6 months ago I was in the middle of packing and moving my three children and I to another province. The move was understandably met with a mixed bag of emotions for all of us.
During that time, the corporate training arm of my business was in full tilt. While packing and taping up boxes all my mental and creative capacity was dedicated to the creation of the various training programs I was developing. And, while I was exhilarated, I could feel my ‘operating system’ slowing down as I had far too many mental file programs running.
But, I ignored the call to slow down…. After all, how could I? I had stuff to do.
Then… SPLAT!
3 weeks before my move, I got into a car accident that totaled my van. An accident that could have been avoided if I had slowed down. Gratefully, the children were not with me and nobody suffered any major injuries.
The following day, my delicious friends, Karen Klassen and Michelle Gabriel arranged a going away party for me. While I was in the midst of basking in the love of the most incredible collection of people, I learn that the grant program that was funding my corporate training had suddenly folded.
SPLAT!
Hundreds of thousands of dollars just dissolved in front of my eyes.
I had plans for that money… it was going to pull me out of suffocating debt, allow me to do some things with the children that I really wanted them to be able to experience and, it was going to be the seed money for me to do my ‘love work’.
But for whatever reason, whether I was still in after shock mode from the accident, I was non-plussed. In fact, my first thought was “Huh, I guess I had better move right into my ‘love work’.
I was amused by that first reaction and took it as a clear signpost guiding me to my direction… and while I enjoyed working on my business projects and was good at it, I knew deep down that corporate training was not what I had come here to do.
The next day, while taping up a box in preparation for the big move, I noticed that something felt different… what was it?
I realized that for the first time in a terribly long time, my mind was quiet. I was actually experiencing full presence. I was fully concentrating on the tape gun and appreciating the sounds it made when I pulled a huge strip down.
Bliss.
With a tape gun.
Ahhh… this is what shanti feels like…
Much to my surprise, I lost not even one night of sleep over the sudden dissolving of my corporate training project.
Within 48 hours, after the shock had worn off, and a chat with my friendly neighbourhood Shaman, Debbie Gibbs, I came to spiritual resolution with it. I knew, that if the projects that I had been working on were for my highest interests, they would have happened. So, it must not have been in my highest interest. In the void of a clear alternative, it gave me comfort to trust the ‘plan’
My mantra that “Nothing happens to me and that Everything happens FOR me” called me back from potential looming fear and nestled me close in comfort.
With the help of my loving Airdrie Tribe, my home was packed, cleaned, painted, shampooed and rented – in the midst of Christmas concerts, recitals, solstice and countless goodbye parties.
I was there for it all. I was present. Not the shell of me that had been masquerading like Farhana. This time, I was fully present.
I fell in love with Presence… she was serene, unpretentious and unflappable.
Even with the 19-hour bus ride with three children in the midst of a snow storm and a moving company that went AWOL for one week, nothing could make me upset or fearful.
I loved this quiet space of no demands and expectations so much that I wanted to preserve it and anchor it the best I could. So, I put myself on a digital diet. I didn’t return non-urgent emails, hardly spoke to anyone and stayed away from Facebook for 1 month.
In this blissful state I began to see that my success was not wrapped up with lucrative corporate contracts, nor was it about any popularity contest – cyber or otherwise, nor was it about ‘making connections’ and ‘getting established’, or getting another offer… it was something else…
In my love affair with Presence, I began to see that I was not separate from success.
Then, I invited the following question… “If my success is inevitable, and it is, what would I do right now?”
My first split second aha, was that I would be doing what I am doing right now… inviting the spiritual conversation… my “love work”.
And the functional answer that came had nothing to do with my expansive to do list…
Success in that moment meant volunteering in my daughters kindergarten class.
Cool.
A whole new operating system was born.
I don’t do this always… I forget the good stuff all the time, but when I remember to ask success how she wants to be realized in this moment, I am always guided fruitfully and in line with my real values.
Colette Kenney and I talked about this in an episode of Love Talk
No more am I looking ‘out there’ to determine what should happen… I am looking ‘in here’ to see what wants to happen.
If your success is inevitable, and it is, what would you do right now?
Click here to read the Story of Splat
