Heart not Head

"The Universe is tricky...it speaks to your heart not your mind." 

--my friend Loretta

The Universe and I have had a few tough days this week, I have been wondering if quitting my job is the right decision, wondering about what is next for me, wondering if I am really hearing the Universe or if I am making this shit up in my head. Sometimes the Universe sends conflicting messages.

Last week I got the idea to call up an old roommate of mine to see if he wanted a desk that had been his. He and my sister and I lived together in the late 1990's and they were a couple for a brief time. During this time he bought an old desk from the university and completely refinished it. He worked on that desk for HOURS. Stripping it, polishing it, making it shine. He gave it to my sister for her birthday that year and she kept it until she moved a few years later, at which time we inherited it. 

It is a beautiful old desk and we have loved having it, but as the boys have gotten bigger and we need more space, we have realized that it is time to let it go. 

I got the idea to call up the Big Man (as we called him) and see if he wanted it. I was so excited. Maybe we could get together and catch up, renew our friendship, hang out (the Big Man had always been the "one that got away" as far as brothers-in-law went for my husband and I)!

I got on the internet and found his email address. I sent him an email and waited. No response. 

Let me tell you something that it has taken me years to learn: no response is a NO. Once in awhile the person is on vacation or has just changed their email address or has a broken computer, but for the most part, a non-response means the answer is NO, to whatever it is you have asked. 

I, however, was not deterred by a lack of response and on the day we were to get rid of the desk I picked up the phone and called him.

My first clue that all was not going to go as planned was when I had to tell him who I was, even after using my first and last name to identify myself. 

It soon became clear that "happy to hear from us" would not accurately describe his reaction to our blessed reunion. Confused might be more appropriate as in, WHY are you calling me? 

Needless to say he did not want the desk, did not want to get a beer, did not really want to deal with taking this phone call. 

When I got off the phone I felt crushed. Disappointed. Sad. It was hard to realize that for him we were not a happy memory as he was for us, we were barely a memory at all. 

So I started down the road to WHY.

WHY had we been given this desk if not to return it to its rightful owner? WHY had it been so easy to find him on the internet if we were not meant to reconnect? WHY had I felt the urge to call him if this was not to be? WHY? WHY? WHY?

I was telling my friend Loretta about all of this and that's when she spoke these words of wisdom: "The Universe is tricky....it speaks to your heart not your mind."

And that was my "ah-ha!" moment. 

I had been in my head this whole time. Making up stories about how it had been and how it would be, living in some fantasy-land of my own creation and taking it as a message from the Universe. 

But how then to know when the Universe is speaking to you for sure? 

I think the answer can be found in these words of wisdom. It's a heart vs. head thing. 

When the Universe speaks to you, you can feel it in your heart. You just KNOW, even if you don't know the details or HOW it is possibly going to work out. Like quitting my job. It was not what I WANTED to do, or even what made sense to me in my head, but I truly felt it was what I was being led to do by the Universe. 

Because we live in a head world there were "signs" on both sides of the argument - there were signs for staying and signs for going - some speaking to my heart, some to my head. In that case I was able to sort through them and make the heart decision.

In the situation with the desk I became so enthralled with the fantasy in my head I forgot to look for the heart signs and I missed the true message altogether. 

The good news is that this situation has taught me something important and has put me more deeply in touch with my heart. I want to talk more about this next week so stay tuned....


In the  meantime, have a great weekend and may your heart speak to you loud and clear!

Stop Making Sense (of it all)

"Ours is not to wonder why, ours is but to do and die."

--From 'The Charge of the Light Brigade' by Alfred, Lord Tennyson

The original quote from Alfred, Lord Tennyson's poem is: "Their's not to reason why, Their's but to do and die," but it is often paraphrased, "Ours is not to wonder why, ours is but to do or die." The version I have used is a combination of these two that came to mind as I continued to ponder my write-up from last week and to try and make sense of it.

When it first happened, I was absolutely certain that the person who had unwittingly received an extra $100 would return it to the credit union and my record would return to its unblemished state. I was certain of this because I am the person who ALWAYS returns the money. Whenever there is a "bank error in my favor" I always let someone know. 

So, according to the laws of Karma as I understand them, this was a no-brainer, the person would discover the error and return the money. Except....they didn't.

This shook my world a bit and I had to come up with another explanation for this aberration in the workings of the Universe.

Here's what I came up with: 

1) This was a "correction" from the Universe for judging a co-worker who has trouble balancing and makes a lot of mistakes on the job. Kind of a, you think you're so great, well try this on for size, kind of smack-down from the Universe.

2) This was a chance to "trust the Universe," to push the pause button on my anxiety and just see what happened next and to continue to trust in the possibility that someone would return the money after a few days or weeks had passed. 

3) This was a redress of grievances for loosening my policy of "working at work." In the past I had always worked on only work things at work, but recently, as I noticed how much time my co-workers spend on Facebook and Google and Flicker while working, I had begun to relax my personal rules a bit and check my email or work on some writing while at work. I didn't feel entirely good about it, but I was still justifying it with the old, "everybody's doing it."

As the days went on I thought about each of these possibilities and tried to decide which one was "right," but there was no one answer that overwhelmingly spoke to me and seemed to be "it." (Though I did finally settle on #3 as the most likely and have returned to my former policy with good results so far.) 

That's when this quote started to repeat in my head. "Ours is not to wonder why, ours is but to do and die."

It reminds me of a game I used to play with my younger son when he was around 4 or 5 years old. He would ask me a question and keep asking the next question and the next question and the next until we finally got into a loop that went like this: 

ME: "I don't know."

HIM: "Why don't you know?"

ME: "Because I'm not God."

HIM: "Why aren't you God?"

ME: "Because God made me human."

HIM: "Why did God make you human?"

ME: "I don't know."

HIM: "Why don't you know?"

ME: "Because I'm not God."

And so on and so on until one of us (usually me) got tired and we stopped. 

This is exactly what I was doing with God over my write-up. 

ME: "Why did this happen?"

GOD: "It is not yours to know."

ME: "Why not?"

GOD: "Because you're not God."

ME: "Why not?"

GOD: "Because I made you human."

ME: "Why?"

GOD:"It is not yours to know."

And so on and so on and so on. Until I go crazy or just let it go....because sometimes ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do the best we can with the life we have been given and then, eventually, to die.....when presumably it will all make sense.