Hello, dear one!
When your loved ones disappoint you, what do you do next?
After the long and insidious rainy days this winter, as soon as the sun smiled, I hit the trail with my dog.
I ran into an old neighbor who bought a bigger home and left our neighborhood before the Covid lockdown.
She surprised me with her New Year’s Resolution.
She and her best friend from middle school had planned a trip to Ireland together last summer. Somehow she was so concerned about the safety of international travel that she canceled her trip.
Her friend has since declined to communicate with her, in all forms. Her friend would not answer my neighbor’s calls or reply to her emails or text messages.
My neighbor has lost her nights of sleep because she feels guilty and fears that she’s ruined their 30-year friendship.
My neighbor’s new years resolution is to reconnect with her best friend.
To help her mitigate guilt and restore her inner power, I shared my story, and how I practice giving intentions but relinquishing attachment to any outcome.
I had a dear friend reach out to me last summer.
She was under tremendous stress both at work and at home, so I suggested a zoom call.
She was elated and set up a convenient date and time that best fit her schedule.
Through another friend, I met a lady who specialized in both hypnosis and self-regulation to reduce anxiety.
To return the favor for my previous support of her business, the practitioner had planned to offer my friend a free session at later time.
When the zoom date came, I only saw the practitioner at the scheduled time. We chatted as we waited for my friend to show up.
After ten minutes, I called my friend. It went straight to her voicemail.
I texted her, but she didn’t reply. I also sent her an email. No response.
When the practitioner had to leave finally, I apologized and thanked her for showing up with patience.
About 25 minutes later, I received an email from my friend!
She had discovered some considerable errors in her work pension, and she was on hold calling the pension company all that time!
She called me an hour later and apologized.
I asked her, “Did you solve your pension problem?”
I wasn’t surprised when I heard her reply, “No. No one could help me today.”
My neighbor asked me, “Did you get mad at her? Did you tell her how she had let you down?”
I told her that I would be lying if I wasn’t bothered.
While I was waiting for her to show up, there were moments of disappointing feelings in my gut. But, they fainted away quickly because I had been practicing the law of detachment for years.
There are many spiritual laws, and one of them is the law of detachment. While I give full intention to what I want to achieve, I give no attachment to the result.
I continued to explain to my neighbor that my friend chose pension resolution over our meeting. She chose what was more important at that moment, with her free will.
No matter how much I wanted to help her reduce anxiety, I would be powerless to impose my will on her. I simply accepted her absence from the meeting.
Maybe not showing up was her purpose that day. Maybe this was my Divine assignment to practice the law of detachment to work on myself.
There is a season for every reason. If you pluck a grape too soon, it will not be ripe enough to taste good. Give it some time, and let it ripe naturally.
My friend will continue to experience anxiety attacks until she decides to take actions one day.
It’s the same with my neighbor’s intention to rekindle her friendship with her best friend. She has no control over how her best friend will act next. Let the outcome unfold in its time.
Life is a book. If her best friend is meant to be the crucial character in her life, she will reappear in my neighbor’s future chapters. Otherwise, she will belong to her past chapters.
The Bible says we’re here like a mist, a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes (James 4:14).
Life is short. So Why frustrate yourself by attaching to a willful outcome?
The next time when you’re disappointed, will you practice the law of detachment? This is how you bring your inner power back to your core.