The Audacity of Victory

We've still got lightning in us.

Recently I overheard two middle-aged women talking in a crowded local lunch spot. The restaurant is frequented mostly by teenagers, who love its kitchy orange decor and huge green salads, which they order With extra caesar dressing pleasethanks! On this particular day a big gaggle of teens was smack in the center of the room, hunched over their plates. Between bites they bragged to each other at full volume about their ongoing accomplishments, things like achieving A’s on their final exams, passing their driver’s test, getting into college and securing internships. 

The older women were deep in a funk as they watched the kids from a corner table. Each new thing is a victory, one of them said glumly, like they’ve just climbed a mountain and are ready for the next one. The other woman, equally melancholy, nodded in agreement. Is that feeling behind us now? she wondered, I don’t know what to celebrate anymore. They stared off into the middle distance for a while, then collected their coats and walked out. 

Somewhere there is a sky filled with the wild golden banners of our youthful victories. The echo of light from this place is powerful magic, the kind that requires careful handling. It’s all too easy to get scorched by its luster, and long to feel past glories all over again. But I think victory, like energy, cannot be created or destroyed. I think it changes throughout our lives, constantly transforming and adjusting to accommodate our sense of possibility, of who we are and what we’re capable of. 

I also think it needs to be invited in and encouraged to grow. In the same way that atomic molecules get excited by heat and start to replicate, the energy of victory is responsive to stimulation. To create new victories in our lives, we need to engage with that energy and place ourselves inside its possibility. We can do this even when victory seems like a feature of the distant past, and there is nothing new on the horizon. Our past victories can serve as test cases to prove that, yes, we are indeed capable of gorgeous, glorious feats. But now we will look ahead and stare the unknown right in the face. Out there is where the glory lives. We need to draw it toward us, and revel in its coming.

Let’s begin here, with a smile of encouragement toward yourself. Feel this warmth spreading through your face, down to your chest and into your belly. Relax any tension in your body, and make your mind open and free. It’s time to call in the vision, and our song for this exercise is the stunning “Iceblink Luck” by The Cocteau Twins. The great thing about this song, as with all of their work, is that the lyrics are blurry and buried far in the mix, so you can just let the music wash over you and lift you up. Hear how sweet and shimmering it is? This is the feeling of fresh air on your face the moment you realize you’ve accomplished a big victory. 

You don’t have to worry about specifics, just fly with the feeling and remember how good it is. Breathe it into your whole body from head to toe, and if tears arrive, be welcoming. People often laugh and cry simultaneously when they achieve a big victory, as if all the doors have blown off and they’re suddenly made of pure light. Open your arms and take it all in, the air and light and joy streaming through you, the certainty that you have earned this new victory, and that there are others ahead. Some will say that all our victories are behind us, but that’s only because they are ungenerous with themselves and limited with others.

Be bold in your visioning, and check in with it every day. Recognize the audacity of it, and celebrate that audacity, and all the other women doing the same. What could we do if we believed in victory? Anything and everything, and the world needs us to do all of it.