Sarah was sitting at her kitchen table reading one of her favourite beauty magazines. It was part of her new lazy Sunday routine where she got to hang out and do things that brought her joy. She had realised lately that she had developed a long term habit of only doing things that would advance her personally or spiritually. Everything had to have a purpose for advancement. Now she was beginning to believe this belief pattern was robbing her of the joy and fun of life.
She had an insight last week that it wasn’t so much about her intention of personal and spiritual advancement, but more about her limiting beliefs. It was her beliefs about what led to personal and spiritual advancement that was the problem. She had a belief that in order to advance; you need to be focused and always be taking action towards your goals. She was beginning to realise that maybe this was not entirely true.
She remembered a saying: ‘it is not the notes that make the music but the spaces in between.’ What if it was the spaces in between direct action where the real secret to personal and spiritual advancement existed? Similar to the quote, ‘life happens when you are busy looking the other way.’
It was this insight that had led Sarah to reevaluate how she spent her time when she wasn’t working. Hence why on a Sunday morning over a cup of her favourite coffee she was reading a beauty magazine.Something she had not done in years. She was exchanging joy for her constant pursuit of always looking for the answers. Sarah had always had this strong desire to find the truth of who she really was. It led her to spend 2 years of her life in an ashram. Since leaving the ashram, she had realised that the desire was really an obsession. One that would always prevent her from enjoying her life and seeing the truth.
As Sarah flicked through the beauty magazine, the phone rang. It was her friend Madison. They had plans to catch up for lunch and a movie today. Madison was ringing to say she wasn’t feeling well and could they take a rain check? Sarah had told her friend, of course, and wished her a speedy recovery. When she hung up the phone, she noted she did not feel disappointed. Recently, she had been experimenting with the concept that there were no accidents. When something did not work out as planned instead of being upset, she was seeing it as an opportunity for something better to occur. It was allowing her to let go of control and embrace the endless opportunities life offered. She was loving this new way of thinking. Not only did she have greater peace of mind, she also observed many synchronicities occurring. Some of which were having an enormous positive impact on her life.
As Sarah was eyeing off an interesting facial recipe, she heard a knock at the door. She wasn’t expecting anyone and so was a little curious who it might be. As she spied through her peephole, her jaw literally fell open in shock. This was the last person she expected to be standing outside her front door.
She quickly opened the door and exclaimed, “Sam, my goodness, what are you doing here? I am so pleased to see you.”
Sam smiled in a way that only Sam can. He was such a sight for sore eyes, Sarah thought. She had missed him since leaving the ashram a little over 8 months ago.
“May I come in?” Sam asked, still smiling.
“Of course, of course. Where are my manners? I am just shocked to see you.” Sarah blurted out and quickly added, “but equally delighted.” The old pre ashram Sarah would have been highly embarrassed and shy at Sam’s sudden appearance. The new, more evolved Sarah was learning to embrace life with less fear. Accepting each moment as a magical and synchronic opportunity to embrace the truth of who she really was. Life had become a fun adventure where she was not afraid to express herself. Her self-confidence was increasing every day.
Sarah ushered Sam into her kitchen and offered him a cup of coffee. She gestured to take a seat at a large oak table Sarah loved. It filled the room with charm and warmth. The table had belonged to her grandmother, as did the house she was living in. When she died 4 years ago, her grandmother left it to her. Her grandmother’s presence still graced the house with her love, beauty, and charm.
Her grandmother Lily had been such a big inspiration and support to Sarah. She had taken custody of Sarah when she was 4, after her parents had been killed in a random mugging. They had gone out to dinner to celebrate their anniversary when they were mugged and murdered on the way back to their car. A robbery gone wrong, the police report had said. Sarah was an only child and her grandmother had lost Bill, her husband, 12 months earlier, to a heart attack. It was as if Sarah and Lily were destined to be there for each other.
As Sam took a seat at the table, he said, “this house has such a beautiful energy Sarah.”
