This month I’m taking a couple of writing workshops called “Writing Your Life,” with award-winning author and journalist Jake Macdonald. The essence of the sessions is to dig deep into our own memories, personal experiences and life events as sources for compelling stories. While some of you may be thinking stories and ‘too much information’ about another’s experience make for incredibly boring reading, often the contrary is true. When we find the meaning – or mystery- in our own stories, and real-life comedies or tragedies, we can help others illuminate the meaning and universal truths in their own.

“Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness.” – Eckhart Tolle

They say life is not a rehearsal, well, neither is death. But for some reason I have had an unusual number of auditions that have allowed me to confront my own mortality.

In my life thus far, I have been involved in four major motor vehicle accidents, one as a pedestrian and the others as a driver, all of which could have abruptly ended my life. I have sustained a few minor injuries, but I have walked away from the wreckage every time. My younger sister, a passenger in one of those accidents, did not walk away. She died instantly after a head-on collision with a van on a small, two-lane highway on a dark November night. I was at the wheel when a drunk driver crossed into the oncoming lane, our lane, and annihilated the Toyota Celica in which we were travelling.

According to the accident reports, including evidence such as tire marks, the position of the vehicles and the massive damage, a RCMP officer told me that I came within four inches, literally, of being killed as well. After seeing the twisted piece of steel that used to be my car, many said it was a miracle that I survived.

Life is fragile, unpredictable … and often unexplainable. I get that.

Several years after the accident, I went to see a spiritual healer. I thought I had ‘dealt with’ my sister’s death, but apparently my subconscious had not. Here is part of the message I received:

There is deep mystery in choosing to incarnate on the earth plane. You have been a brave soul. You have chosen to be part of a deep mystery – one that has caused you very deep pain. Contemplate the possibility that by embracing the mystery, knowing that you cannot wrap a rational mind around it, you can let it go and embrace the mystery at a soul level. There is something beyond the rational. On a soul level there is always a connection; on a physical level the loss is real. Honor that. Respect that … but at the same time remember and understand that not all will be grasped rationally.

The car accident that took my sister’s life and the many other collisions I have survived have transformed my life and expanded my soul. After finding myself in a series of near-death experiences, I have come to accept the miraculous without any need, or logic, to explain it.

When you embrace the mystery at a soul level (rather than a rational one), you can live through great pain, great loss or incredible triumph without ever knowing why it has occurred.

As Henry Miller said, you can experience life as if everything is miraculous, or nothing is. Your experiences – internal and external—inform you and transform you. You are who you are not only because of what you lived through, but how you’ve come through it.

When you embrace life as the endless mystery that it is, without needing or demanding an explanation, you can endure even the deepest trauma without having to carry it with you.

If it is your soul’s intention to survive, you will. The most important question is not “Why did this happen?” but “What does this mean to my life?”

Perhaps Joseph Campbell said it best: “Life has no meaning, we give it meaning.”

What memories or events in your life have stayed with you? What deeper layers of meaning can you find in them?