This holiday weekend I made a sweet plan to take my first flight in three years to go and join my brother in North Carolina and visit our Dad together. I don’t think we’ve ever had time just the three of us. I was really looking forward to it. Family time is precious to me and, as far as I’m concerned, there’s not enough of it.
I was to fly yesterday – yes, I didn’t go – and here’s what happened:
Friday I had a lot to do, but I had made sure that I’d timed everything so that I could get to bed early because I knew I’d be getting up at 4am to make my flight. One area of my life where I can still get a bit triggered is packing and preparing for travel. I’ve gotten way better at remaining calm and releasing all the attachments I used to have to making sure I’d packed everything I thought I’d like or need while gone.
This trip was a little bit difficult because my plans changed a couple of times. I rebooked my flight twice.
The trip was also more complicated because this was the first time I’d be leaving my fur babies, Bodhi and Sattva.
Sattva immediately took up residence in my suitcase once I brought it out for packing.
I was fortunate to hire a friend to come and stay with Bodhi and Sattva while I was gone. Like a mom leaving her children for the first time, I wrote out pages of information and tips about what they like and what they’re used to.
Friday, I woke up to rain and fog. After a good soaking the temperature dropped really quickly and all that rain turned to ice and now it was snowing. I had someone coming to assist me because I needed to ship out all the Masterful Living Journals and that’s a bit of a production that takes many hours.
Well, my assistant couldn’t come because the roads were way too dangerous out here in the country. So, that meant that I’d have a very full and long day doing it all myself. I didn’t mind. I didn’t complain. And that’s wonderful. I wasn’t feeling stressed. I relaxed into having trust that if I couldn’t get it all done in time for the Post Office pick up, I’d get it done by the end of the day and the USPS could pick it up on Saturday.
I managed to get it all done AND the USPS picked everything up just as I was finishing about 8pm. Phew! I had so much more to do. I peacefully accepted that my planned 9pm bedtime wouldn’t be a possibility. I started shooting for 1am and a solid nap before waking at 4am.
It was VERY windy and cold outside on Friday so I didn’t get as many steps walking Bodhi as I would have liked, it was just so bitter and cold. However, I sure got my steps in doing everything around the house. I got about 17k steps and at least 50 trips up and down the stairs. I don’t know exactly because I had to take off my Apple Watch for recharging.
Just around 1:15am I was ready to meditate, pray and sleep. I was having a last look around the house to see if I could find any last things I could do before bed that I wouldn’t have to do before I left. I thought to put my car keys by my purse. Where I live, out in the boondocks of the Green Mountains, it’s about an hour to the airport and there really aren’t any shuttle services unless you’d like to pay hundreds of dollars.
I’m driving a rental car for the past 10 days as my car had been hit by a deer and there was considerable damage. With rental cars these days they give you 2 fobs on a chain and it’s very bulky. I hang my keys on a hook near the door or on the table by the hook. Occasionally I’ll put my keys on the kitchen counter if I’m going right back out or leave them in my pocket.
I went to get my keys and I couldn’t find them. At 1:15am I went out into the snow in my robe to see if I had left them in the car the night before. Sometimes I do that, but I didn’t. I went back in the house and looked everywhere I could possibly imagine as well as many places I couldn’t imagine ever putting them. No keys.
I got dressed and went out side and looked all around and in the car. The car won’t start if you don’t have the key fob, and so I knew it wasn’t in the car. I got out the snow shovel and started going all around the area looking for the keys. Nothing.
I went back in the house and looked and looked and looked some more all the while calmly asking the angels for insight and direction. I finally felt that the message was clear. Cancel. Don’t go.
I knew this was the clear next step, and I was peaceful about it even though it was now after 2am and I had been going since 6am to be able to leave at 4am. I was so super grateful that I had heard the intuition to find my keys and put them by my purse because had I taken a nap and awoken at 4am to quickly get on the road by 4:30 and packed my car and THEN found out I didn’t have the keys I would have had a hard time being cool. That would have been difficult. I would have been stressed looking knowing that I was going to be missing the plane.
Because I followed my intuition I wasn’t stressed or worried. I knew I’d miss that plane and I wasn’t looking for the keys under the pressure of the ticking clock after just having washed my hair at 4am on a cold winter morning.
The thing that made the most sense of what was happening – the intellect/ego likes to understand things, but never does – was that because the roads were so icy and treacherous it was safer for me not to be driving that morning. I’d spoken with several people on Friday, including the Postal Carrier who picked up all the packages, and they all said the roads were really dangerous. I could believe that I was being protected.
A friend of mine, Nancygail, reminded me of the story in Gary Renard’s Disappearance of the Universe that I often refer to – the one about the two movies. Gary tells about driving an hour to the movies, his weekly treat, and having to choose between two movies. He ended up choosing a movie that, in hindsight, was less good than the other one. He asked his teachers “why?” Arten and Pursah said that because he chose that movie he was on the highway home at a different time and that meant he avoided being in a severe car accident.
Gary discovered that because he’d been doing so much forgiveness work he didn’t need all the forgiveness lessons that being in the accident would have given him. He didn’t need the forgiveness opportunities that a major injury and hospitalization would surely have provided.
It feels to me that my experience is similar.
I’ve come to feel when it seems like something’s in my way, but in fact, I’m being protected or redirected.
This feels like that. And so knowing that, or believing that, I can relax and be peaceful and harmonious. I don’t know for sure, I could say that I’m clueless as to what it all means.
I live on a need to know basis. If it’s important for me to know what’s going on, I’ll know. If I don’t know, I don’t need to. I can trust that.
I can be clueless in a completely good and positive way.
I finally got to sleep, still doing my usual prayers and meditation before bed, about 2:45am. I didn’t get a full night’s sleep but yesterday was a beautiful sunny day. Yesterday, I spoke with prayer partners, did a bunch of cooking and took Bodhi for good walks. Some of the snow melted, but I still haven’t found the keys. I’m in trust and faith around it. It would probably cost $1000 to replace the fobs, but I’m not imagining that will happen. Why would I use my imagination to fantasize about what I don’t want?
“I don’t know what anything is for.” Lesson 25
“All things work together for good. There are no exceptions except in the ego’s judgment.” T-4, V1
Those two quotes from A Course in Miracles have been immensely helpful to me for many years. They are the foundation of my right-mindedness. They returned me to the Peace of God, for which I’m so very grateful.
I did feel stressed a bit – When it got later and later and I wasn’t going to sleep both Bodhi and Sattva were agitated. They knew something was going on. Bodhi rings a bell to let me know she’d like to go out and she was ringing and ringing the bell, but it wasn’t that she wanted to go out, I think she really wanted me to go to bed.
For decades I’ve been practicing being unbotherable. This was a chance to practice that. I could have gotten very upset by it all, but I don’t like being upset so I didn’t choose that.
I’m too blessed to be stressed. God’s infinite Love is my blessing that’s always with me, always for me. I feel blessed no matter how things turn out and that is a true blessing. I choose the Peace of God for the Peace of God has already chosen me.
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