Stillness
As I listened to a guided meditation this morning, I was incredibly distracted. I was thinking about all of the other things I needed to get done before grabbing my work laptop and jumping into helping others with their technological and other issues.
What I’ve learned by trusting the process, is that surrender and surprise are in store, but usually not until I’ve gotten still enough to get crystal clear about the loud-ish shout from Divine about my next steps.
I remember the warm, summer California day this June when I realized that I needed to head back to my hometown of Ann Arbor, MI. I was actually early to my Chemistry 1 Pre-lab class and I was chatting with a classmate, who has since become a good friend, about other premedical post-baccalaureate programs to which he had applied. He mentioned the University of Michigan. My alma mater. And also a school I had never even considered. I got goosebumps and I thought in the stillness and quiet of the room. This might be why I came all the way to Los Angeles. I thought about what he had said and started making some phone calls to my life coaches and U-M and then I got still and incredibly quiet. I meditated and prayed for the answer.
You see, I had already thought I heard God’s voice about leaving Las Vegas to move to Los Angeles for school. Everything that could have gone wrong, did go wrong and in the end while I wasn’t complete right about moving to Cali, I wasn’t completely wrong either. So this time, I needed to be crystal clear about what was going to happen next for me. So I did the next indicated thing – maintained community, studied, attended class, started working again, went to the beach, ate tons of Susie Cakes’ chocolate chip cookies (they are HUGE and made with tons of butter!), also ate tons of gummy sour candies (made for good exam prep cuisine), dated, read spiritual stuff and took care of my spiritual condition the best I knew how. And then the answer emerged. I would be moving across the country again almost 10 years after I had left the Midwest, I would be returning.
To say I was relieved, yet not excited is the understatement of 2016. That said, I knew it was the right thing for me to do. I ended up doing better in both classes, second term. Ended a brief relationship, drove down the PCH as the sunset with a dear bestie/classmate after eating amazing Korean food in Koreatown, said my see you laters, watched the sunrise on Marina del Rey beach and got my oil changed at the Marina del Rey Toyota dealership before packing up my car (Goldnessa – she’s a gold Toyota Prius!) and driving back to the desert. I stayed there for a month releasing my furniture to new owners and then I shipped my stuff and Goldness and flew out to new horizons and new opportunities.
The point of this tale is that I had to get still and quiet to hear the still small voice beckoning me to go home. And again when I got home, it was a milestone in my life because my life changed course in some way and my passion for the voiceless grew and I became emboldened and more free. And it all happened because of stillness.