These lives of ours can be squishy.
So take a moment to feel the places where you are grounded,
Connected.
And from that sense of groundedness,
Inhale deeply.
Let it go.
Once more,
Inhale.
And then release.
Welcome to a hit of hope.
I've been thinking a great deal recently about my gut and about serendipity.
Two things which I see as residing on the same residential block in our internal geography.
So let's think about them.
Our gut is that instinctive and emotional rather than rational something that resides somewhere in our center.
In the past,
I didn't trust my gut.
My gut knew things and it was trying to tell me those things,
But I chose to trust other voices instead.
It turns out my gut was right all along.
Maybe this has happened to you,
Or maybe you've known to trust your gut all along,
Even though that isn't always the easy thing to do.
Because trusting your gut can feel squishy,
Weird to yourself and to the others around you,
Especially if they happen to prefer the more rational and logical.
Inhale.
Exhale.
And the other gut adjacent is serendipity,
Which can kind of be thought of as a weird collection of happy accidents and connections.
I recently recorded a meditation on perspective,
And in it,
I said,
Our perspective is determined by the eye that we see out of and the eye that we are.
And this is a huge part of our guts and serendipity.
You have to be willing to see in a particular way.
Someone once called serendipity,
The chance observation falling on a receptive eye.
And for me,
This captures gut and serendipity perfectly.
There is chance,
And yet you have to be observant and receptive in your perspective to make these weird connections.
Sometimes stories often help to reveal the truth of an idea.
So I'm going to share a personal story of gut and serendipity.
So my dream is to open a yoga studio in my house.
Do I have a house?
Nope.
So I've been on the hunt for months and nothing has been right.
And in particular,
I want to live in a town where everyone else also happens to want to live.
So the houses get snatched up within an hour of being put on the market,
And they're asking prices have been high.
I happen to be Facebook friends with a woman,
And I've never met her,
But I know she lives just around the block from me.
We've just never had the chance to meet in person.
I have adored her house every time I walked by.
And one night recently,
She posted that she was leaving her current job to pursue a new opportunity.
I messaged her to congratulate her well,
Or and wish her well on this new path.
And then I just happened to ask if this new opportunity would be taking her out of the area.
And if it was,
Was she selling her house?
She was indeed.
And she let me come and look at it before she put it on the market.
Now,
I could go on and on with how amazing this house,
Built in 1916,
Is.
Don't get me started on the bathroom and in the basement.
There's a stack of old floorboards from a gym just waiting to be put together into a yoga studio floor.
But it's what happened outside between the two of us that has me telling you this story.
When the two of us went outside to admire her incredible gardens,
This woman shared that she had gone through a very painful end to her marriage.
And this house is where she had healed.
I have just gone through my own very painful end to my marriage.
Not only that,
But I have also just completed a kids novel about a character named Hazel Dell.
And the story is about a girl finding her own voice and her own power.
As this woman and I stood outside her house,
A cat walked up to us,
Tail straight in the air.
Oh,
This woman told me,
That's Hazel,
The neighborhood cat.
That's when I knew I had to have this house.
There were the floorboards.
There was the cat.
There was her history mirroring my history.
And you know what?
I put in an offer and she accepted it.
And because she is awesome and all blessings to her on her new journey,
She threw in her lawnmower,
Which I'm going to need for the very,
Very big lawn.
But here's the thing.
The day I got the house is also the day I learned the city where I live won't right now let me have a yoga studio in it until I get a variance.
And that might not be a sure thing.
So as of this moment,
I do not know if I can have my original dream come true in this house.
But you know what?
This experience was so full of flow and serendipity that I'm going to move forward with it,
Not knowing what will happen.
Why?
Because every time I ask my gut,
Should I do this?
It gives me a resounding yes,
Followed by a quiet,
All will be well.
I'm going to trust my gut.
I'm going to delight in the weird collection of happy accidents.
And so now I ask,
What happens if you believe the universe is working on your behalf?
What happens if you look at the world seeking out the good coincidences,
The little lights of wonder illuminating your path?
Could you be wrong?
Could I be wrong?
Maybe.
But damn,
It's pretty delightful to be seeing these shining possibilities and move toward them with a wide light heart.
Namaste.
