Life teachings: Drama or Blessing? Amazing story of a Russian figure skater Evgenia Medvedeva
Continuing the topic of ice skating, I have recently received another insight. Or, to be more precise, I already knew this, but the story of one famous Russian figure skater just showed me once again how much wisdom there is in Life and in each lesson it's giving us.
Pyeongchang, South Korea. 2018 Winter Olympics. Despite the sanctions, Russian athletes keep proving that they are the best in figure skating. Being deprived of the honor to wear the Russian national flag and emblem and sing the Russian national anthem, they still come out on the ice rink for the whole world to hear their Russian names and see how undefeatable they are.
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I've always had mixed feelings about our athletes participating in world sports events in a "neutral athlete" status. On the one hand, I judged and reproached them for agreeing to participate on such humiliating terms. On the other hand, if all of them refused to participate, who would demonstrate the Russian unbendable spirit and talents to the young generations in the entire world? Perhaps, going against the system sometimes requires accepting the rules of that system and slowly changing it from the inside. Anyway, it's a topic for another post, which I should probably write later.
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Going back to figure skating. 2018, Pyeongchang, South Korea. Two extraordinary figure skaters Alina Zagitova and Evgenia Medvedeva are competing for gold in ladies' singles. At that time Evgenia at the age 18 was already a two-time Russian national champion, a two-time European champion and a two-time World champion. Author of a few world records. She was on the peak of her career, one of the brightest and artistic skaters in the world. She was a favorite to win the gold medal. Alina, who, by the way, was born and raised in my hometown Izhevsk, was 15 and was also a very talented skater but didn't have as many awards and titles as Evgenia had at that time.
So, it's the last round of competition. A free skating performance that will define the whole "battle." After the short program Evgenia is a little bit behind Alina by score. Alina was also drawn to perform first in free skating. What would be your feelings if you were Evgenia? A world-renowned champion, the holder of all possible titles. The Olympic gold is the only award missing in her trophy set. It seems like she has too much to lose if she doesn't get that medal.
In fact, as Evgenia said later, on some level she realized what was going to happen after Alina beat her in the short program. However, as we say in Russian, "надежда умирает последней" ("hope is the last one to die").
So, Alina goes out on the rink for her free skating program and performs brilliantly. She receives a very high score. And now it's Evgenia's turn. Since she already started losing hope after the short program and then she saw how brilliant Alina was in her free program, Evgenia did what everyone of us needs to learn how to do. She let go of the situation. Whatever happens happens. I am just doing my best right now, regardless of the result. Since I am a figure skater, I hit the ice, and when I skate, I put all of myself into my performance.
Two years later in an interview Evgenia will say that this performance was "the most relaxing and meditative moment in her career." Being under such tremendous pressure, with all the eyes and cameras looking at her, with all of her Russian fans expecting a gold medal, with all the overshadowing from Alina's side, she wasn't nervous at all. As if some force, some stream took her and helped her do all of her movements. And she did them flawlessly. She said she was in some kind of a foggy but yet alert state of mind, and she only "woke up" after the music stopped and she finished her last movement.
Alina's and Evgenia's scores were exactly the same after the free skating performance (156.65). However, since Alina won the short program, she became the Olympic champion.
Like I wrote above, hope is the last one to die, so Evgenia still had to deal with her emotions after having fully realized that even after her flawless performance that medal wasn't meant to be hers. She said when she finally realized that, her world just crashed. After the Olympics, she left her coach, moved to a different country and had to work on her psychological state for two years.
When I look at Evgenia's story, I always think, how amazing Life/God teaches us, not giving us what we want. Evgenia attached too much importance to that gold medal. She considered it something necessary. Something vital even. Something that, if you don't have it, you will die. God showed her that nothing, no piece of metal is more important than the hearts of people that she touches with her skating. She didn't get the medal but she got this amazing state of awareness and unity with the Universe that made her performance so touching and inspiring that many people as well as their children and grandchildren will watch it years later, and their hearts will be opened by it. This moment when she let go and forgot about her human ambitions to get the award made her performance perfect, it made her a perfect instrument in God's hands. An instrument to awaken love and all the highest and best feelings in the hearts of others. And this is the best reward. To be able to reach this state, to live your life and do your work being in this state. God basically told Evgenia, "Look, you are still the best in what you are doing. Look how much people love you. Look, even your scores are the same. This medal and this first place are the attributes of the outside world. Please don't get attached to this superficial world that much. Focus on your inner world and what achievements you have inside your soul."
Now, years later, Evgenia says that "her silver medal is her blessing." Because it made her better on the inside. Because it made her overcome this situation, work on herself, read, and improve. How often it happens that we lose something that we are attached to (a loved one, career, status, money, etc.) only to realize later that this loss was actually an act of love from God. That this was only to bring us back to ourselves and show us who we really are, who we are by birth. Souls, sparkles of light sent to Earth to spread this light to the hearts of others. As soon as you realize that, you can be sure that better things are there to come.
I think everyone has their own story that is similar to Evgenia's. Me too. And probably, I will tell it later in a different post. In the meantime, I would like to finish with one quote that I really like. "Господи, дай мне мудрости понять, что твои планы на меня больше, чем мои мечты о себе" ("Lord, please give me wisdom to understand that your plans for me are bigger than my dreams about myself").