“Thanks Sam. It belonged to my grandmother; she left it to me when she died.” Sarah responded.
“Oh, I think I remember you telling me about your grandmother’s passing. That was one of the reasons that led you to the ashram, wasn’t it.?” Sam queried.
“Yes, she was such a big part of my life. When she died, it devastated me. She was always encouraging me to just be me. My deep sensitivity meant that I grew up hiding from the world rather than standing proudly in it. My grandmother was my rock. With her, I felt anything was possible. When she died, I lost all hope that I would find me and my rightful place in the world. When she passed, the house just added to my sadness and sense of loss.”
“What changed Sarah? I am not sensing that you feel this way anymore?” Sam asked.
“As always, Sam, you are right,” Sarah said with a wry smile. “After returning from the ashram, I just knew that the truth of who I am is all around me. It is there in the people I meet and the situations I attract into my life. They are all there to show and teach me who I really am. I just had to be brave enough to embrace every moment without expectations and judgements. Only then can the truth reveal itself to me. So I started practising remaining in the present moment and allowing every person and situation to be my teacher to reveal the truth to me. I remember a quote from Paul Solomon. ‘No one is your enemy. No one is your friend. Everyone is your teacher.’”
“After a while, I noticed myself changing. I became much less fearful of people and situations. I found I could connect with people in truly profound and meaningful ways. Instead of fearing situations and events in my life, I started embracing them as magical opportunities to see the truth. The more I did this, the greater the love I felt towards my life and the people in it. When I didn’t place my judgments and fears on the world, I could finally see all the love and magic in it. Life had finally become an exciting adventure where everyday I touched a bit more of the truth of who I really am.”
“I also realised that my grandmother’s energy will always be with me. She is always in the background cheering me on. I can never lose the energy of her beautiful spirit. Every day, I get to experience it not only in my heart, but within this home. Whilst I am careful not to keep her spirit bound to me, I can take the energy she left behind and embrace that. That was always her gift to me. The energy of who she was in this lifetime. I feel so blessed by that, Sam.”
Sam just sat there and smiled at Sarah for several moments before responding. “Sarah, you have come so far since leaving the ashram. I feel so honoured and blessed to be in your company right now. Words cannot do justice to what I am feeling at the moment.”
“Thanks Sam. That means a lot to me. I really do value you and your wisdom.” Sarah responded with heartfelt appreciation.
They both just sat there for a few minutes, sipping their coffee in complete silence. Once upon a time, the silence would have been uncomfortable for Sarah. Now it was just a beautiful gift she gratefully embraced.
Sarah was the first to break the silence with, “So, Sam, what brings you here? I have to say I was surprised and delighted when I saw you at my front door. Is there a reason you have graced my humble abode?” she asked playfully.
Sam laughed before responding. “Sarah, I just love your directness. I have missed that. Yes, there is a reason for coming to see you. As you have probably guessed, I have also left the ashram”
Sarah interjected with “Yes, I came to that conclusion, and to be fair, I asked you to look me up when you left. But I also believe there are no accidents. So if you are here now, then there is a reason for that. I also trust that you know what that reason is.”
Sam just smiled and said, “Sarah, it is so refreshing being around you. You bring out the best in me. I never told you why I went to the ashram.”
Sarah responded with, “I sensed there was some deep hurt within you that was so painful you were unable to talk about it. I respected that, Sam, and never sought to question you about it. I sense that if you have left the ashram, then this deep hurt has been healed.”
Sam jokingly responded, “Sarah, your instincts are on fire today. What did you have for breakfast?”
They both laughed at this. Sarah really had missed Sam. She had placed his presence on the back burner. She had not expected to see him again. Now all the previous feelings she had felt being around him were resurfacing. He carried such a beautiful light within him that she found mesmerising.
Sam continued, “I went to the ashram to heal my grief about the death of my wife Clare. She was my world and I could not move past the grief. It was so big, I feared it would engulf me. After you left the ashram, I started thinking, why are others finding their way and I cannot find mine?”
