Spiritual Lessons
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The Right Place at the Right Time
As I walked along the beach gazing out over the setting sun, I heard a voice asking me if I was going to hang out for the sunset. I was surprised to see a young man sitting up against a log, bike laying down on the sand behind the log. I was so much in my own little world, I didn’t notice him there. Surprisingly, I looked up, smiled and said hello. I went on to say that it was a beautiful night and I would be hanging out for the sunset, for sure.As I walked away I began to wonder if this young man was trying to invite me to watch the sunset with him. It seemed odd, as I was much older than he was, so it couldn’t be a romantic connection.
I walked a bit further on down the beach and found my own log to sit on. I reflected on the part of me that doesn’t have much trust in the human race. I noticed my thoughts around having an innocent conversation with a young man and how I needed to read something into it. If he was too young to be romantically interested in me, then why would he want to talk with me? Crazy question. Some people are just friendly. I realized that I could just let it go and hold this man, and every other person who wanted to talk to me, responsible for asking for what they want, rather than dropping hints I may never get.A short time later the young man surfaced in front of me and asked again “are you watching the sunset all by yourself?” I patted the log next to me and invited him to sit down. I realized my first impression that he wanted to talk to me was correct.
As he sat down, I asked him his name and he told me it was Kristopher. He was a very attractive young man who revealed that he had just turned thirty. I asked Kristopher the usual “getting to know you” questions, like “where are you from,” where do you live now, what brings you to this area?” As we became more comfortable with each other he proceeded to share his heart with me, his deepest pain. He told me that he was heartbroken. His girlfriend kicked him out after an on again, off again relationship of several years. He had bonded with her children and wanted to be a good Father figure to them, as they didn’t have a relationship with their Father.As Kristopher talked about his situation, I began to feel like I was in a counseling session. The story was very familiar. This man was describing the same kind of relationship dynamic that presents with narcissistic abuse. She was very jealous, controlling and deceptive, and he couldn’t figure out what he did to cause her to behave the way she did. Kristopher was a sensitive, empathic young man and it seemed the woman he had walked away from was lacking in empathy and honesty. I told him that the woman sounded like she might be narcissistic and he said “that’s what my Mother told me!”
The more we talked, the more he seemed to be putting the pieces of the puzzle together in his head. He knew the relationship was toxic and that couldn’t be good for anyone, but he felt responsible for her children who can’t get away from the toxicity. These weren’t his children, but he obviously loved them as if they were. It was a very admirable quality.
We stopped to watch the burning orange sun casting a glow across the evening sky. It was the most beautiful sunset I had seen in a long time. Both of us pulled out our phones and started snapping photos. After the sun descended, Kristopher told me he was blown away. He couldn’t believe how “God” led him to me. This was just what he needed, he told me. He felt so much better. He had been feeling so lonely and disconnected.Synchronicity is an interesting thing. I too was amazed at this demonstration. Here was a lonely man, struggling with heartbreak and confusion and he knew, on some unconscious level, that he needed to talk to me. I knew, on some level, that he wanted to talk to me. I was so grateful to have been used by spirit in such a magical way. I admired Kristopher’s courage to reach out. So many people in pain never do reach out, and they get lost in the abyss of their painful emotions without any support or understanding as to what is happening.
I knew loneliness. I knew pain. I knew what it was to be so confused about a relationship I couldn’t see straight. Had I not confronted all my painful emotions, I wouldn’t be who I am, and be able to offer support to others who were struggling with these issues. I felt grateful for this.Kristopher and I talked until dark and it was time for us to go our own way. I explained to him that he was young, he had his whole life in front of him and he would gain strength and wisdom from this relationship that would eventually lead him to the right relationship where he could have a family of his own and a woman who truly deserved a man like him. I could see that deep down, he knew this was true.
We gave each other a big hug; one of those long, lingering hugs that felt like two longtime friends meeting again on the road of life. I was happy we both trusted in the divine guidance that was at work here.As I walked back to camp in the dark, I reflected on the magic of life and was grateful that spirit reminded me that every step of my journey is divine perfection, even if it doesn’t always feel that way. I am always right where I need to be.
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You Look the Same!
