Doing Extraordinary Things

By Elaine Voci

As you read the stories in Bridge Builders: Ordinary Women Doing Extraordinary Things, you will enjoy the company of 12 humorous, uplifting and energizing women. You will find wonderful portrayals of the heart, mind and soul of faith and come to appreciate these aspects of yourself. Elaine Voci gives us the 12 stories of women who have had life-changing experiences plus her own story during the year that it took to complete the book. Whether facing terminal illnesses, the loss of a hard-won career or the pursuit of a dream that seems unreachable, these women found a source of faith and courage within themselves that they did not always trust or believe they had. Each called upon inner resources, friendships with other women, scriptural passages and other inspiring words to not only endure, but to conquer fear and grow stronger. They have made it through the dark night of the soul, not just intact, but stronger and wiser for the experience.

• Language: English
• Publisher: eBookIt.com
• Release date: Apr 26, 2016
• ISBN: 9781456624316

Elaine Voci

ELAINE VOCI is a life coach, grief group facilitator, and the author of Bridge Builders: Ordinary Women Doing Extraordinary Things and Creating the Work You Love: A Guide to Finding Your Right Livelihood. She lives in the Midwest with her spouse.

Book preview

stories.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

To God, the Original Creator, who spoke this message into my heart and whose loving guidance saw me through sleepless nights and who provided me with inspiration, energy and perseverance to complete this work the first time, and again in this revised edition. In particular, I received encouragement through Jim Cota, President of Rare Bird, in Indianapolis. He strongly suggested that I introduce this book to a whole new generation of readers by converting it to an e-book, and I am deeply grateful to him.

To each of the twelve women who so generously and vulnerably shared her story with me for this book, I am honored and humbled. In ten years, my admiration of you has only grown deeper and I find myself often reflecting on your stories, your words and your beautiful spirits.

To my dear children, Todd and Jen Belanger, and Greg and Debbie Belanger, among the most loving and caring people I know, who always encourage me to do my best and whose humor has saved the day more than once. To my precious grandchildren, Connor, Troy, Charlie, Kate and Alex, who have given me unwavering love and allowed me to be a child again, over and over, by creating art, music, painting and play together.

To all the women who may read this book, I hope it serves you as a well of inspiration that you can drink from deeply as you listen to your inner voice, draw courage into your heart and bring forth your unique gifts. Bless you!

Introduction

The twelve women you are about to meet are not shy, faltering women. They have had life-defining experiences, some of them defy convention and each of them continues to reach for her dreams – for the good of others. But they are not bigger than life, either. That is what I find so compelling about their stories: they are as bold as any fictional heroine ever created and yet as ordinary as people like us. They are the classic everywoman.

They are ordinary in the sense that they strive to be good mothers, daughters, sisters, friends and wives while managing family and career responsibilities. They struggle with challenges any of us might encounter: illness, the loss of a parent, career changes, and the social pressures surrounding the role of women in the larger society. They are extraordinary because they have made courageous choices to face their difficulties head-on with dignity, honesty, and quiet determination. They are bridge builders in the way they naturally link people, ideas and resources with goals designed to make a difference in the world.

The common element that unites them is a deeply spiritual perspective that transcends their differences in age, occupation, ethnicity or religion. From this spiritual viewpoint a woman's major life task is much larger than making money, having a career, finding a spouse, raising children, dressing fashionably, looking pretty, or defying aging. It is a realization of the sacred in the commonplace. It is a deep sense of thankfulness for the web of interconnections between nature, people and the physical world. It is a recognition that true intimacy, based on mutual respect and love, is the foundation of a life well-lived.

In the past few years, I have been developing a model, called the Heroine's Mythic Journey, to depict a woman's life cycle as a process with distinct, yet interrelated, stages. I visualize it as a circle with each of the stages plotted around it. I have presented the model to numerous women's groups and conferences in the U.S. and Canada and women tell me repeatedly that they can relate to the stages. I trust their candid feedback as authentic. This book is a collection of interviews with twelve women who are serving their families, neighborhoods, organizations and communities with passion, commitment and courage. They embody the Heroine's Mythic Journey.

Being a heroine, by definition, involves finding and using courage to surmount the fears and obstacles that come with human endeavor. When we take such action, we are rewarded with increased self-confidence, resiliency and personal growth. Let me share a short story to illustrate this. My first grandson, Connor, was born with a rare form of childhood cancer called retinal blastoma, in which the retina of the eye is attacked by fast-spreading tumors that can result in blindness. He was diagnosed at four months of age and it quickly became necessary to surgically remove his left eye in order to save his life. He has worn a prosthetic eye ever since, periodically having it replaced as he grows. (Our eyes grow until we are seven years of age.)

Each time I babysat for Connor, I lived in dread that his prosthesis would come out and I would have to put it back in place. I was not squeamish, because the eye socket looks perfectly fine, but I was afraid I would hurt him, or be unable to do it and cause him to lose confidence in me.

Like most fears, the more I worried about it, the bigger it grew in my mind. Finally, last spring when I was babysitting Connor, who is now five years old, it happened. He rubbed his eyes and his prosthesis slipped out. I was panicked.

Connor and I talked about what to do, and we tried several times to replace it, but to no avail. It was late so I put him to bed, after he had extracted an agreement to sleep in my bed for just one night. I spoke to my son and his wife by phone and they walked me through the instructions which sounded simple enough. I spent the night praying in this manner: God, please let it be Your hands guiding mine tomorrow.

Morning came. Connor awoke perky as usual and declared, Nonna, I've got an idea. Let's put my eye back before breakfast!

