Soul Food Gallery

HAVE FAITH IN THE RAIN DELAY

awarded for the patience to wait for your season and acting accordingly when it arrives

Have Faith in The Rain Delay’s Message:

When it's your season, the entire universe will rise to meet you. 

Forces greater than yourself will provide you with the space to remember who you are and take your rightful place. 

This is best illustrated with a story about sports.

Specifically, the Chicago Cubs in Game 7 of the 2016 World Series. 

And for those of you who have known me for a long time, you’re probably saying, "Really, Arianne? A sports metaphor? Who are you right now?"

Well, I am now a kinda sports fan. Shocking, I know.  

It's even shocking to me, but I allow myself to grow and change this life.

Something happened the night I watched Game 7 of the 2016 World Series. 

It changed me.

It changed me in a way I like. 

Look, I did not plan this transformation. Believe me, I did not plan on having a mystical experience while watching sports.

But, as you know, one cannot plan these things. It could have been any game, on any day, but it was that one. Full disclosure, this is the only baseball game I ever watched in its entirety that held my attention and made me cry.

At that time, in addition to having a deep affection for the city of Chicago, I was also in a season of really trying to tap into what other people tapped into and got out of watching sports.

I saw them.

They were having fun.

And I wanted to join in, but I refused to be a poser. If I'm going to do anything, it has to be real for me. I've got to feel it. You know that by now.

My husband was one of those people having fun. So, I may not have been a huge sports fan, but I was a huge fan of him. I wanted to try to get it. He and I shared so much of the things we loved and I wanted to join him in this area where we were at opposite ends of the spectrum. 

Although I was open, I expected to happen what usually happened. 

Me just being happy for him as I watched my usually reserved and even-keeled husband get completely emotionally engaged in the process of a good baseball or football game. 

And I would get a foot rub. That was usually my favorite part.

Look, I had really tried to get into sports. My dad and cousins had tried on numerous occasions to get to me see the light. But, as earnestly as they tried, I just couldn't get into it. It just wasn't my thing. 

When I thought of sports, my non-athletic self went immediately to being forced to play in gym class, getting picked last for teams, or having dodge balls whipped at my head. 

Not my idea of fun.

If you would have asked me prior to watching Game 7 what I thought about sports, I would have told you I wished that number of people could rally around a cause that was actually a real thing to help real people in a real way. 

I swear we could all get matching T-Shirts. 

I still think this is a good idea.

But, not in exclusion to sports anymore, in addition to it. 

Side bar, that’s the initial statement I wrote based on the experience I had in 2016. Yet, in these 2023 reimaginations of the messages, it’s important to mention what I’ve witnessed since The Cubs won The World Series on Nov. 2, 2016.

In the days and years that followed, I watched the sports world respond to very real causes in very real ways with every knee taken and every t-shirt that said VOTE once it was election time again in 2020.

This, in addition, to shutting the sports world down without hesitation to keep people safe when that was necessary during the early stages of the pandemic, truly changed the game.

Thank you sports for doing something that made, ‘it’s not just a game’ truer than ever.

And now, getting back to my initial revelation…

As I was experiencing this epic World Series Game 7, I was unexpectedly going through emotional releases of every shape and size.

When it was all over, I said to myself, “Wait a minute...I've done this before. 

What is this? What is this?”

And then it hit me:

Sports are the world’s most user-friendly healing circle.

This was a safe space to feel all of your feelings and not be judged. 

I noticed the seriousness of how everyone gathered.

Nobody was wearing crystals, but this was no ordinary day.

Something big was about to happen and we were going through it together. 

There were massive heart-wrenching, soul-cleansing moments where we all screamed out in agony to release the energy that bubbled up.  We didn’t really know where it was all going. So, a lot of it was just accepting what showed up and riding that energy. 

And in the end, the absolute ecstasy of a shared win and the tides turning. The shared Yes! of the hit and the catch that soared through time and space to change everything.

Embracing the reality of an energy pattern of loss becoming the breakthrough into a new chapter. 

A feeling of shared joy, connection and oneness. 

The permission to reach out and embrace each other unabashedly.

Oh yeah, this whole sports thing was most definitely the world's greatest and most regularly scheduled healing circle and retreat.

I get it now. 

It isn't “just a game”. 

People need this. 

This is a very important river for many, many people.

Especially for those among us who, for their own very good reasons, feel safer with their emotions and vulnerability neatly tucked away.

The container of sports is a really healthy place to put that neatly tucked away emotional energy. Especially for men in this culture, who are overall given very little room to freely express all the complicated emotions brewing inside.

This is a place they can go and let it all out. 

Because maybe Dad said it's okay to cry as long as the game is on. Maybe because game day was quality time day.  And when there was a big win, everybody hugged and you rode around on his shoulders. And that was the real big win.

I get it. I ain't mad at cha. Rock it out and wear your T-Shirts.

You know, a ticket to a potentially epic sporting event is a lot less expensive than the healing retreats I go to and was similarly as cathartic. Done on a regular basis, this might just be a new river on which I row my boat. And I might just get a T-Shirt.

For me, the big shift came while watching the post-game commentary.

I listened in absolute awe as Jason Heyward, #22 for The Chicago Cubs, described what he said to the team in the clubhouse during the rain delay that changed everything in Game 7. 

The rain delay that allowed the team time to pause and make some decisions about what was next and how they would show up. 

Heyward told the press that he gathered the team and said,

“I just had to remind them who they were...I just had to remind everybody who we are…who these guys are ...and what we’ve overcome to get here”.

It took me back to the times I had my own personal rain delays. 

And how if I didn’t pause to remember who I was and act accordingly, things would look much different now. 

Jason Heyward may have struck out in the last inning he was up to bat in Game 7 of the 2016 World Series, but he hit the grand slam that was needed for his team during the rain delay in the clubhouse.

He inspired everyone to take their rightful place and they took it.

You never know what your grand slam is gonna look like.

There is immense power in taking a breath, remembering who you are and what you came here to do.

Have faith in the rain delay.

When it's your season, it will be your season.

If you have earned or are earning this Soul Success Medal for Humanity, please place your hand on your heart and claim it for yourself.

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