Today I ran into a man I worked with when I was only thirty years old. At the time we worked together he was twenty six and I thought I was old. The interesting thing about running into this old friend, is that we instantly recognized each other. Usually after 25 years have passed it might be difficult to recognize someone so immediately. I was getting out of my van going into a coffee house and he asked me if I was who he thought I was. When he said his name, I remembered exactly who he was. We made small talk for just a few moments and he said “you look the same.” I genuinely had to say “so do you.” I meant it. He had also taken very good care of himself over the years and had not appeared to have been a victim of wrong living. It felt good to have been so immediately recognized by someone I had just worked with for a couple years.He had to run off to his daughters birthday party so we didn’t talk long. I imagined he would be about fifty years old, but he was fit. I imagined he married later in life, once he got established financially, which he was well on his way to doing at the age of 26.
Running into an old friend made me take a walk down memory lane and a part of me envied this man’s obvious stability and what I imagined to be a happy family life. I had already divorced when I went to work with him and was a young, single Mother. I was filled with hope and the promise that one day everything would fall into place. I would meet the right guy and build a stable life for myself. I never did meet the right guy, and I’ve lived more a life of a Gypsy than one where I stayed in the same place for decades at a time. And now, here I am, traveling months at a time in a mini-van, flying solo.
Ernest Holmes, the founder of “Religious Science,” not to be mistaken for Scientology, says that comparison is the cause of all unhappiness. We each have our path to walk and when we find ourselves comparing our path to someone else’s path we only cause ourselves pain. There are so many people who tell me they would love nothing more then to do what I am doing, to be so free, to work from anywhere. I am truly blessed this way. Even if sometimes, I feel it would be really nice to have someone to share the journey with.
I suppose I can’t expect that the dark side of “flying solo” won’t emerge from time to time. It gives me the opportunity to go deeper into the feelings that would somehow hold me back from truly embracing my freedom in a way I never have.
Sometimes stability is a trap. People find themselves in a good, stable, well paying job, a great house, a great mortgage to go along with it, an unsatisfying relationship and a feeling of being trapped in the life they have created. Some people are afraid to walk away from their comfortable, stable lives and embrace the call of their spirit. They fear life won’t support them. They fear losing their comfort and stability. They fear losing the prestige and ego trappings that make them feel accomplished and successful.
What I have learned is that true success is feeling I am free to live my life, true to myself, following the call of spirit, following my bliss and knowing that I would never settle for a life that didn’t suit me. Now I can say, that I am following my bliss and I am learning to really trust that my path will lead me to the greatest happiness I have ever experienced. Yes, perhaps I am a late bloomer, in some ways. But it is better to bloom late and live true to ones self, then to bloom early and lose your petals early.
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Leaving the Past in my Rear View Mirror
Ahhh, I’m in the mountains. In the beautiful North Cascades. I drove from Kettle Falls, through some
very beautiful Country and decided to stop at a campground I like that is still very much on the Eastern, Washington side of the mountains. I took a hike about a mile straight up. There were some beautiful forests and views of snow capped peaks. It felt good to be here.
I felt a letting go; a releasing happening as if I was leaving the past in my rear-view mirror and driving into a new reality; one that embraced a higher level of love, acceptance for “what is” and a deeper forgiveness. I had been holding onto some anger, hurt and resentment. It wasn’t serving me to continue to carry it around with me. Traveling in a mini-van, I couldn’t carry around a lot of excess baggage, so I had to stop the van and let it out.
Heading through one of the most beautiful mountain passes I’ve been through, and taking my time on my way to the West Coast, I felt a happier, freer energy. Although I had no idea what awaited me or what would unfold, I was going someplace very dear to my heart. It would either embrace me or send me on down the road. Either way, its part of a higher plan, one that is not in my control; one I have had to surrender to.
Traveling over a mountain pass like this felt very symbolic to me. It was as if everything I was letting go of stayed on the East side of the mountains, and as I drove down the mountain to the West side, I was tasting a new kind of freedom!
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Welcome to Sandpoint
I found my way to Sandpoint, Idaho, one of my favorite places in the world, with tall mountains and a very large deep water lake that makes me think more of a Bay than a lake. Some of the best hiking is in this area with tall pine forests and beautiful expansive views of Lake Ponderay. I was hiking between 5.5 and 6 miles a day, sometimes straight up hill.
