Sometimes, you are lucky enough to have the universe serve you up a big ole’ helping of humility. This is a story of my most recent serving of that not so tasty dish.
Several months ago, I met a new friend and we seemed to connect instantly. You know what I mean? It was just a feeling that I couldn’t put my finger on but it was poking me in the ear saying “listen up- this is important.” I immediately sensed that we spoke the same woo-woo language when it comes to believing in manifesting and universal energy even though never of us ever went there during our conversation. Instead, after 15 minutes of “getting to know you” chatting, he was showing me photo’s of his wife and dog, talking about how blessed he feels every day in his life and sharing with me the latest ‘gratefulness’ e-mail he received from his daughter earlier that morning. Here’s the funny thing, I didn’t meet this person at a coffee shop or through a mutual friend. No, we met at my “day job.” Not the space you would normally expect such an encounter.
Over the next few weeks, I came to fully see that this person is a ‘giver’. In this lifetime, I’ve sadly come to understand that most people are ‘takers’ so to find someone who is balancing out the other side of the life raft is truly a gift. After his visit, he sent several people in the office beautiful wreath’s, jars of wonderful honey and books of poetry written by mentally challenged adults. All items that came from different small businesses in his hometown. You see, his goal was to give to and support as many people as possible with his kindness. I felt so touched that I wanted to reciprocate. So, I started making a Mala bracelet out of beautiful blue apatite stones as a special gift for his wife. Apatite is considered a dual-action stone which is good for helping people achieve goals. It clears away confusion, apathy or negativity, then, stimulates the intellect to expand knowledge and truth, also, the color reminded me of the photograph he had shown me of her standing next to the ocean with a carefree and joyful smile. I was creating away with my happy heart and that’s when it happened; self-doubt crept in.
Blue like the colors of the sea and soothing to the soul!
My ego showed up at the door and barged right in uninvited. I started questioning why in the world I thought that the wife of someone so successful would want such a simple gift as my bracelet. Suddenly, my gesture seemed stupid and insignificant and I was too embarrassed to continue. Here’s the problem though- I had told my new friend that I was sending him a gift….and then I didn’t. Weeks went by and I almost had myself convinced that it was fine and that it didn’t matter that I had not kept my word. That was, until he sent me a gentle note asking me to forgive him for not thanking me for the gift, if I had sent it, because it had never arrived. Oh…my…gosh! Talk about being mortified.
You know what? That’s when the magic happened. Instead of making up some half assed piece of crap excuse, I sat back and really thought about why I had not completed the bracelet. I totally owned up to it. I apologized- sincerely. I told him that I had been listening to the stupid ego voice in my head and that I was truly embarrassed that more than anything, I had not kept my word. If you don’t have self-integrity, then what else do you really have? Believing in yourself enough to say what you’ll do and then do what you say is the very foundation upon which you build your character. I didn’t even realize, until that moment, that I had let that start to crack.
So, I pulled out the duck tape (because everyone knows that holds the world together) and started fixing the foundation. I finished the bracelet that evening and sent it out the next day with a heartfelt note of thanks for the wonderful life lesson. You want to hear the best part? When she got the bracelet, she called to thank me. She immediately started to talk to me as if we were old friends and told me that she had been struggling to make a big decision in her life. When she opened the gift, and held the stones, her direction was suddenly very clear to her. This person that I’ve never met before in my life asked me one question. “How did you know, this was exactly what I needed?”
Funny….I would ask her the same thing.
“You are what you do. Not what you say you’ll do”
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