Consolidation Period

Have you ever felt like you've fallen into a rut and things don't seem like they're progressing very much?  I think it happens to all of us, and this situation used to create quite a bit of anxiety in my life. Since I started the "Daily Practice," I've come to understand that these periods of apparent stagnation generally represent a consolidation period.  Progress is being made, even if it's not apparent to me that it's happening.

To explain this belief, I guess I have to go back a bit and let you in on some of my underlying assumptions. The chief assumption I make is that no matter what's happening, the universe will conspire with you to make you successful.  Actually, the universe is always working with you for your success, but it will conspire with you if you let it.  To conspire with the universe you only have to have two things. You have to be willing to listen, and you have be a little bit patient.

Earlier in my life, my chief problems came about because I wasn't listening, and I definitely wasn't very patient.  Oh, I told myself I was open minded and had the patience of Job, but the reality was I'd shut myself off from the opportunities the universe was bringing to me and I was chafing at the bit for things to happen along a timeframe that I'd determined was right and proper.

The Universe Speaks - Anacostia River Sunrise - Washington, DC

I'd shut myself off from any suggestions that were being communicated my way, and I was following my own path with my own timeline.  That's a hard row to hoe, and fortunately for me, the universe in it's wisdom has taken me down from my towering ignorance and arrogance a notch or two.  In the last four years, I've been forced to admit I had a serious behavioral problem, we suffered the death of a child, I missed a promotion, and we were evicted from a very comfortable housing situation through no fault of our own.  I'm hard headed it seems, so it took quite a bit to wake me up to reality. The universe progressed from the kind whisper it normally uses to direct our lives to a full throated scream. It also woke me up, and I'm fortunate that through the work of folks like James Altucher, I'm in the middle (the foggy middle) of coming out of the end of my previous experience.  

During this middle a foggy phase of a transition, I've found that there are periods of consolidation.  They don't last long, and if I don't give up (the daily practice helps with that) I find that the universe has been working in the background on things that needed to line up that if I listen will conspire with me to make me successful.

I don't know what the outcome of all this is going to be, but I know that if I'm patient and I listen there will be opportunities presented to me that I have not yet been able to even imagine.

Strengthening Connections

I've come to believe over the last several years, the our individualism is largely an illusion.  We're all in this together, and we really are one...or at least progressing to that state.  As such, we are all at least connected. It's the spiritual version of six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon.

We Are All Stardust, and We Are All Connected - Severn River - Annapolis, MD

In spite of the truth of connectedness being a tenet of major religions and empirically certain through science, given a sufficiently complete time history, we culturally seem to believe that there is something real and tangible between individuals that must be overcome through the complex social interactions we've developed over the years.

I've been writing "letters to the universe" for the last couple of months, and I received a reply to one of these letters on the same day that I sent the sixty first letter off into the wild.  Someone actually took the time to write back! I cannot tell you the joy that the strengthening of the connection between us has brought to me, and I'm grateful that the person took the time to read my initial "anonymous" letter and write back.

The true bond between us has strengthened a touch, and today, I wrote back because this bold individual expressed a hope that I would take the time and continue a conversation.

I don't know where all this is going, but I can tell you that I'm looking forward to the building adventure that seems to coalescing around me.  We'll see what tomorrow brings, but if it brings anything at all, I'll be grateful for the experience.