A Big Yes to What Life is Bringing

They found black mold in my house. Yikes! To remove the mold was such a major project I had to leave for two weeks as men in hazmat suits swarmed my house. While searching for a place to stay, the head contractor for this project said, “Hey, my stepmother passed away last spring and left me a farmhouse about an hour north of Seattle. Nobody is staying there so it is available for you.”

That sounded absolutely delightful, especially considering the chaos that happened while getting ready for the team to come in and gut my attic and crawlspace. Finally, everything was ready and off I went, driving to one of my favorite places in Washington state.

As I turned off the highway and into the driveway of this farmhouse my heart sank. Rather than a farmhouse it was a double-wide trailer on stilts right next to an industrial park, which was right next to train tracks, which were right next to the highway. This was definitely not my image of a farmhouse!

The owner assured me that the trains only ran during the day. But for the two weeks I was up there, they were working on the tracks during the day so that the trains moved only at night. And because this home was on stilts, the trains would literally shake the house, so much so that the pictures were cattywampus the next day.

Whatever my mind imagined the interlude at a farmhouse would be like wasn’t matching with reality!

But as I settled in, I very quickly saw the gift of this time. Out front of the house were noise and movement. Out back of the house, because it was on stilts, was a vast view across farmlands, to the beauty of Puget Sound and onto the mountains, including the pristine white Mount Baker.

I have realized for a long time that the main choice we have in life is what we pay attention to. In this house, every day and every night, I had the choice to react, getting lost in my mind’s addiction to liking and disliking. Or I had the choice to say yes to what life was bringing into my life. In other words, I had the choice to look at life through the lens of the side of the house that my mind deemed not okay, or I had the choice to look at life through the lens of the other side of the house, which was spacious and awe-inspiring.

Life will probably not put you in a double-wide trailer next to an industrial park, train tracks, and a highway. But life will put you into situations that bring up your old addiction to struggling with life, not to play games with you, but to wake you up out of the chronic addiction to struggling with life. If you pay attention, you will see that the uncomfortable times in our lives help us to see the suffering that comes when we react to life rather than responding to it. Or as Hafiz says, “Love sometimes wants to do us a great favor: hold us upside down and shake all the nonsense out.”

How do you know that you’re in a teaching moment? It happens when your body and mind tighten and your heart closes. Instead of following that reaction down the rabbit hole of suffering can you feel the lightness that begins to come when you recognize you are not here in this uncomfortable place because you have done something wrong, or God is fallen asleep on the job? Instead, you recognize that “Life is doing you a great favor.” It is highlighting the illusion of struggle so you can make the choice to say yes to this formerly perceived uncomfortable experience and gather the gifts that are always there.

Are you willing to allow life to hold you upside down and shake all the nonsense out?