All my life I had been searching for an answer to whatever was in my mind at the time. I had no idea at that point in my life that answers would come without being searched for. I read extensively and then one day I saw the DVD of The Secret. Then I bought the book. I watched and read, watched and read, over and over. My mind was blown by the fact that what these teachers were describing, I was doing! I had no idea it was a ‘thing’. It had a name. I was unconsciously competent in ‘the law of attraction’. Who knew?

Answers or clues, be they small or huge, are given to us by the Universe. Sometimes we fail to see them because they are so obvious. Or on many occasions, we have to understand that what we want sometimes comes dressed as something else and we need to unwrap it. When we become aware of the fact that there are no accidents, we start to notice the clues.

I had been learning and researching throughout my life. Experience built on experience. In truth, these experiences, learnings, teachings, ideas had all been added in the hope that something magical or unknown would happen, allowing me to get to the point of understanding myself and life.

Or, I would find the real secret, “The Greatest Secret“. And then, rain. Rain on my face.

Even now, when most people run for cover when rain falls, I turn my face to the sky and let it hit my face. I know what it means. It means I am alive.

What do I mean by that? I see everything as an adventure. Something to experience, another incident that I can learn from, something I can draw strength from, something that I can grow from, or something I can do for someone else.

Where did that mindset come from? In 2009 I was driving from Lyon to Paris in France. I had been staying with friends and was on my way to visit some more friends in Paris before I boarding the Eurostar back to England a few days later. It was late in the evening and raining quite heavily. A leisurely drive to Paris was almost complete as the rain started to ease off on the country road. I drove around a sharp right bend in the road when suddenly I was blinded by the headlights of a car directly in front of me on my side of the road.

I swerved to my left but the other car caught the rear wing of my car with a deafening crash. I was airborne over the steep bank that fell sharply from the left side of the road.

No sooner had my car hit the slope of the bank then it started to roll down it. It seemed endless. It seemed in slow motion. Memories were stored with clarity. I am told that it was twenty minutes before the emergency services arrived.

Eventually, I was out of the car and strapped to a gurney. I was given a neck brace that covered all of my head apart from my face. I lay there, thankful that I was alive.

In what seemed like minutes but were most likely seconds, I became aware that I had changed. Altered completely.

I can pinpoint that change to that very moment without any hesitation or uncertainty. At that moment, lying on that stretcher, in a garden near Paris, I had a realization.

I had almost died but I no longer feared death because I had stared it in the face and it had turned away. I no longer fear death and never will. I don’t really fear anything. I see things for what they are now, not more than they are, which can be the problem.

I realized I still had so much to do in my life. People to meet, places to go. The problem was I couldn’t do any of that by being the person people thought I was. I had to be me, the real me. I resolved not to stop until all of my goals and dreams were realized and I knew that would be never, as new ones appear all the time.

I became aware that time was precious and life was precious too. Lives can change in a moment. Every second of every day was meant to be enjoyed, explored, and appreciated. I realized I had wasted so much time in my life. All that would change from now on. I had become something else from the person I had been. I had greater awareness and appreciation of myself and my world. I had a far more powerful understanding and awareness of myself, and my capability.

As the rain hit my face, I understood just how great it is to be alive. It was as if I were a different person from the old me, I was now the new me! I lay on that stretcher and as I felt the rain on my face, I was aware of myself.

After three months in the hospital, I was transferred to England and eventually went home.

I could philosophize about the accident. Why it happened. The reasons, the timing, the significance. Things happen to us and many people get stuck because of what happened. It impacts everything in the remainder of their life. The truth is, they don’t get stuck on what happened. They get stuck by the significance they give the event. When you become aware of that, you can put the memory down and stop carrying it into your future.

I think if I asked the Universe, ‘Why me?’ it would reply ‘Why not?’ The truth is that accident was one of the greatest events of my life. It gave me the opportunity to be aware of so much about myself. It made me become the person I was meant to be.

When it rains I turn my face to the sky for a while to feel the raindrops on my face, and I relive that moment when I became the new me. It is my ‘Greatest Secret’. I became aware of myself, of who I really am.

What happened on that night after I had crashed my car was like nothing else that had happened in my life before. My entire system of ‘knowing’ fell away, and I became aware of myself and everything in an instant. I relinquished the drama in my life and saw the person I really was.

Awareness provides the crack in the wall through which we see ourselves and the world. Sometimes, just a few bricks are all that’s needed to be demolished, sometimes the whole wall falls down. It is true enlightenment.

This enlightenment is internal. The car crash put me in touch with myself. Three months strapped to a bed does that. Spending time with yourself does that.

I hope you read “The Greatest Secret“! What you need to achieve this is in there. You don’t need a car crash to become aware.

May your life never be the same again.
Dave