A friend of mine came to me last week at her wits end. For many years she had a dream of owning her own hair salon. She had been working for various salons over the years and was tired of working for someone else. But she had just come back from a third meeting with a bank and was turned down for a loan she was trying to get for start-up costs. Besides that, her car was breaking down and her landlord had just announced to her that he was selling the house she was renting.
It wasn’t raining; it was pouring and she was caught in the deluge. She couldn’t even see her dream of her salon any longer due to the flood. When she called me she was ready to throw in the towel, move in with her parents, and forget everything she had been envisioning for so long. The obstacles were too great, and she said it was time to give up.
How many of us give up just because the path is not as smooth and easy as we had thought it would be? It’s interesting how the energy of defeat is so easy to slip into instead of the fires of our passions. When we stub our toe on a rock in our way, it can be tempting to turn around and quit instead of just putting on yet another bandaid and keep going. It’s easier to be swallowed up by the energy of complaining and defeat than trying to find a silver lining of victory – no matter how small – when you’re being battered by the hurricane.
I can definitely relate. My hurricane swirled up the minute that I found out my Mom had an aggressive, rare cancer about a year ago. The prognosis was not good, but she and I and family and friends forged throughout the deluge. I had so much hope and carried so many visions of at least one more year with my Mom. I continually saw her healing and getting stronger. But none of those visions came to be as she only lived for four and a half months after that fateful diagnosis day. My belief in myself and my most intensely desired dreams were dashed on the rocks.
Here I am left without my Mom, my best friend, and the heavy rains have often soaked my determination to move forward with anything in my life. I could completely relate to my friend’s wanting to give up. Funny how it’s easier to sit in sadness than seek out joy or light.
So my friend and I made a pact: we were to every day find at least 5 things that are really right in our lives. The rule is that if we can’t find anything, we’re to call the other and ask for help in seeing the positivity somewhere. It helped both of us to admit that we were feeling the way we were, to accept it, and then make a plan together to move forward. We could then find courage in the storm.
We concluded that when we are in a storm, it’s so necessary to look for the light somewhere; anywhere. It might be in the least likely place, but it’s ALWAYS there. It’s up to us take a deep breath and open our eyes a little wider and be willing to expect the unexpected; leading us to safety and giving us the ability to forge ahead.
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