I’ve lived near Sandpoint for many years and in some ways it is “like home” to me but it also brings up a lot of emotional energy that is coming to the surface to be healed and released. I was very near old memories and wounds and yet I was drawn here for a reason. To heal! Ironically, I have an appointment with my Lyme Disease Doctor while here. He specializes in the alternative diagnosis and treatment of Lyme Disease and was my “miracle doctor” when I was in the worse pain of my life. Now and then I have relapses and he helps me kick the healing back in.A series of events led me to delve a little deeper into my own emotional ups and downs and a deeper understanding of myself. I knew that this trip/journey was a spiritual journey for my own growth and expansion, but I wasn’t sure what I needed to expand in myself. Life seemed to bring a lot of lessons that had me learning how to roll with the punches and accept whatever happens on an external level. But my journey was becoming much less “external” and much more “internal” as the time passed by.
I haven’t had any further issues with my van since leaving Colorado. That was the first phase of my journey where there were a lot of external challenges. Ironically even as I was leaving Colorado, I lost my credit card at a gas station. I was hesitant to report it missing at first, thinking it might show up somewhere in my van, but it never did. I had this card attached to all the auto deductions for my business, and it would be a pain to replace, especially while traveling. Eventually I found my card. It wasn’t in my van. It was with someone who was planning on having a spending spree in Vegas. Fortunately, I get notified by email whenever there is a purchase on my card and I happened to be Online when the notification came in, so I immediately reported the card stolen and it closed my account down. Another “out there” experience.
The external issues began falling away and in its place the deeper emotional healing was on the table. As I walked miles in nature, everything would just flood to the surface and I experienced a lot of emotional highs and lows. I ended up having a psychic reading from a psychic medium who was visiting the area for a day. One of the first things he told me was that my deceased Father was a powerful guide in my life and traveling right along with me. His was the loudest voice of all my guides as he had an important message for me. The message had to do with some choices I needed to make for my well-being and highest good at this time. Ironically I had already made “the right choice” and my Father’s words were validation that I was listening.The psychic was actually very accurate and described my Father’s appearance and his approximate age, his love for water and even the way he died. My father also wanted me to know that he had a sense of adventure like I do.
Since this phase of my journey took me deeper into loneliness and a feeling of isolation, knowing I had an invisible traveling companion was helpful. The other validation I received in the reading was that this journey was indeed for my spiritual growth and there was a lot of emotional healing happening. There always seems to be a lot of emotional healing on the table. It has been my life path to embrace healing and to facilitate it. I learned long ago that a therapist can only take a client as deep as he/she has gone herself. The more we are able to face our own core wounds and develop the awareness of what lies deep beneath the surface, the more we can “see” the wounds in others and help them to heal.
As I travel around, camping in various campgrounds, I am constantly exposed to families, couples, and groups of friends, and it makes me feel more a lonely wanderer without a tribe. Most of the time, other than my contact with clients, I spend long hours in the world within, listening to the voices in my head and riding the various waves of emotion that stem from complete “awe” of the beauty that surrounds me, to deep sadness connected to my own isolation.
I picture myself as a monk on a mountain, just sitting in solitude for days, weeks, months and facing the inner demons that find fault with my existence. I suppose it is also like the story of Jesus in the desert, confronting Satan. When we spend a lot of time alone and in isolation, the dark forces see an opening, a weakness that it thinks it can exploit. That voice sometimes tries to convince me that my life isn’t worth living; it has no real purpose, and nobody really loves me or cares about me. I am truly alone!Sometimes it is a choice that I find myself alone in the world. I enjoy long periods of reflection and solitude. But sometimes those long periods seem to extend into eternity and I begin to feel I am an alien. I don’t belong here. I’m not like the “others.” There is no place I really fit in. I’m an outcast.
The one thing I have learned in life that is quite profound is….wherever I go, I’m still here. There is no reason to believe this reality will ever change. Whether I am in this physical body or floating somewhere beyond it, I’m still here! I still exist. The healing journey I am on urges me to find a deeper peace within myself and to foster a deeper sense of love and forgiveness for those who have rejected, hurt and betrayed me. Everybody is doing the best they can, with the level of awareness they are in. The more we face our darkness, the more light that surrounds us. Some people are attracted to the light, others fear it because it exposes the darkness within the Self.
