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It was 11.30pm on the night before an important job interview and I was just a couple of streets from my house heading back from a late trip to the convenience store. 

 

I'd noticed him before he approached me and something in his manner didn't feel right. I crossed the street to avoid him but he also crossed to intercept me. 

 

His first demand came without the stabbing threat. Unwisely, I replied "Nope." He followed up by increasing the stakes. With no control over my mouth, I gave him the same answer, as if stabbing might require my consent. 

 

From that point on, my mind has gifted me some very welcome amnesia. So I don't remember him punching me in the face, knocking me unconscious to the ground, causing five facial fractures including my jaw bone and eye socket, and then running away empty handed (that last bit is my favorite part of the story).

 

The next thing I remember was being gently lifted onto a chair, which had appeared from nowhere, by a small group of five or six guardian angels: strangers who heard a ruckus and ran out of their houses to help me.

 

They called the Police (and an ambulance which never came) and eventually I found myself in hospital being CT scanned for brain damage.

 

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My brain was unharmed and the fractures healed after 6 weeks of avoiding solid food. Nerve damage to the right side of my face initially left it numb so that I couldn't even feel a toothbrush in my mouth. 

 

In the two years since, the nerves have regenerated (or adapted) slightly and now it feels as if a dental anesthetic is permanently in the process of wearing off. It's not perfect but I can feel where my toothbrush is touching my teeth and gums now. 

 

The bruising took a couple of months to work its way from black, through brown and purple, to yellow and then gone. I called them my Pride Months as my face moved through the colours of the rainbow. 

 

Friends told me I was inspiring and brave. Neither felt particularly true. 

 

For my part, I think seven years of studying the Three Principles had set the groundwork to come through a deeply unpleasant experience with less distress than I would have expected. 

 

I felt a resilient part of me "decide" to be OK. It wasn't a conscious choice. Instead it came from somewhere deeper and I knew it was in charge. 

 

Of course, I wish it hadn't happened, but my mind chose to see the good fortune hidden in the misfortune: the fact I wasn't actually stabbed, the protective amnesia, the guardian angels, my intact brain, the fact I didn't need surgery, the healing that left no scars and no sign of the assault (a broken eye socket usually causes the eye to drop asymmetrically for life). 

 

They never caught him and I'm sure they never will. Perhaps oddly, I'm not especially angry with him though there were flashes of that for a while. That's also something that was decided for me somewhere deep inside. 

 

What he did was very wrong and if they'd found him, some punishment by the legal system would have been in order. But I honestly believe that living a life where you would attack innocent people is already a kind of punishment of its own. Though I don't know him, I'd choose my life over his any day. 

 

Maybe you'll read this and think I've brushed a coat of Pollyanna paint over the whole affair. It's OK if you do. But honestly, I didn't need to. Somehow a resilient part of me took charge and looked after me with no effort involved. ​​​​​

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I was offered trauma counselling but I didn't feel the need. I still believe living well is more than enough. 

 

In case you think everything is perfect, it's not. I'm still a little wary of going out alone late at night. But I'm not going to "work on" that. Something tells me it will gradually dissolve on its own. 

 

I truly hope nothing similar ever happens to you. But if it does, please know that there's already something inside you that will take care of you and guide you through, whether you've heard of the Principles or not. (They're automatic like gravity so you don't have to know or believe in them). 

 

And in case you're wondering: yes I got the job. I interviewed for it a few weeks later wearing shades. I'm still doing it and I love it. 

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James  UK