It’s a Magical Mystery Tour

Northern Light in Lapland ~ The world is an amazing place! Full of mystery and unexpected gifts.

Life rarely goes according to plans. My plans that is. Again, and again, I am reminded of this.

My husband and I have been in a financial fix for about six weeks. We’ve had our ups and downs over the years. Opting to work as self-employed business owners, we did a whole lot of learning through our mistakes. Adding to the mix, our home improvement business is the kind of business that takes a nose dive every time the economy hiccups. And, it’s been doing a whole lot of hiccupping in the last decade!

I can’t tell you the number of times we walked around scratching our heads wondering why the business phone wasn’t ringing, asking ourselves over and over, “What are we doing wrong? What do we need to do differently?” Perplexed and frantic, we inevitably discovered that economic indicators were down. We’d hunker down, cut back on our expenses and ride it out. We actually became so confident in the consistent inconsistency of our business that we became great predictors for our friends and relatives (not that predicting bad news was anything any of them wanted to hear!).

The most recent downturn was not altogether unexpected. The holiday season is always slow. But this year, the cold weather seemed to freeze people’s dialing finger. In addition, a re-fi from hell tied up our money and our nerves; the legal machinations relative to my accident kicked into high gear; my youngest son, who worked with my husband for the last five years, moved to Missouri; and my oldest son, who also worked with us, will be joining him the first of February.  Do I need to say “chaos” with a capital “C”?  In the midst of all of this I’m trying to finish up my book and get some freelance writing work done. (Not easy when everyone else is at loose ends!)

The other day, in a particularly low moment, hubby and I sat eating P&J sandwiches at the kitchen table, trying to figure out what the hell we were going to do to survive. After all, we’re not getting any younger, and every time this happens gets harder and harder to find the energy for a comeback.  It’s so hard not to feel defeated when the deck seems stacked against you.

I suggested we go somewhere quiet, hold hands and meditate. I would bring a notebook (do I go anywhere without one?) and jot down any ideas that came to us as we did. I wish you knew my husband. You’d be as surprised, and as proud as I was, when he agreed. He’s come a long way baby!

So we washed down our lunch with coffee, went to our bedroom and sat side by side on the bed, comfortably propped up by pillows. Holding hands, we each took several slow, deep breaths. Slowly, we began to let go of our worrisome thoughts and let in the quiet; to relinquish control and allow the energy needed for that to expanded our awareness and move outward.  In this way we opened ourselves to the best of our ability, to anything…to possibility…to the universe. We spoke our thoughts when they seemed important. I jotted them down. A few of them seemed interesting, but not immediate solutions. So we continued on.

At last when the quiet meditation seemed to run its course, and there were no brilliant ideas forthcoming, hubby said, “Maybe we just need to do nothing.”  Counter-intuitive to our do-do-do mindset, it felt like a cool breeze on a hot summer’s day. Yes. That was our answer today. We both just relaxed, heaved a sigh of relief and went about the rest of our day with a calm, trusting attitude that we had not had in weeks.

The next day, we both received new and fresh ideas for our future, new business came in for both of us, and there was movement on both the re-fi and the legal stuff.  Unexpected solutions to long-term problems seemed to just appear. My instinct was not to trust any of it.

Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. If I’m going to believe the stuff I always write and talk about, and I do, I had darn well better believe it when it hits me upside the head. I am passionate about the concept of positive energy, of hope and faith and the benevolence of the universe. I am doubtless that what we see and believe with clarity will come to be in some way. I believe it without question, that is, for everyone else.  But, for me? Not so much. I’m on a learning curve. I am learning to trust that what I believe to be true for everyone else, is also true for me. So I remind myself now, on a regular basis, to keep an open and trusting heart, and to accept what comes my way with gratitude.

Dorothy Sander © 2014

MIRACLES AWAIT US EVERY DAY