The universe’s bag of tricks

‘I want you to hold a workshop,’ said my spirit guide, while I was taking a walk alone outside in Jan 2015.  ‘A what? No way!’ was my initial response. ‘You know how much I hate having to organize my children’s birthday parties. I sure don’t feel like organizing a workshop.’

In front of me, a man was walking with a large dog on a leash. And right after my thought of resistance, he wrapped the dog leash around the belly of the dog in such a way that it became really short. This seemed to imply, ‘Remember, you are on a short leash!’   Afterwards, the dog was supposed to hop into the trunk of a car. But it refused. The man shouted, “Are you crazy?” and just lifted the dog into the trunk. That seemed to mean this would happen to me, too, when I resisted. Sigh. I would probably  have to yield at some point.

I had written a post about the many forms of divine guidance  and  was told by my inner voice that I should somehow turn this into a workshop format.

But doubts crept in. I would have to offer exercises. But how do I practice dream recall techniques in a workshop setting (when people are hopefully not sleeping)? More doubts came, about having to book a venue, marketing, travel, money issues. All of this resulted in me downright refusing to even think about it.

But the universe has its bag of tricks to convince resistant children.

The dishwasher mirrors my stubbornness
I seem to have a special affiliation with electric gadgets. They often stop working when I am not aligned with inner peace. And this time it was our dishwasher’s turn. The start button refused to work, or worked only after pushing it about 20 times. Not funny! Apparently, this was mirroring my stubbornness. Ok, breathe deep and say ‘Thy will be done’. And then the button started to behave well again. I am always amazed when forgiveness works.

Truck advice cheers me on
In summer 2015, I had agreed to write an outline at least, in order to demonstrate my willingness. I came across a truck with the inscription  www.nicht-bummeln.de which means ‘don’t dawdle’. I took this as advice to get started and wrote an early draft version.

The unsolved error ticket mirrors me
In December 2015, my efforts had somewhat stopped due to overwhelm in other areas of my life. I was extremely exhausted with no energy or creativity left over. There were no further pushes by the universe regarding the workshop. Maybe I didn’t need to do it after all? I turned within and asked, ‘Do you still want me to take care of this?’ This time, I did not get an inner voice or dream as an answer. But the universe used another very creative method to let me know.

In October, I had created an error ticket about a technical issue. And in December, about two months later, the ticket came back to me, not with a solution but with the innocent question , “Is this issue still not fixed and do you still want me to take care of it?”

My initial knee-jerk thought was, ‘Yes, of course, you [Bleep], unless you have invented any self-fixing bugs, you better take care of it!’

But then I calmed down and remembered that the universe often uses mirrors to reflect back to me what is buried in my consciousness. I admired the universe’s sense of creativity and felt humbled (and was able to answer more calmly).

WordPress posts about letting go of doubt
Even though I got plenty of messages, I still doubted them. ‘Is a pattern really no coincidence? Do I really hear my inner voice correctly? You want me to hold a workshop? Really? Me?’
On Dec 17, 2015, I got three messages to let go of doubt. Two of these came via blog posts, one was delivered over lunch by a friend. Three messages on one day about the same topic. That was no coincidence and made a pattern. The universe was telling me to let go of doubt.

Dream advice about handling fear
I turned within and asked how to deal with the fear and then got a dream about handling fear that suggested to take it step by step and to trust.
Additionally, my iPad sent me some push notifications of an app with the text, ‘I should be telling you that it is better to be safe than sorry, but sometimes safe can be boring.’
Another push notification said ‘Guts over Fear  is today’s new song’.

Inner voice begs me to visualize
My spirit guide begged me, ‘Allow the vision of yourself being on a stage speaking to people.’ Since I had downright refused the idea to do a workshop, I would never indulge in daydreams of how I would talk to a group of people about this topic. But obviously, daydreams are important. Thoughts coupled with emotion manifest reality. Therefore, I needed to allow some visualization exercise.

Magpies are telling me to express myself
I was staring out of my kitchen window when a magpie appeared on the street. And then another one and yet another one. Until there were six or seven of them. Magpies keep showing up often for me since several years now. When I was active in a forum, a new participant showed up with  the nickname ‘magpie’. And one day, I stood behind a guy with a sweatshirt with the inscription ‘magpie’ on it. Though there are several meanings connected with these birds, I interpret their frequent occurrence as a message to express myself and to consider the importance of voice (i.e., speak rather than write).

Cosmic push notifications
On Feb 16, 2016, my iPad suddenly started to switch from standby to active mode when sending me push notifications of apps. Apparently, the ‘do not disturb mode’ setting had been disabled all of a sudden. Hmm, what did this mean?
On the same day, I got a post and an email both with the word PUSH in it. That was a pattern again.

Ok, got it. Apparently, the grace period was over, and I got a push to get moving now.

Dream series about what is holding me back
In February 2016, I then had a dream where I was dancing Latin rumba with my spirit guide. I was dancing gracefully, but my legs could not move freely since they got stuck in the long Latin dress which was tied together on the floor. In my dreams, dancing is a symbol of communicating about the spiritual path. That meant that I could not communicate to the fullest extent since something was holding me back.
But what was holding me back? I asked spirit to show me. As an answer, I got  a mini-series of up to three dreams per night on about five consecutive days which addressed all the reasons which were holding me back. It was so much that my guide asked me in between, ‘Are you sure you can take more?‘ The most important point was lack of commitment and that this would make me prone to give up at the slightest obstacle. Other points were fear based decisions, desire for reward, doing too much for my children, dwelling on the past, laziness and sloppiness, and being concerned with what others think about me.

Sickness as a consequence of resistance
I have pain in one foot. Homeopathic treatment, which is my preferred method, just shifts symptoms around at the moment but does not heal. I remembered that the refusal to express myself in writing resulted in breathing issues in the throat. The throat chakra reacts if there is lack of expression. Likewise, I think that the issues in the foot might point to the root chakra (connected to trust and personal power), and I get a hunch that the pain will lessen once I commit fully to this workshop project.

Feeling drained versus energized
So many messages and the threat of illness as a consequence made me willing to comply. I got that I have to work on the workshop project.

But then another blog post came up that said that it is not enough to do things just because we feel pushed to do them. No! We need to do them because we enjoy them and because it makes our heart sing.

Yeah, I know that. Except that my situation feels like standing on top of a high building, staring down into water and being told to jump. ‘Just jump! And don’t jump just because we threaten you! Jump because you really enjoy it!‘  Well, nice suggestion. But, frankly, that did not feel feasible for me.

So, I turned within and asked, ‘Show me. How I can become more intrinsically motivated?’

And the answer came. These past weeks in March 2016,  I felt quite exhausted and drained as if no energy was left for mundane tasks of preparing meals or other household chores. I felt only energized when I worked on stuff which was related to the workshop about divine guidance. I took me a while to figure out that this stark contrast between feeling drained vs energized was probably the answer to my question.

Thanks for the information, dear universe, but the feeling of exhaustion sucks.
Note to self: Always be careful what you ask for!

***

The workshop has grown into a pile of about 40 slides now, but it is still in a draft version.

Shouldn’t I feel super ashamed now that I am so stubborn and resistant? No, there is another way to look at this. Rather than to burden myself with additional guilt,  I can choose to think about it as an interesting research project. Resist and then observe with what tricks my guides come up. Can I do my PhD in resistology and procrastination?

I often wonder whether it is difficult to be a guide. I sure would have given up already on someone as stubborn as me! I so appreciate their patience and perseverance and am always in awe about the creative and humorous communication methods of the universe.