First of all thank you so much for sticking around to hear THE STORY!

When I sent this to my email list I only had one unsubscribe from my list, which was really heartwarming and validates what I already suspected…that it’s 100% time to share this part of my journey with you all.

There really are no coincidences.

Now, this story is long and I am warning you now that I’m going to summon Charles Dickens and give it to you in a serial format over a few blogs because it reminds me a the emails I send to my sister, Julie.  Except because Julie is my sister and loves me she is willing to read full-on novels about my life in one sitting.

But this is even longer than a Julie-story because I have to fill in more context blanks for you!  So I will find an appropriate cliff-hanger to end with as I write it and continue it in the next one.  I really love writing so humour me – escape with me 😉

My request to you is to please tune into how this story makes you feel and if there are any seeds it can plant within you.  I think that will also be the benefit of telling it to you over a bit of time so you can digest it and see if it sparks anything over that time.

Without further ado…

It was early November 2012 and I was a newly minted 30 year old.  I kissed my toddler goodnight while my husband gave him his bath.  I was in my first trimester with my second baby and headed out into the cool evening alone.  It was so rare for me to be on my own and I felt nervous about what I had gotten myself into.  

It was one of those really dark nights when the roads are wet and the lights are reflecting off the surface making visibility difficult.   I headed out of town on a stretch of dark highway in search of a rural address of someone I’d met once and emailed three times. 

What was I thinking?  

I was pregnant, alone, and heading to a remote location to meet with a virtual stranger!   To meditate with her.   Was I the most gullible prospective cult candidate of all time?  

Was I getting catfished?  

My very active imagination was getting the better of me so I tried to distract myself and decided that to avoid looking stupid (to a possible cult leader?) I would show up at this person’s house despite my fear.

Okay, phew, the house was really cute, cozy, and normal.  Reassuring.   

I knocked and she opened the door.  Diane.  A late-30s/early 40s brunette with a kind, smiling face.

She was the lady I met at a “pamper moms night” at my local community centre just weeks earlier.   

The only way I can describe that event was that it was a “bizarre speed dating vendor situation”.  It was marketed as a night away from your baby to maybe get a free manicure or something – or so I thought.  Apparently, me and the event organizer had different ideas about the definition of “pampering”.  I felt kind of duped because negotiating time away from home with young children can be hard and it needs to be worth it.   

Diane had a table there where she was selling Isagenix health shakes…I still barely know what those are though because the minute I sat down at her table I blurted something along the lines of:

“Hi, I’m Stephanie, I am new mom. My mom died in April while I was on maternity leave and I am having a really hard time.  I quit my job this Summer after having a huge breakdown and crying so much when I got pulled over for speeding at the end of my commute that the cop, noticing the How to Survive The Loss of a Parent book on my passenger seat, told me to just forget about the ticket and take care of myself.”   

Deep breath.   

Yes, I told a stranger selling health shakes at a vendor event this deeply personal synopsis of my last 8 months.

Why?

Because she was there to change my life and something inside me knew that this was one of those moments.  I can remember one other moment in my life before that where I unconsciously made a statement that changed my trajectory completely and inadvertently ended up in me marrying my husband Joe.  This stuff happens and it’s real but you don’t necessarily know it at the time.   You just have to surrender to it.   

And that, my friend, is what I believe they call divine intervention. Basically something greater than me took the wheel when it mattered immensely.   I am so grateful for that.

Me telling that information to Diane felt completely unconscious because the conscious me was simultaneously like: “stop oversharing, stop, stop, STOP this is embarrassing, this is just like the cop moment but I’m not even sure what’s triggering this because I’m not getting a ticket I’m just about to get a health shake speil…”   

This turning point was disguised so mundanely.  I can still picture the yellow tinge to the gym we were in.  I can still remember the random vendor at the table before Diane’s that cleaned my rings while his wife painted a butterfly on my arm as I thought:  “I get zero time to myself why did I choose my one evening of freedom to come to this lame-ass thing where everyone is peddling something I don’t want?”. 

But I sure as heck remember nothing from that event from after I met Diane.

After hearing my blurted confession Diane’s compassion was palpable.   To be honest all I can remember is instantly not feeling crazy and feeling heard and seen completely.  

Spoiler alert: Diane did not tell me anything about health shakes that night.  She’s good at reading situations!

Instead she traded her very own vulnerable tidbit: even though she was there selling the shakes – her true passion was Reiki.   

I didn’t know what that was.   

She gave me a run-down about energy healing that I don’t remember at all.  I wasn’t really in a place to understand how it fit into what was going on with me but I just liked her and wanted to talk to her for the rest of the event.   Before I had to rotate to the next booth I gave her my email address and she said she was thinking of starting a meditation circle.  She said thought it would be so great for me.

I had all the stereotypical preconceived notions about meditation of course and politely said thanks, took her business info, and still felt confused about the two things she said could help me. Reiki and meditation were so beyond my ideas of what you do when you are grieving, depressed, joyless, and overwhelmed.  So far my approach was to cry a lot, numb myself, and push through my pain while also seeing a therapist that gave me CBT exercises I could not figure out a practical use for but at least she listened to me cry for an hour every few weeks.

I found myself often thinking about Diane and how she made me feel and I received a follow up email from her shortly afterward.  

By then I was coming around to the idea of meditation because at least I could feel seen and heard by this lady again!   I asked her for more info about the meditation circle and she said she didn’t get enough people interested but if I liked she would like to offer to meet and tell me more about it.   And since the theme of this story is me constantly doing things I wouldn’t normally do there I was one month later heading to her place on a dark and shiny November night.  Which is where our story began.

And that’s where I am going to leave off today because it feels like a natural break in this chronicle.  Stay tuned!  I can’t wait to continue the story.   

Like I said earlier, take some time to feel into this story and see if you relate to it on some level.  Examine what curiosity it sparks in you.  Maybe parts of it make you feel nervous or excited?

Ponder that excited curiosity!

Stephanie