When things don’t go as planned...

 

You know that moment of panic when you touch your pocket and the thing you’re expecting to feel isn’t there? We’ve all had that, haven’t we? For me, this didn’t happen during my first two years on the road, but it happened twice, over the last two, after moving to Mexico. 

  1. The first was when I was at a music festival. I was grooving to the music and living life and loving the moment, it was such a beautiful experience. At the start of one of my favorite songs, I reached into my cross-body bag to take a video to remember forever, and low and behold, no phone to be found. As it would happen, the festival had only just begun. My friend and I had 1 choice to make. Go (attempt to) find the phone, talk to police, and potentially ruin our evening. OR, allow the loss of the phone to play no part in our ability to enjoy the rest of the festival. (I’ll allow you to decide which one we chose).

  2. The second was very recently, this summer at an airport actually (yes, during covid). By the nature of all things in 2020, one moment I’m living life and dropping into the concept of silence and isolation, then the next moment I’m booking a flight to DC for 4 days later. I had been waiting all year for my consular appointment and in July of this year, I finally received the confirmation. With an important engagement coming the following month, I planned to make the most out of the trip and fly home for 1 month. I arrived at Atlanta airport, crossed through customs, sat down at my gate, and went to touch my passport. The passport, much to my misfortune, was gone. I don’t even think I could begin to write what happened next in 1 or 2 sentences.

All things considered, without diving too deeply into the details, I learned a few lessons from those moments of panic. I hope I can share these lessons with you so that you don’t have to learn them on your own:

  • Even the most minuscule and (what seems to be) insignificant of decisions can lead to the greatest impact. (Such as slinging your purse on your backside).

  • Giving in to the stress of a moment and allowing your reactive side take over often does more harm than good. 

  • Emotions are always telling us something. Most of the time we should listen, but generally, it’s okay to tap into conscious awareness and label the emotion. Then move on and focus on the task at hand.

  • Especially when things don’t go exactly as planned, there’s usually something to be learned, a lesson waiting for you on the horizon. 

  • It is absolutely 100% okay with taking your time with those lessons. Sometimes they become clearer later down the road.

But the #1 lesson of them all: life is unpredictable and panic is okay. My invitation to you is to feel into the experience and see what lies on the other side.

Until next time,

R