I created Living ROI as a passion, to share my experiences and support others who want to live more authentic, joyful and fulfilling lives.
Dear Friends,
For those of you interested in my water-only fasting process, I’ll share an update on that first. If you missed my blog last week entitled “Healing,” I went into lots of detail on water-only fasting. I’m doing this as a proactive health intervention. In my blog last week, I also mentioned that water-only fasting for more than five days should be medically supervised and it’s not safe for everyone.
I’m on day 9 as I write this and I’m doing really well… now. It was rough for many of the early days. I am keeping a daily video diary to track the experience and my team has put the first seven days into one video. Check out my Day 1-7 Fasting Video if you’d like to hear more.
Barbara’s Fasting Journey Days 1-7
Originally, I planned to do a 14-day fast, but now I’m shooting for 10 days. I’ll share the final days and the re-feeding process in another video compilation next Sunday.
In the meantime, the COVID-19 pandemic continues. Both this crisis, and the fast, have me in a contemplative mood. I received the story below in an email from a friend and thought it well worth sharing. Right now, so many people are packing my parachute, and I am eternally grateful.
Charles Plumb was a US Navy jet pilot in Vietnam. After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air missile. Charles ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured and spent 6 years in a communist Vietnamese prison. He survived the ordeal and now lectures on lessons learned from that experience!
One day, when Charles and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man at another table came up and said, “You’re Plumb! You flew jet fighters in Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!”
“How in the world did you know that?” asked Charles.
“I packed your parachute,” the man replied.
Charles gasped in surprise and gratitude.
The man pumped his hand and said, “I guess it worked!”
Charles assured him, “It sure did. If your chute hadn’t worked, I wouldn’t be here today.”
Charles couldn’t sleep that night, thinking about that man. Charles says, “I kept wondering what he had looked like in a Navy uniform: a white hat; a bib in the back; and bell-bottom trousers. I wonder how many times I might have seen him and not even said ‘Good morning, how are you?’ or anything because, you see, I was a fighter pilot and he was just a sailor.”
Charles thought of the many hours the sailor had spent at a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship, carefully weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his hands each time the fate of someone he didn’t know.
Now, Charles asks his audience, “Who’s packing your parachute?” Everyone has someone who provides what they need to make it through the day. He also points out that he needed many kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down over enemy territory – he needed his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional parachute, and his spiritual parachute. He called on all these supports before reaching safety.
Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss what is really important. We may fail to say hello, please, or thank you, congratulate someone on something wonderful that has happened to them, give a compliment, or just do something nice for no reason. As you go through this week, this month, this year, recognize people who pack your parachutes.
Wishing you sturdy and lovingly-packed parachutes as you glide through your life!
Barbara Fagan-Smith
CEO, ROI Communication
Chief Catalyst, Living ROI
The Great Realisation: A COVID-19 story with perspective and hope
