There Comes a Moment

At this time of year, I take time to pause and reflect on my journey of transformation. I left my award winning career as a VA social worker just 3 years shy of when I was eligible for retirement. I had been diagnosed with Post Polio Syndrome deemed a progressive neuromuscular disease by Western Medicine. I found healing, hope and possibility after getting still and asking for Divine Guidance through the power of my pen, my divining rod for healing.

I was caught up in my role as a social worker, the mother of my twins and wife to my husband. I lost myself and was in a state of adrenal overload manifesting the unhealed trauma and residuals from paralytic polio in my body.

For several months after I left the VA, I went into my cocoon. I wrote poetry, did the home exercise program prescribed by my physical therapist at Spaulding and was open to writing the next chapters of my life.

I have to smile when I reflect on the many iterations I experienced during these past 13 years before settling into being who I was always meant to be; someone to inspire others with a can do attitude, a strong faith, a journey of determination despite the odds that were seemingly stacked against me and a powerful message of healing, hope and possibilities. I continue to be in awe of the power of the mind to heal the body and how imagination, as Albert Einstein said, is the preview of coming attractions.

I learned to do the impossible:



Carl Jung once said that the unconscious prepares the way for the future and as I sat in a leg brace, using a cane and at times a wheelchair for mobility


I wrote a poem about Running the Race.

It foreshadowed my 2009 Boston Marathon run although I had never run a day in my life.



I wrote this poem in 2013 after the Boston Marathon Bombings that was a wake up call for me to stay on my path and be true to myself:
There Comes a Moment 

There comes a moment

a culmination of moments really

when Truth becomes stronger than fear

when heart breaks open into wholeness

and the power of love crushes all that went before.


There comes a moment when the soul and heart's desire

becomes crystal clear

and you lovingly hit yourself on the forehead

why didn't I see this before?


There comes a moment when the old ways no longer serve

and you realize

you cannot possibly serve two masters

the two masters being fear and love.


There comes a moment when playing small

and staying in the 'comfort zone'
becomes intolerable

when passion burns so brightly

lies are consumed in its flames.


There comes a moment when you wake up

to the magnificence of who you really are

and tears of joy, relief and release

like an ocean wave on a hot summer's day

bathe you in the waters of rebirth.


There comes a moment

and that moment is now.

There comes a moment... a day “when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.”



Be sure to visit my website at www.marymcmanus.com to learn more about my journey of transformation from a survivor of polio and trauma to an endurance runner and motivational speaker.

My books are available on Amazon

From my heart to yours
In health and wellness
Mary