My husband and I were driving home and I suggested, on an internal nudge that we stop by a nearby park. I didn’t feel we would go for a walk. Nor did I feel we would simply park and look out at the park. But I figured I’d find out soon what we were meant to do. I’ve learned more and more to trust that even when it seems like neither options that presents feels right, something else might be about to offer itself that isn’t immediately in sight.
As it turned out, a cute curly furred dog came into view and I decided to say hello to it, if its human companion was amendable to that idea. She was, and in fact it turned out I knew her. She is a lovely woman with a deeply spiritual heart whom I have a meaningful conversation with about every couple of years. I hadn’t met her new dog yet, but I knew she had one child with some special issues, who is also a very bright soul, as well as another child, whom, on this occasion she described as being full on with all her glorious genuine feelings on raw display. She shared she teaches college students and that she reminds them that we all have these feelings, even though adults don’t often show them. As the conversation unfolded, and I’d shared how I prefer people who show exactly who they are and say exactly what they mean, rather than confusing things by saying what the don’t mean, because if you start with the truth, you can work with that, but if the communication is confused by other things, how can you work with that? The woman emphasized how many feelings people have when they go into a healthcare situation, including the providers, and shared about how much more empathy we need in the healthcare system. My husband asked her what she taught and she shared her journey of becoming a nurse practitioner, but after having a child with medical needs and seeing that how things are in healthcare isn’t good enough, she switched gears from wanting to be a clinician to focusing on teaching and wanting to contribute to changing things and making them better. “It may be idealistic, but I figure I can try.” I reassured her that her very heart, her energy that she transmits to those students and providers makes a differences, touches them, shifts things to becoming more connected, soulful and humane. My husband added that she absolutely makes a difference and expressed validation for the work she is doing and how needed it is indeed. She talked about how trying to make things “safer” isn’t always better. It can become dehumanizing. I watched her almost tear up. I thanked her for all she does and after playing with her dog for a little bit, hopped back in the car and went home. We hadn’t walked in the park. We didn’t stay in the car. We had a divine meeting. I even told her about The Horses Know series by Lynn Mann. “What the name of it again?” She asked after I described how the people in it try to make things safer and safer until they blow themselves up, and the remnants of humanity begin again to rediscover the power of love and the power of trusting life - that yes you can die and that risk is a better one to take than sacrificing what makes being alive beautiful. It is a spiritually based series that invites the reader to consider that failure is an illusion and death is only a delay, but often an unnecessary one if we choose to embrace our lessons rather than avoid them.
We don’t have to choose between options that feel bad to us. We might have to lean into things that are uncomfortable but that is different from the bad feeling when we aren’t in alignment with our True North.
This lesson is one I first walked through in an obvious way when we were in Ireland and I had a full bladder. We had stopped by Tara - having simply followed intuitive driving directions. I urgently had to pee. I wasn’t led to go to the actual Tara site, but just to stop by the visitor center. When we arrived, I couldn’t get to the women’s room because there was a witch. Not Glinda. Not like my lovely sister friends who use the term to describe women who are tapped into their own spark of divinity in harmony with Mother Earth and her cycles - a witch that was twisted and distorted and dark since of embodying an evil energy. I could not go past her. Maybe today I would be braver to stand in my light and walk right by. Or maybe not. I don’t know. Either way, it was a hard stop. I would have chosen to wet my pants rather than go into the women’s room. I considered the men’s room and it was a hard no intuitively for me also. What was I to do. I went outside, told my husband the situation while I did the pee dance. And I prayed for a third option.
I went back and listened deep. “Turn left. Then right.” I found a gender-free private bathroom with perfectly acceptable energy! I peed. All was well. I didn’t have to encounter the being with whom I was not intended to cross paths. I wish her well and hope she is able to become un-evil soon. I would prefer to wait until then to cross paths with her!
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