In many ways I have felt more invisible on this leg of the journey. I fly under the radar and feel that I am rarely noticed at all. I’ve even noticed the friends who were contacting me on a consistent basis suddenly dropped out. Not just one friend; all of them. It became very quiet on the inside, although I was surrounded by a lot of activity. I spend my time in campgrounds where everyone is chopping wood, carrying water, busy as beavers going about their business of boating, swimming with the kids, barbecuing and taking their day trips. I am but another camper going about my business. And it may also be, that the deeper I go 
into my personal reflection, the less I notice them. I hear the sounds of boats on the water, children laughing and screaming, the pitter patter of feet, air mattresses being inflated, and vehicles coming and going. I smell the coffee, the fire, and the barbecue. I am aware of life going on around me. But I don’t pay much attention to it.In Colorado there was a lot more human connection. I made friends and enjoyed time with people along the way. I had a feeling of being more “visible” and embraced. But it was time to go. I felt it.
When I first arrived in Sandpoint, I took my van to a car-wash to clean the pitch that fell from the pine trees I was camped under in Whitefish. I was busy washing my van, trying to get the pitch off when a large truck with a boat attached pulled up behind me, waiting for me to finish. When I realized that I hadn’t pushed the right button for the soap, I went and flipped the switch and started scrubbing the area’s that had the pitch with the brush, and the man in the truck yelled out at me “Are you going around again?” I was a bit oblivious to his obvious distress that he was going to have to wait a little longer. I explained that I had pitch on my van and was trying to wash it off, it would be a few more minutes. He angrily jumped back in his truck, backed up and screeched out of the car-wash. Welcome to Sandpoint!
Several times I was returning to my Van and putting things away, getting food out, or whatever and someone pulled up behind me asking me “are you leaving?” Innocent question, I know, but when I explained that I would be a while, I often had the same reaction…”I wish she would just leave!” It was an opportunity for me to NOT take on other people’s intensity. Sandpoint is crazy busy in the summer. With that comes a certain amount of traffic, waiting, parking issues and difficulty finding a campsite. I got lucky with the campsite.
Each area that I travel to has different experiences and lessons to learn. Sandpoint has been the most emotionally challenging for me, so far. Perhaps it is the memories attached with this area, or perhaps it is the accumulation of over six weeks on the road living in my minivan; my little sleeping pod on wheels. But I will be leaving soon, over the Mountains to another place, other experiences. I will be visiting friends and family. That will be a nice break in the isolation.
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A Down Day!
It’s time for a “Down Day,” a day where I take a break from the world of adventure, sit by the lake in my beach chair, and watch the boats and the trains go by.I find myself starring out over so many vista’s; lakes, rivers, waterfalls, mountains and canyons. I feel blessed to have this opportunity; to be in so many different places and see so many different faces; to enter these different worlds; to check in with my inner landscape and see what, if anything, is obstructing the beauty.
I get so very clear, what I like and what I don’t. I can learn to “embrace it all” but I don’t have to like it!
Matt Kahn, a favorite spiritual teacher says “Whatever Arises, Love That!” I’m not sure I can love whatever arises, but I can learn to embrace it and accept it. The loud rumble of the train at 3am, for example. I don’t know that I can “love that” but I can accept it as part of my experience here. The State Park is next to the tracks. So it is!
I also didn’t “love” tons of traffic at Glacier National Park, where every available spot is occupied, every place I go; where the trails are so congested, I spend more time dodging people than appreciating the beauty. And, after a two mile hike up hill, I arrive at a beautiful, pristine lake, in the mountains, only to find it looks more like a tourist beach in the City with families from Japan, India, Germany, France and all across the U.S.. It was a great cultural experience, for sure, but not really what I was looking for in a forest hike. The contrast makes me appreciate all the 
beautiful, quiet hikes I’ve enjoyed in solitude.I don’t have to “like” every experience, but, I can learn more about myself through them, and I migrate towards the experience I truly love.
Sometimes it is good to have a day of inactivity. It was a good day!
