Turning my canoe around and floating down the stream of life

The longer I live the more I realize that life is full of challenges and will continue to be so.  Even living free, laughing and joyous has moments of challenges and crises.  And sometimes those moments are long, long moments.

 

I have recently been through one such m”moment” – 4 or 5 long months of challenges in my business, where projects that should have started didn’t, proposals that should have been accepted weren’t, and clients that should have emerged just stayed hidden.  I sat so many days and nights in my home office wondering what was going on.  What was I doing wrong?  Where was the error in my thoughts?  As a student of Science of Mind, I know that my thoughts beget my reality.  So if I see a certain reality that I don’t like, then I immediately try to figure out and correct the underlying thought.  I dug deep yet I just couldn’t figure out what the disconnect was.

 

Throughout it all, I worked hard to be happy and joyful (well, most of the time – even I have my moments).  I sang, I walked the dogs, I did my affirmations, I exercised, entertained friends, I had fun, even making a game of the challenge.   I KNEW deep in my heart that “This too shall pass” yet it sure was taking a long, long time.

 

And then I realized that something magical was happening.  The Universe was telling me that I needed to shift my business strategy.   You see, the strategy I was pursuing was out of alignment with my highest good, with my own personal vision for my life and was unsustainable.   And so I developed and launched two new products that were in alignment with my life’s mission –executive coaching and my first online personal development program – “Free and Laughing in Crisis: How to Turn Moments of Crisis into Opportunity”.  Did I do a feasibility study or business plan?  No – in a very un-Harvard MBA way, it just felt like the right things to do, and so I went ahead in faith to launch my products in the last two months.  I have been immersed in the excitement and wonder of new learning – studying Usain Bolt’s coach, Glen Mills, learning how he coaches for peak performance and getting insights on how I can coach executives for peak performance; exploring the online world, and realising how different doing business in this sphere is to the offline world.  Wonderful moments of insight – all because of a crisis!

 

Fast forward to last week, when I was in Jamaica.  I attended church at the Temple of Light.  Rev. John Scott gave the most beautiful talk that totally resonated with me.  He didn’t know I was coming to Jamaica, yet I swear he gave that sermon just for me.  In it he spoke about us being given a canoe, taking it to the stream of life, putting it in and then paddling furiously …. UPSTREAM!  And all the whispering and shouting of the Universe cannot convince us to simply turn our canoe around and float gently down the stream of life (yes, he even had us singing “Row Row Row Your Boat – listen HERE for his talk).

 

I realized then that the dearth of work was clearing space for me to turn my canoe around and float gently down the stream of an abundant, joyous life.  That period represented my turning my canoe around – it’s hard to stop paddling upstream and turn the canoe around.  But once you do, then the stream takes over and life flows.  And since then, that is exactly what has been happening.  New products, new clients, new spaces in which to work are coming together “like magic”.  What was a challenge, was really a course in the school of life!  I have graduated from this course now – merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily – life is such a dream!

 

Yet I know there will be other challenges – but it’s OK – the challenge or crisis is the class that will give me new knowledge, insight and direction to bigger and better things for my life!  Whenever you feel you are in a crisis, it is a signal that you are paddling UP the stream of life.  Turn your canoe around and flow gently down the stream.  Yes, merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily – life is such a dream!