I was thinking this early this morning how easy it is for me to mistrust the adage that “if we do the next right thing we will get what we need”. Although this is a common saying in the 12 step program it has also been a common article of faith for many throughout the ages. Sometimes the reference is to getting what we need in the after life, but that is not my experience with this sage reminder.
It has been my experience in my nearly 75 years of life that (1) I always get what I need to grow spiritually and (2) the pieces, even the terrible ones, end up fitting together is a very magical way.
Just a few minutes ago I was saying to someone that if he had never had issues with anxiety I might never have met him. Since he and his family are people I now hold dear to my heart, that would be a big loss to me.
Earlier, while at the gym, I was listening to the spiritual writer and teacher, Anne Lamott. One of the stories she tells is: One days she prays that God will show her how to be helpful. She goes to the grocery store and discovers she has won a “blank” ham which she does not want, but she acts grateful. In the process of taking the ham and her other groceries out to her car she is in a foul mood and rams her cart into this old van. She discovered that the van belongs to a woman she knows who is without money for gas or other essentials. Anne gives her money and then ask if she and her family likes ham. The woman replies that, “We love ham. We would eat it for every meal.” The point being, of course, that Anne was praying for some way to be helpful in a more global sense and was not open to the possibility that being able to give a ham and some gas money to this woman would being such relief and joy to a family. Anne had woken up in a foul mood and was finding it difficult to find a reason to find any reason to feel hope for we humans. She was thinking about how we make war, cause untold suffering and how difficult it was to do anything about the suffering when it was so far away. Her friend reminds her that there is suffering close by. Anne is not appeased, but knows that she needs to get food in the house for she and her son. This is not done cheerfully and with any sense that she just doing the next right thing. Yet, going shopping and getting food in the house for she and her son was the next right thing.
I closed my counseling practice and moved to Florida last year. I am “seeing” a few life coaching clients and I am writing this blog, but, in many ways I am feeling that I am in transition and not doing much to give back. I know that I could be doing volunteer work or I could get another part time job or do more to increase my life coaching business. Yet, nothing is feeing “right” for me. So, I get up, respond to emails, go to the gym, have breakfast, see clients if they are scheduled, do chores, write a blog and then if I have no other commitments take a long bike ride. I have not had this much flexible time since I hid from my mother and her long list of chores which needed doing. Often I could be found reading a book while sitting in a tree.
Often I have to say to myself, “Right foot, left foot, breathe. Right foot, left foot, breathe.” I believe that if I take care of myself physically, emotionally, intellectually and spiritually I will know the next right thing to do. If nothing else seems “right”, I go back to “Right foot, left foot, breathe.”
I am well aware that if I had the power to change one thing in my life and did so, I would change everything that follows. God knows it would be wonderful to undo some of my hurtful, thoughtless, behaviors of commission and omission. Yet, even though behaviors form a necessary link to all the other links in my life. I think of the long list of people to whom I am connected. Which one of them would I be willing to discard as if I had never know them. My friend Betty in now in town to help her daughter celebrate her 60th birthday. Later today I will drive to Orlando to visit with dear friends, Jennifer, Dana , young Dana and Ceciliar. Thursday I will drive to Bradenton to visit with Peg, Greg and their eight cats. Early next month my good friends Kurt and Marv are coming to take me to dinner for my birthday.
So far this morning I have had email or instant message contact with 25 people. So which of these people – perhaps all of them – am I willing to erase from my memory. I would then have to make sure I erased all the folks I met through the folks I have just mentioned.
Well, perhaps there are some “safe”, limited erasures I could do. Perhaps there are some which have no important links to anything or anyone else. There must be at least one or two and, yet, even illnesses has connected me to some people I would not want to have missed meeting. My HIV doctor at the VA, for example. We have been working together for at least 29 years. We have learned to love and value each other as doctor, patient, friends and as colleagues. The person who convinced me to see if I was eligible to get medical service at the Veterans Administration facility was someone who I befriended and who later lied and stole money and much more from me. Oops. I cannot even erase the relationship with this unhealthy man.
This is not the first time I have reminded myself of how I always get what I need and that all the pieces always fit together. I have done this many times, and, yet, often I think, “if only”. Often I think that I need to make some impulsive decision to just get on with the next stage of my life. It seems as if nothing “important” is happening. Yet, when I seriously step back I can see more pieces being collected. I have no idea of how these pieces will connect long term, I know that they will. I also know that I cannot be passive even if the only active thing I do right now is “right foot, left foot, breathe,”
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