“The master had told me to look to my heart for the answer. I knew it was the key to healing my grief, but I just could not quite figure out what it meant. Then the master visited me in a dream.”
Sarah smiled ruefully and said, “Yes, he has a habit of doing that. He seems to be a very busy man at night.”
They both laughed again
Sam continued, “I didn’t remember all the dream, just parts of it. He told me again to look to my heart for the answer. He also said something about the issue, not so much about my broken heart. But would I ever risk having it broken again? I asked myself if I was holding onto my grief as self protection against being hurt.”
“This really spoke deeply to me. Was I stuck in grief because it was easier to live with a familiar wound rather than risk experiencing a whole new fresh wound? Was I hanging onto the grief of losing Clare because I was afraid of losing someone else I loved?”
“I then started thinking about my relationship with Clare and realised I had always been overly protective of her. I thought at the time that I was just being a good husband. That is what men do to protect their loved ones. But then I realised that the protection stemmed from fear and not love. He had insulated Clare and myself in our relationship.”
“I could suddenly see why the truth kept on alluding me. This was not about healing my grief, but about the fear of losing love. When I delved deeper, I understood where this fear had come from. My parents had separated when I was 12 and I went to live with my father. My mother met someone else soon afterwards and moved interstate. I saw little of my mother after this and I now realised I was still in some ways mourning the loss of her love.”
“I had held Clare close to me for fear of losing her. I had read once that life was a setup. Everything that happened in our lives was no accident. Every person and circumstance was there to help us grow and evolve into the truth of who we really are. Everything that had happened to me gave me the opportunity to grow into greater peace and happiness. I had also read that the tougher the challenge, the greater the opportunity for growth.”
“I now understood that my love for Clare was built on faulty foundations. To truly love someone, you had to set them free. Whilst I had not done this whilst she was alive, I had the opportunity to do it now. True love needs to be found within and then shared. It is not something to be possessed and controlled.”
“I now knew that healing my heart was not the issue. It was never broken. I only needed to accept the love that lived within me. The love I experienced when I was in deep meditation. No matter how fleeting that love might be, it existed inside of me. Nothing could take away the experience of this love. It is always within me. You only need to experience it once to know that it exists. The journey now for me was embracing the love that dwells within me and sharing that love with others.”
“Wow, Sam, thank you so much for sharing your journey with me. It really resonates at such a deep level. So what’s next for you, Sam?” Sarah asked.
Sam just smiled. “Well, I didn’t finish my story. That night, after getting the answers I had been seeking, I had a dream. In that dream I saw you and I knew that the love that dwells within me I want to share with you. I want more than just a friendship, Sarah. I want to take it much deeper than that.”
“Oh Sam, I have always wanted that from the first moment I met you. I knew you could never give me what I wanted because I sensed your heart was elsewhere. When I saw you at the door today, all the feelings that I had suppressed about you came flooding back. The more we talked, the stronger the feelings became.”
Sarah did not have a chance to say anything else. Sam was quickly on his feet and gently pulled Sarah to her feet. They embraced and kissed each other like long-lost soul mates. Each opening themselves up to a deep vulnerability. To share love on a level they had never been brave enough to do before. It was as if their souls had somehow merged. There was no separateness, only oneness. They also realised that love could never be lost.
They spend the rest of the afternoon snuggled up on the lounge together, chatting. Each daring to make themselves more vulnerable to enable their love to rise to new levels. They discussed what might have happened if each of them had not been prepared to keep searching for the truth. More importantly, if they had not been prepared to act on that truth. They would have certainly missed the opportunity to be with each other if they had ignored the calling to live a deeper truth.
Now they could begin a whole new journey together. Peeling back the layers of fears until they eventually found the truth with themselves. Each would be respectful and supportive of each other’s journey back to their soul’s essence. The source of who they truly were. Their commitment to each was ensuring that each connected and lived from that deep love they referred to as the source. They knew each could provide the life experiences to help them remember and connect with the truth of who they truly are.
