Are you just where you are meant to be?

This past summer, we had just arrived on our family holiday when a glass blender I was lifting down from a high shelf crashed to the floor, deeply cutting my big toe. Apart from the fright (and the ridiculous amount of shattered glass to clean up), it wasn’t too bad. But for some reason, the cut didn’t stop bleeding until I bundled up the kids and zoomed over to the local medical centre for stitches. I took it as a sign to slow down for the next ten days and enjoy the precious moments with my gorgeous children.

Fast forward one month and I was in my beautiful integrative health practitioner’s office, as we discussed the possibility of a small operation I had been putting off. I believe in the body’s ability to heal itself and had been making good progress working with a host of natural therapists but she was hoping for a quicker result.

I shared with her my blender mishap and she arranged for a test to check everything was ok. Less than a week later she called to say surgery couldn’t go ahead anyway as my blood was currently clotting slowly (perhaps due to the fish oils I had been taking). My relief was palpable, as was my appreciation for the way the universe works. That crashing blender had potentially saved my life. If my toe hadn’t been cut, I wouldn’t have known it was dangerous to have surgery at that time. I also felt as though I had been given a second chance to heal myself naturally. I couldn’t help marvelling at the way it had all come about.

Yes, it may be coincidence. But I rather believe that when things happen in life that appear to derail us, it is in fact the universe gently (or not so gently) pushing us in the direction chosen by our deeper awareness.

Fast forward another two weeks and to the hepatitis A scare on frozen berries. Normally an organic berries girl, I had bought a ton of the offending frozen berries while up on holiday for my daily smoothie fix. My husband panicked. Did you blend up those berries? Well…..no actually. No blender, remember?

Yes, it may be coincidence. But I rather believe that when things happen in life that appear to derail us, it is in fact the universe gently (or not so gently) pushing us in the direction chosen by our deeper awareness. Had I not dropped the blender, I may now be in a much worse position than having a tiny scar on my toe. Similarly, had certain challenging events not happened in my life, I may not have committed so strongly to the path I am on now. And I do feel this is where I am meant to be.

Whether I believe in fate or destiny or that each of our souls chose our path before we began this lifetime, I realise that I have a choice in every moment. Now. Today. This moment. When things get rough, I can choose to believe my mind’s complaints that life isn’t fair or I can recognise that I am not my thoughts, my emotions or even the events around me. I am so much more than that. I am a child of the universe, an expression of the desire of our underlying consciousness to know and love itself. Like the cell of a body, I am part of a greater whole and the infinite wisdom of that whole is expressed through me. In other words, there are grander things afoot than I can possibly grasp right now.

Meditation brings me home to this truth.

So I take a moment. Sit. Breathe.

And come home.

Next post: Monday meditation – 3 steps to emotional mindfulness