Always believe in your Greater Objective
Sometimes, in spite of all my best efforts, things don't come out the way I wanted or expected.
(I know, big surprise, huh?!)
When that happens, I lean into my trust that they're coming out just the way they are supposed to.
Let me tell you a story.
I have become totally willing to admit that I may never know what the greater objective is, or that it may be years and years before I get a glimpse at why things happened the way they did.
There are reasons for my deep belief of this. Here's one:
In 1973, just out of high school, I dropped a friend off at the airport in Rapid City after a Rocky Mountain adventure together, when it was time for her to head back to California, and me to continue east to my new job.
In 1995, that experience gave me a single anchor point in my life, when I was helping another friend – my best friend – escape an abusive situation. I was scared out of my mind.
We had left Wahpeton, ND on the sly, throwing what we could grab in a little U-haul trailer while her husband was at an appointment in Fargo. Her friends were all too scared to come help. One of her students, bless him, was willing to come – that was it. When we were packed and ready, we gathered her daughter from school, and hit the road.
Barely breathing.
Over the next two days, our progress slowed and slowed, as she sank into the paralyzing emotional collapse that follows an escape like that.
We finally hit Rapid City, and things HAD to change.
Here's the scene:
We had two cars.
She had disintegrated emotionally and couldn't continue on.
Her 7 year old daughter was completely melting down.
All of this in the middle of winter in the middle of South Dakota, with an unstable, very angry gun-toting man at our back. Or somewhere.
Who knew where or what was happening on his end.
And we had fifteen hundred miles to go.
You know the saying, scared out of your mind? Well, that was me – truly, I was stressed and scared beyond being able to think.
I could not solve this problem.
It was beyond insane.
I looked at the map, and my body knew, when my mind didn't:
In Rapid City, people get on airplanes.
The solution unfolded from there.
As far as I am concerned, a Greater Objective of that trip in '73 was to have me ready for '95.
Of course, I can't know that, really.
What I DO know for sure is that this experience gives me incredible trust in the way things roll out, and an ability to trust and go with them.
I have far too many stories like this in my life not to.
How about you? Ask yourself where you've seen things unfold in a way that you could never have predicted, never have planned. Things that served you in unexpected and unforeseen ways.
Use that to help you trust this moment right now.
One time I heard Marianne Williamson ask an audience this question: "For those of you who have gone through a major hard life experience – experienced a huge setback or failure, had a terrifying disease or accident, and it was at least a year ago (perspective is critical) – how many of you would NOT go back and undo that experience, given everything you have learned, all the ways you have grown, since then?"
85% of the room raised heir hands.
Hope this helps! If you find it useful, I'd sure appreciate you commenting, or sharing it with people you care about!
Thanks and Namaste,
Scout