Some Answers Don't Come Gift-Wrapped

I hurried through the airport, rushing to meet my next flight, and a poster stopped me in my tracks. It was an image of a polar bear examining a four foot block of ice which encased a dinner-sized goldfish. It was an ad for cell phone service, I think, but it was the image and the tag line that grabbed me - "Some things don't come gift-wrapped."

Oh no. This was a message for me and my life. At the time, about 15 years ago, I was struggling with relationships and starting a new direction in my career, digging for ways to make it all work. Like a dog tearing up the yard, my focus was clear - I wasn't giving up. My airport poster was also clear - it was going to take some time. And a different approach.

A guest speaker at a spiritual retreat said something once that has always stayed with me. Every time he faces an obstacle or an unexpected a change in direction, he asks himself, "How is this happening For me, not To me?"

The question is a shift in gears - if what is happening is For me, then it might not be as disastrous as it appears on the surface - I have something to gain from it. The day that I found that poster in the airport terminal, I'd been feeling like I was a candle dripping pieces of myself and losing chunks of my dream. The question gave me something I could DO to shift my point of view, instead of dissolving into my circumstances. It began a process of illuminating all the ways that I felt like a victim, at the mercy of outer circumstances. helpless to divert the wind blowing against my flame, but as the fire in my lesson adjusted, a simple realization emerged - I have something to learn.

As I shifted from 'there's nothing I can do' to 'there's something I can create,' my options began to change. It was as if new vigor was rising in me - a renewal of both the candle and the flame. It became clear, over time, that it was all a mind game, a dream of sorts. It didn't matter what the circumstances were outside of me - the solution was a change in attitude, a change in perspective. I had the power in me - it didn't matter what people did or didn't do outside of me. It was up to me to just keep growing.

The waiting no longer seemed interminable, as long as I stuck to the theme - what is happening is For me; it's teaching me the very thing I need to know. I came to see Why I had to confront these obstacles - I started to recognize the "need to please" that was tripping me up, I had to live through upsetting several people (something I would have previously avoided at all costs), and I came to appreciate that each time I trusted my gut, it really did work out in the end. The struggle grew me - it was developing the very skills and traits that would help me to prevail.

A seed fluttered down to my lap this morning as I sat outside to meditate. The seed's wrapping was as delicate as a dried hydrangea petal. It extended beyond the hull's perimeter to either side, like the arc of a dancer's skirt, billowing from crown to foot. The paper-thin wings created the sail it needed to glide on to fertile terrain. Nature's architecture is so ingenious.

So, too, are our obstacles. Designed by an architect beyond our ken, the handiwork of our life lessons gives us sails to get to where we're going. The seed we carry within us is encoded with the full-grown tree we will become. But to get there, we will have to change - either willingly or pushed - and change means that we have to start from the beginning again.

Whatever comes our way is For us.

Shed the Unnecessary, Harvest the Extraordinary

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