AN ENDURING SPARK
I want you to hear about a part of my story and how I am still honouring that drive in me. So I want you to sit back and enjoy.
I actually can’t remember it like yesterday. What I do remember though is that it was a Sunday morning, and I was sitting at the table, flicking through the local paper, the Sunday Post. As I waited for my breakfast, skimming the various articles in the paper, I happened to come across something that really struck me.
It was a letter from a Danish man who had written in to say how much he and his wife loved Scotland. At that moment I realised something – I’d really like a penpal! A Danish girl of my own age would be perfect. I was 12 ½ years of age. Something inside me told me, or maybe it was on a whim, to write to this man. It was highly unlikely of course that he would reply to me. And for some time there was no answer to my letter. Until, out of the blue, an Airmail envelope with a Danish stamp dropped onto the doormat!
My correspondent had no family. But a colleague in the Bank where he worked had a daughter. Would I like to write to her? And so this was the beginning of a lifelong relationship and the realisation of what’s behind me and my work to this day.
All these years later we are still in touch, close friends even now. I am godmother to her son, and over the years I have attended all the various family occasions in Copenhagen: weddings, christenings, silver weddings – even the funeral of the dear husband of my friend – and so on.
A spark to do something different
A fruitful, fulfilling friendship that has endured across the years (and the sea) was all down to that spark of mine, a spark to do something different. Even at twelve years old I knew I was the kind of girl to challenge the norm and make my own decisions. And this is what drives me on today: I take my courage in both hands and do it anyway.
Today that spirit of the twelve-year-old Irene is at the heart of the real me and my professional offering. I’m still that little girl who wants to stand up for what she wants, someone who is prepared to do something out of the ordinary to make the world a better place – regardless of what others might think or what the outcome might be.
Using My Gift
Many of us think about doing things like reaching out to strangers in newspapers. I could easily have not bothered writing to the Danish man. And I did!! And that small act created something wonderful.
So now I take this gift of mine and use it in my work: to draw out that spark in others, nurturing that little flame that’s deep within and helping it burn brightly. Life-changing trajectories can be triggered by small events. By tiny sparks.
That was my story and sometimes that’s all it takes for me to fan that tiny or bright spark to enable you to see that it is your Gift to Yourself and Others.
Do you want to Go for It???? Then that is what I will be doing on my Autumn 10 Week Online Course – Stop It, Fuck It, Thank You. I will sit alongside you as you re-connect with that spark of courage – that spirit inside you that enables you to step outside the norm once again.
Contact me irene@irenebrankin.co.uk and let me know of your interest and we can also chat about any questions you might have.
Go Well.
