June 17, 2022
Acceptance and Letting Life Unfold
We went to Florida for our niece Sam’s wedding in May. After the celebrations, we went to hear Michael Singer , author of The Untethered Soul, (which I highly recommend), give a talk at his place near Gainesville. En route, we listened to a podcast to get ourselves in the spirit. The main idea was that our only job in this world is to get rid of the negativity and resistance that we’ve stored inside us. Our purpose is to let our old garbage rise to the surface when it gets triggered, and to release it - not to stuff it back down. Release it, breathe it out, whatever - just figure out how to let it go. “That’s all we need to do” said Michael “and the universe will take care of the rest.”
“That doesn’t really make a lot of sense to me” said Pauli when we turned off the podcast – “The universe will take care of the rest?”
I was about to agree when something popped into my head. Last winter, when we were planning this trip, we’d hoped that after the wedding we’d be able to visit Sam and Trip at their new house, to meet their horses, pony, donkey, two dogs and a puppy, and to see this happy chaos in action. I found out that Michael Singer’s place was close by and that he gave talks on Sundays, which was the day everyone was travelling home from the wedding. Perfect.
The bride and groom however couldn’t commit to a visit; they didn’t know where they would be, or what their plans were on that Sunday. Understandable, with all this planning and preparing for ‘the big day’ we could appreciate it was difficult to imagine where you’d be 2 days after. While it was disappointing to be so close and not see their place, we made our Michael Singer plans and let it go, even forgetting about it entirely.
The last evening of the wedding festivities, we dropped some of the bridesmaids off and stopped in to say goodbye to Sam and Trip. They were hanging out in the living room with some of the groomsmen. “So you’re off to visit your stepmother tomorrow morning?” asked Trip. I told him yes - after the stop in Alachua to see Michael Singer “Wow, that is so close to our house! What time are you finished? Why not just come by?”
And so, we got to enjoy the newlyweds at their homestead after all. We had let go of disappointment or needing things to be a certain way, and the universe took care of the rest, without anyone ‘having to do a thing’!
It was a treat to visit the forest that houses Singer’s Temple of the Universe. Pauli loved the part of his talk where he reflected on how grumpy we get when things don’t go as we’d like and reminded us we’d be a lot happier if we adopted a more playful, curious attitude when things go sideways. He suggested a laugh then saying out loud “Ha! I wonder what will happen next?”
After Mickey’s talk and a visit with Sam and Trip, we began our car trip further south to my stepmother’s and rolled into Vero Beach nearly out of gas. We found a station no problem but couldn’t get anything out of the pump. Tried another pump. Nope. There was no attendant or store, only an arcade. We were later than expected after our detour to the “barnyard” so decided to pick up Amy before we did anything else. Amy knew the way to the hotel, and then we’d fuel up after that. Well…the hotel wasn’t quite where Amy remembered it was (which was frustrating for her), and as we turned this corner and that, that corner and this, Pauli was making “Oh my God we’re going to run out of gas!” looks at me in the rear-view mirror. Yikes. The air was thick with stress.
And then out of the blue Pauli laughs and shouts “Ha! I wonder what will happen next?”The mood lifted. We were on an adventure! And what happened next was… a strip mall appeared, miraculously anchored by a gas station. Hooray!
After our week away, we returned to Nova Scotia. I felt so tired, for days. I was overwhelmed by the suitcases full of tank tops and sleeveless dresses in a cool place where we had no use for them and no closets to speak of. Newsprint was spilling from a big pile of half unpacked boxes we’d had shipped from Toronto, there was work to find my way back to, a yard full of weeds gone to seed and my ears were still plugged from the plane. It was broad daylight when I found myself crawling into bed and telling Pauli “I don’t think I’ll ever have the energy to do anything again without pushing myself.“ She laughed sweetly.
My Sunday sangha this month was all about how we never want to accept the state we’re in; we always want things to be different. Pema Chödrön put it like this: “When we are on the hot seat, we do everything except just sitting there and experiencing hot-seated-ness”. I saw myself clearly. How I never want to experience the unsettledness, the work, the overwhelm, and the exhaustion that transitions bring. How could I forget this solid advice that I’ve heard about 1000 times before? To accept the present moment as it is - tired -and all. Remembering that “this too shall pass.” Turns out it just took a P saying that she would do the vacuuming, for me to experience some ‘gumption’. And without needing to push myself, I put on the cleaning playlist and got into the get into the groove of “settling in”.
It’s good to be home.
Ha! I wonder what will happen next?
