Why the Universe Tests You

It's not what you may think

Life: An Organized series of flights, car rides, and decisions.

In the airport, I write and reflect in a moment of repose after the twists and turns of my India flights canceled, the yo-yo of trust, decisions, uncertainty, and whys:

Letting the whys simmer down into silence hones them wise.

There’s a poetic reasoning behind the string of events we call a life, and the lives intertwined—sometimes raveled to a tangle.

We don’t need to know all the details. For me, in a moment in the airport, after having to re-decide and recommit to traveling across the world away from my family, I’m questioning, Why does it have to be so hard?

I’m also marveling at the yes that I followed the whisper of spirit, even though I couldn’t explain why and, of course, the fam partly wanted me to stay. I’m marveling, too, at the love and encouragement from my family, the friends we were staying with, and Ma Universe:

My 14 year old looking me in the eye, Mom, if you really want to go, you should go. Don’t let money stop you.

My day job that has supported us abundantly and that the Divine has used time and again to provide for us in stunning waves of synchronicity. It’s been that token of something I have been in such gratefulness for and yet I want to escape mostly to be able to say something like, I have arrived.

Ambivalence. This whole trip process has been imbued with ambivalence. Energetically, I’ve been inviting any reason to convince me not to go. To the point that JFK shuts down before snow even falls. Tickets canceled. OK, Love, says Ma Universe, You can get out of this. Do you really want to get out of it? You can totally still do the course online.

Your bags have been packed since Tuesday for a flight to Delhi Saturday morning, so you could go to the office this week with whole family in tow. You’re staying with friends in Oakland, just a bridge away from SFO. It’s Saturday morning and you learned last night that the soonest you could get there on the ticket you decided to cancel would be 2 days after the training started.

You can just go home and unpack your bags, stay with your family. Or you can keep looking for tickets, go to the website of the airline you said you’d never fly with again, pay an extra grand for a ticket, ask your friend for a long sweater because you have a feeling you’ll need it, repack while the kids climb the mandarin tree and twist off all its sunny mandarins from the tippy top and then watch a morning movie of Cinderella. Anything is possible; lizards can become footmen.

*

Every time we think we have the answer lay the threshold & the invitation to zoom out:

The more you know, the less you don’t know & also the more possibilities you realize there are to explore.

Let go the insistence of needing to know why. The persistent why why why is an innocent distraction ploy of the mind: Turning us to rumination, victim consciousness, and cyclical thinking, rather than feeling the whole of the present moment in its entirety and the discomfort of the unknown.

Besides, deep down, you know you needed to be empowered to make the hard decision again. To do the thing you can’t explain you need to do and—even though they don’t fully understand—see how supported, loved, and held you are.

Let yourself ease into the tenderness of all that is here for you in this moment.

Feel it all.

So that’s how I ended up en route to India, for the first time since 2019.

I look back at that steely creature flying to meet her teacher for the first time, leaving 3 kids and her husband at home (with his parents visiting), youngest daughter 3 at the time.

Now that little girl is 8. And, me, deeply grown and changed too. Ever growing & changing.

In this moment of repose at the airport looking at the plane I’ll board from the window, I’m feeling grief, excitement, nostalgia, relief, sadness, gratitude, the exquisite fullness of human emotion.

Tears in the airport as dusk turns to dark and the journey begins.

*

A week later, I write: I’m in India. The journey to get to this lush sanctuary in the Himalayan foothills is far greater than I yet know.

Just to arrive is arduous, if that’s the perspective you choose. It’s also simply an organized series of flights, car rides, and decisions. All these things get tried to test your spirit and brighten your commitment and shine.

We can take any perspective we choose.
Keep the magic alive & choose yours with care.

The fact is, none of this is an accident. Nothing we are living is accidental.

For me, the seed was planted by a longing to go, again. My first time to see my teacher in person was November 2019, a hot mess of a year-end, preceding a dose of global and personal havoc.

Going on this journey is disruptive, so the desire to explain why I need to go rises up. Yet words don’t do justice to the inner pull—gravity-like. It’s an inner knowing that we either listen to or we swat aside. When we don’t listen to the whispers, they get louder while our hearing and intuitive senses dull—showing up in the landscape of physical, mental, and energetic frustration and dis-ease.

The seed about to sprout doesn’t talk about how it wants to meet the light of the sun above—unfurl and grow and see what it’s like to become home to jays and bugs, squirrels and mistletoe.

This is the right time to remember: Last year, I didn’t listen to the longing. I decided to take that training online and create a discontinuous event with my family. Instead of me going to India alone, we all went to Mexico together. Shorter trip, snorkeling cold clear turquoise cenotes during the day, steeping in the Nitya Devis by night and sunrise.

The thing about timing is that it’s always right. You are never ever never too late. For there is only now.

Inhabit this now fully, and let the next now unfold as it naturally ever is.

*

Your whole life has organized itself for this very trip. The journey is as much a journey within as it is externally.

Sometimes we think if it’s not flowing, it’s not meant to be. So we give up preemptively. This giving up isn’t necessarily a wise surrender, it’s often a failure to follow through.

We want to develop the discernment to know the difference.

So take some space to get clear. Light a candle, maybe some incense. Slow down the fidgeting in the body, feel into your feet, and lengthen the breath for a few rounds.

Consider: How we do one thing is how we show up for everything. Look at your life lovingly, compassionately, yet honestly. Notice where you’re harshing yourself.

Journal: What journey is unfolding for you right now? Where are you resisting it or prodding it with whys?

What decisions are feeling difficult for you or are you avoiding altogether?

(If you’ve been sitting with the same question for a while, it’s a sign that you are caught in a spin and it’s time to just drop the question altogether. Don’t replace it with a similar question that sounds more “spiritual.” Drop it completely.

Thinking doesn’t solve our problems. The same consciousness state that snagged you into the ‘problem’ cannot unsnag you. It requires a shift in consciousness. Allow that shift to dawn.)

Look at a totally different area of your life, how is this echo of scarcity and lack showing up there?

Here are some life categories to play with:

• Mindset

• Emotions

• Energy

• Relationships (includes self)

• Health

• Wealth

• Purpose

• Contribution

• Spirituality

What insights surfaced for you? What do you need help with? Let’s talk about it in the comments.

Love,
Heather

P.S I’m back home now. Stay tuned for part 2: The return and integration.