A memory just came into my head that I wanted to share with you. Several years ago, I was stopped at a traffic light, waiting for it to turn green. I was late for class and was feeling extremely stressed about making it on time. I remember feeling tight in my chest and worrying about the time. It felt like the light was taking forever, and I was getting more and more impatient.
Finally, it changed to green. Just as I was getting ready to put my car into gear and go through the intersection, my book bag fell onto the floor and the contents spilled all over. I said a few words that I don’t care to repeat here and took a few seconds to pick everything up and put it all back in. When I looked up at the intersection, I saw a car zipping through it (even though their light was red). If I had gone immediately when the light turned green, they would have crashed into me at a super fast speed.
It took me another light change to collect myself. (Thankfully, no one was behind me.) It took me another light change to stop shaking and pull myself together. It took me another light change to be able to take in what just happened – to see how lucky I was. To feel how protected I was. And to see how in one instant, my perspective had completely changed.
Just one instant before, I was so impatient and frustrated and in a pretty crappy mood.
Just one instant before, I was picking up everything out of my book bag and swearing and worrying that this was going to make me even later.
Just one instant before, I saw this moment as a huge inconvenience.
An instant later, I was filled with gratitude. I saw my bag spilling through a new persective. I realized that this perceived inconvenience may have just saved my life.
An instant later, I was overcome with love and joy and a feeling of being protected and of having experienced a miracle.
An instant later, I was no longer worried about time or being late. I was no longer frustrated or angry. I was here. I was safe. And that felt amazing.
This moment has always stuck with me.
It has helped me really witness the perfection in this moment. It has helped me see that the chain of events had to be exactly what they were in order to keep me from being crashed into. It has helped me feel on a deep level that everything was working perfectly.
Now I know that sometimes we do get crashed into – figuratively and literally (I’ve been there, too). And I know that sometimes horrible things happen, and it doesn’t feel that there is a perfection in each moment. I know that. Really.
Remembering moments like these helps me take in the beauty in life. Moments like these help me feel connected to something more than myself. It’s moments like these that I like to put my energy into. Because, moments like these invoke love and life and hope and miracles and joy and gratitude into my heart.
And that feels so, so good.
Can you think of an instant in your life, such as this one, when your perspective changed or you shifted in some way?
I would love to hear about it in the comments below.
I’m learning more and more that there is so much more happening in our world than what we can see. And I’m learning to trust and show up and feel immense gratitude for all of the miracles that are happening each instant all around us.
Once we start looking for them – once we start opening our hearts to them, we start to see them and feel them everywhere.
And that’s pretty amazing.
Hugs,
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That happened to me one early morning, No traffic on the roads. My light was green, I noticed as I approached it. Something told me, simply, Stop. There was a cop ahead, coming my way, No Other Traffic. I stopped. At a Green light. I’m sure the cop wondered “What the…” A little red car came zipping through his Red light, watching me stopped at my Green light. The cop came closer, slowed in his left lane, waiting. I shrugged & continued on my way, as the cop turned to follow the red car.
Wow, Jodi. That is a perfect lesson for trusting the moment…and the flow of things. I’ve experienced similar situations, the most vital one was when my cousin was supposed to give my step-dad a lift to the airport but refused to drive to Logan airport because of some ongoing construction, forcing my step-dad to change his flight to one going out of Green airport. The flight my step-dad would have been on was one that flew into the towers on that terrible morning.
Yes, trust the moment. Trust life. Relax and learn to flow.
Big hugs,
Leah
I truly love it when those things happen, they actually get to shift us to seeing soooo much more.
When I was about 16 and a total mess, I had a dream in which I was high in the mountains and I’d been jumping from mountain top to mountain top, I came across a vast valley of ragged peaks, and just as I was about to start jumping them I saw at the edge, this beautiful man, strong & silent, I tried everything to get him to talk to me ,but he wouldn’t. When I gave up that game and started jumping I fell, in a nanosecond, he flew across , scooped me up and flew me to the other side, without a single word he again just stood there, aware, but not there till I walked away.
Initially I thought it was just a dream, but in truth it was a meeting with a Guardian, and since then I have come to completely trust that they are there.
I think that in my line of work with the animals I have to use my gut feelings, my instincts everyday so I’ve been blessed with this talent of listening in.
Truly grateful for the amount of ‘accidents’ I have missed or been in that could have been so much worse had I not had my instincts and my guardians around.
so grateful your bag fell !
peace, laughter and love
Luna
On the way to work one day, I was stopped at a red light on the frontage road, with a underpass to my left. I usually pulled right out as the light turned green, but this day I waited, I don’t know why. Also, for some reason I began counting seconds, to pull out on five. Three full seconds after my light turned green, which was five seconds after his light turned red, a semi truck and trailer blasted through the intersection at a high rate of speed, from my left. I would have been t-boned, and probably killed, if I’d started through the intersection like normal. I was shaken, but grateful, and always gave that intersection extra caution after that, because you couldn’t see approaching traffic due to the underpass.
I can so relate. I remember when my husband and I were heading home many years ago. The light turned red and I remembered being tired and anxious to get home. Sure enough, an oil tanker made a terrible mistake — he made too sharp of a turn on the same highway ramp that we needed to take. Sad to report, it turned over and exploded right in our view. We didn’t get hurt but the driver lost his life. I honor my husband after that because he always takes his time, even ’til this day. “Slow and steady wins the race” comes to mind. I don’t rush anymore. Life is good.
Jodi so many times in my life I have been able to look back and feel grateful for life unfolding in a certain way that led to an even better result than I could have planned. For me the trick is to stay open to the unfolding with compassion, love and grace and be able to see the blessings of a red light, a delayed departure, changed plans, etc with faith and trust and a grateful heart! Thank you!
what incredible synchronicity! gives me chills.
it reminds me of the zen koan story about ‘maybe’. the less is that there will be moments in our lives that SEEM good or bad but they are just ‘maybe’, neither good or bad, just your perspective. so, when the horse runs away, the farmer said what bad luck! the wise man said ‘maybe’.. when the horse comes back with a bunch of other horses, the farmer says ‘what good luck!’ and the wise man says maybe.. it goes on like that but you get the picture. one incident that happened in my own life…. i tend to share this one a lot online so you may or may not have heard of it… but i was feeling really cranky that the internet stopped working at my families house in the Philippines where I was staying. I actually was losing work and it was bad for my business! So I finally decided to go to an internet cafe and figure out a solution. That was the day I posted in a FB group for expats in the Philippines and met my partner! We had eerily so many things in common and similar histories (from the same province but both grew up abroad), we were both in awe of the compatibility, and we met that very same day and had in person chemistry as well! he invited me to germany and although we’re currently long distance and single we both feel like it’s not ‘over’ and individually decided to live in Philippines by the end of the year (he’s starting a tech company in Asia and I decided I need to stay longer in SE Asia while I build my online business)