I agreed and we marched to the kitchen, my knees trembling. He tilted his head back, and I held his eyelid open and placed the prosthesis into the socket. A kind of natural suction took over and the elliptical-shaped eye slipped in. Connor blinked a few times and we both grinned at each other. In celebration, I picked him up and danced around the kitchen with him in my arms shouting, I love you so much, Connor!

By being forced to face my fear and act with courage, I discovered I could do what I had dreaded for so long. In retrospect, it was easier than I imagined. And there were gifts: the two of us became closer to one another, and both of us felt secure in the knowledge that if it happened again, I would be able to help.

Courage is necessary for spiritual growth; without it, none of us can live up to our potential or fulfill our life purpose. It comes from the French word coeur, which means heart and spirit, a powerful combination. To say that someone has heart means they are willing to be open to the world. They are strong enough to be vulnerable. When we speak of someone's spirit we aren't speaking in a religious context. We mean they are living by principles of faith, hope and trust in sacred partnership with life, with the universe and with God. To be courageous, then, is not to be without fear. To be courageous is to consciously choose faith over fear, hope over despair, surrender, not control, and trust, rather than doubt.

Courage is integral to the heroine's mythic journey. Listen for it as Terry describes sailing unaccompanied across the ocean at the age of seven in order to join her mother in Canada. Hear it in Jean's words as she talks about learning to let go of the fear of failure and enjoying her career by setting more realistic expectations of herself. Consider Marie's story of coming back, after nearly dying, into a world so changed she no longer knew where she fit in, or why she had survived.

As I interviewed one woman after another, it became apparent they were on the same spiritual pilgrimage. While their educational backgrounds, ages and vocations were different, their stories followed the stages of the Heroine's Mythic Journey. The model became real right before my eyes.

The interviews also helped me to better understand courage. I saw that it is not always displayed in powerful, intense or intimidating acts of heroism. It is as often found in speaking the truth, in being still, in forgiveness, and in tender acts of compassion. The women's stories helped me identify four spiritual laws of courage: intuition, choices, acceptance and action. I noticed how these intersected the stages of the Heroine's Mythic Journey and how the combined effect was to stretch women into places of uncompromising self-awareness, changing them, and making them humble.

The first is the law of intuition. Women sense an inner rudder, an inner wisdom, helping them navigate through life. This wisdom corresponds with innate knowing, a sense of something that cannot be explained or described using only the intellect. Intuition produces a physical sensation often described as a funny feeling or a gut feeling. It can be the spark that inspires a woman's creativity, for example, and sets her life soaring in a new direction. It can also be a protective mechanism when she is in a dangerous or threatening situation. Several years ago, I recall reading The Gift of Fear¹, a book by Gavin de Becker, a noted security specialist who pioneered the development of a profile of men who stalked women. He said every crime has a warning and women can avoid victimization by trusting the phenomenon of knowing without knowing why. When a woman feels a vague, nagging fear, she should acknowledge it as an intuitive distress signal and not put herself at risk by going somewhere alone with a man she mistrusts for any reason. The more we use our intuition, the stronger it becomes.

The second is the law of choices. We are given free will for the purpose of choosing. We may not have complete control over what happens to us, but we always have control over how we choose to respond. Some choices we face in life are so difficult they generate a spiritual crisis of such magnitude that we are brought to our knees. Authors have described it as the dark night of the soul where fear and faith collide. More than half of the women in this book have suffered such a crisis. Safe passage through the crisis requires a breakdown in which we must let go of our own agenda and ego needs, in order to choose faith over fear. Hear it in Pam's words, God loves me, knows exactly what I need to be doing as His instrument in this world. When I feel under siege and start to become stressed, I quiet myself and trust in God. If I am full of anxiety or trying to bargain with God, I recognize that I have stepped back into acting on my agenda. But when I choose to trust and do what I am skilled at doing, then I can go home, lay my head down and sleep even though things are spinning around me. I've done all I know how to do but I haven't crossed over and gotten in God's way.

The third is the law of acceptance. By embracing whatever comes to us, even the most painful circumstances, we enter a sacred partnership with life. We begin to see the world as a giant classroom in which each person has been equipped with a brilliant lesson plan tailored to his or her individual growth. This view requires an active willingness to fall in love with the challenges we face and turn them our way. A good example can be found in the chapter, Fifty 'Happy' Faces, when Nancy tells us she sees herself as one of the lucky ones because cancer makes me appreciate all the things I took for granted.

The fourth is the law of action. It is not enough to know about courage intellectually, we must act with courage. The ultimate goal of the heroic journey is to learn to act with love for ourselves and for others. Mary Jane's story of saying goodbye to her family before emergency surgery, in the event she did not survive, is a compelling example. She undertook a series of brave actions: making peace with God; telling loved ones what they meant to her; praying for strength and preparing to die.

The Heroine's Mythic Journey has six stages that operate in concert with the laws of courage:

1. Inspiration – This is where the journey begins and it represents that place where our divine spark is ignited and where we might glimpse our life purpose for the first time. Inspiration can occur suddenly through a crisis, or come about by a gradual awakening. Juana describes three people who inspired her: "My philosophy of life was shaped by my grandfather, an educated man whose work was delivering babies in remote villages deep in the mountains. He read Scriptures to me and certain ones resonated, such as 'Whatever you do for the smallest child, you do for Me.' He urged me to look for ways to help those who could not help themselves. I was also deeply affected by my parents' example and their unconditional love. I was their only child, yet they wanted me to be