She was livid.
She was pissed.
Judy (not her real name), a coaching client of mine—was sitting in my office.
She was glaring at me; and no, that’s not an overstatement.
“Are you some kind of Pollyanna or what? Maybe that’s how it works for you but that’s NOT how it works for the rest of us.”
We’d been talking about her dead end job. No, strike that. This wasn’t just a dead end job, this was a job she hated…
Loathed.
Despised.
On Sunday mornings she’d start to feel sick at the thought that she was going back to work the next day.
Her jaw tightened and she seethed when she talked about her boss. And honestly when I heard some of the things that went on in that office I couldn’t blame her.
I’d asked her to tell me about her ideal job.
She just looked at me like she was ready to throw the lamp across the room at me.
I’d asked her to close her eyes and take a deep breath and go inside. And to her credit she had.
But when I asked her what she’d do if I handed her a magic wand, she’d swung her eyes wide open and glared at me—hard.
Idiot! Every fiber of her being screamed at me.
What are you some kind of deluded Pollyanna?
But here’s the thing.
There’s something about so many of the people I’ve worked with over the years—they’re Pollyannas too.
They might deny it.
They might try to bury it so they can be more like everyone else.
They might not even know it because it’s been so stomped down in them.
But they’re Pollyannas at heart, through and through.
They’re sensitive, creative, whimsical types.
They’re energetic alchemists and they’ve seen times in their lives when the most amazing things have just sort of happened, appearing right “out of nowhere”.
Mostly those things have just seemed accidental or coincidental at best.
They haven’t owned their creative piece in them.
They haven’t realized that their energy is the magic sauce!
They’ve credited “fate” or “luck”.
They believe in things energetic and manifesting—for others.
“Believe” might be too strong a word; “want to believe” would be more accurate.
Believe in theory.
Believe when they hear others talk about synchronicity and “miracles” but not so much for themselves. Not so much when it comes right down to brass tacks, in the middle of a situation like Judy was right smack dab in the middle of.
So she glared at me.
But Judy, also like the amazing people I work with, is a step up to the plate, okay, kicking and screaming maybe but an I’ll give it one more try anyway kind of woman.
So Judy did close her eyes again.
She took that deep breath. And we began.
She worked with me, hard, that day.
She allowed that vision of her perfect job to surface and then right on its heels came Shame, Insecurity, and Inadequacy trying to pull her back under telling her she wasn’t good enough to have a job she loved.
But Judy stayed with the energy and moved through it.
At the end of the session she looked at me with this impish grin she sometimes got, laughed and said “well, there’s that.”
Her sense of humor was back.
The light beaming through her whole being was back.
The next day I got a voicemail from Judy. She was talking so fast I could barely understand her. What she said was something like this…
“OMG. You’re not going to believe this. I’m not even kidding. I can’t even believe this. After I left your office, I went back to the building and this guy who is this really big deal in my industry literally walked up to me and asked me if I wanted a job. Are you kidding? I can’t even believe it. OMG. I’ve looked at his group before and I thought, no way, they’d never take me. I don’t have the right degree or experience…..”
There were resumes and interviews and a few glitches along the way, but Judy did get the job.
In fact, they created a job for her. They even paid her more than she’d been making.
Wow!
I have to be honest, even though I know this is how the Universe works, it never ceases to amaze me every single time I see someone do their work, get out of their way and allow what it is they’ve wanted to come right on in the front door.
It’s crazy. It’s like that job was just sitting there waiting for her to open the door.
Does it always happen this fast? No.
Well, sometimes it does for sure. Mostly it’s a lot more complicated, especially when it’s something we really want.
Judy had already done a lot of work on herself and she knew how to get centered and go inside and when I guided her there she was willing to go. It was a path that was well trodden and familiar.
When there isn’t much resistance it’s actually super easy for us to attract what we want. But for most of the things we want, by the time we reach adulthood, they’re things we really, really, REALLY want and we’ve managed to build a force field of resistance around them.
We’ve built up all kinds of stories about them. On some level we don’t think we deserve them; in our heart of hearts we don’t believe they’re possible for us.
I have warehouses of junk I’ve had to clear out to allow some of the best things into my life.
And there are warehouses I’m still in the process of filling as I continue to attract new incredible and amazing things into my life.
But every now and then, something, like Winston, just skips on in without a hiccup. Almost before I even know I want it.
So let me tell you about Winston.
When my daughter was little she wanted to horseback ride so I found her a stable, signed her up for lessons.
While she was riding—so fricking cute—a little horse that couldn’t have been taller than 2 feet (LOL), I would walk around the stables.
I loved the smell of the stables.
I loved the horses.
I loved the touch of their noses—that velvety soft feeling.
I thought it’d be fun to ride too. So I signed up for lessons. I’d ridden a little as a kid and it felt so good to be back on a horse.
Then I thought it’d be fun to spend even more time around horses. Money was a bit tight so more lessons or leasing a horse was out of the question. But almost as soon as I had the thought, before I had any time to get into a tizzy about “I wish I had more money”, I saw a notice about volunteering. If I worked at the stable for X number of hours then I could ride X number of hours.
Perfect!
And that’s exactly what I did.
Here and there, as I had time, I mucked out stalls and groomed horses and was summarily in horse heaven—yes, even mucking out stalls.
About a month into this arrangement, a woman walked up to me and said,
“You seem like a really nice person.” (I’m not kidding, that’s exactly what she said to me.) “Winston’s my horse,” (I was standing in Winston’s stall at the time) “I can’t ride him a lot and I need some people to ride him. Would you be willing?”
Willing? Are you kidding me?
I was over the moon!
Yes!
And so for a couple years I rode Winston a few times a week. It was like having my own horse.
I remember one day in particular—it was snowing in Washington, DC and the road that goes through Rock Creek park was shut down. I took Winston out (his stable backed up to Rock Creek park) and we rode through a winter wonderland.
It was something out of a postcard.
Rock Creek in the snow is stunningly beautiful.
It was as quiet as quiet could be.
It literally took my breath away.
And just for fun, here’s a throwback photo of me on Winston. I loved this guy soooo much!
It’s easy to let in the things we don’t know we want. They really do sort of seem to happen “accidentally”.
The things we really want? Well, really, our job isn’t to make them happen, our job is to get our energy clear and get out the way. Easier said than done.
What about you? Think about your Winston/”out of nowhere” stories. You’ve got em. We all do. Those times when you’ve let things in before you’ve built up any resistance around them.
What’s your favorite “out of nowhere” story? Leave me a comment, I’d love to hear it.
