How we got the lost keys back

Sometimes, the divine intervenes in unusual ways. On a day in July 2017, I went grocery shopping together with my son. We biked to the supermarket.

When we came out of the supermarket, we realized that my son had lost his keys somewhere. The key to his bike lock as well as the key for our house.

I started to worry that we would have to buy a new lock for our home. And I reproached him, “You should wear a waist pack like I do. Then this would not have happened.”

We decided to walk home without my son’s bike, bring the groceries home, and deal with the lost keys later.

On the way home, we unexpectedly met my husband. He had been running and was finished now. I wondered why he took a walk in the street. He hadn’t showered yet. That was unusual. We told him what had happened. He nodded and then continued to go his way.

My son and I arrived at home, put the groceries away, and then started to discuss what to do about the lost keys.

But just then my husband came back home and had the lost keys! My son had forgotten them in the shopping cart of the supermarket and the next client took our cart, found the keys, and handed them to the shop clerk. Only a few minutes later, my husband had arrived at the shop and could pick them up.

What a relief! I was in awe and gratitude.

What amazed me about this story is the fact that we met my husband on our way home. Usually, he would have taken a shower after running around the fields. He would not have gone for a walk through the town. He also took a route where we met him. Had he taken another street, we would have missed him. I asked him, why he went to town after running. And where did he want to go? He could not answer these questions. He was just aware that he went into town.

Isn’t that strange? Similar to the story in the post I’m not the doer, some benevolent, invisible force put my husband on remote control and gave him the urge to go a certain way and meet us accidentally – and then to continue to go to the supermarket and ask for the lost keys.

***

This post is part of a series about my spiritual journey (table of contents).

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Manifesting clouds

Have you ever tried to manifest weather conditions?

At first, I was skeptical. But after the experience that wishes can summon trash bags, I thought, ‘Why not?’

Here, I copy a story from my former post  Can thoughts influence the weather?
On a sunny day in June 2012 my son and I were at a playground. It was a vacation, and I had ordered warm weather for the entire week. But my son had an issue with the sunny weather.

“Mommy, see what you have done! The metal of the jungle gym has heated up too much. It is too hot to touch it. You should wish for clouds now!”

I replied, “Ok, let’s pray for some clouds, but you have to help me.”

I didn’t really expect this to work since the sky was clear blue all over. But we could at least give it a try.

We sat there for about two minutes, when suddenly some small clouds started to appear before the sun.

‘Yeah,’ I thought, ‘nice try, but that tiny white patch on the sky will be gone in a minute.’

But, no! Across the blue sky, there was a steady stream of small clouds, just big enough so they would cover the sun, one after another. And that lasted for about three to four hours!

The metal of the jungle gym cooled down and my son was happy.

***

This post is part of a series about my spiritual journey (table of contents).

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Intuition and relaxation

In September 2014, I was sitting in the garden when my older teenage son suddenly started yelling, “Mom, please come immediately!”

I didn’t know where he was inside the house or what had happened. But following an impulse, I grabbed a towel from the table and ran into the kitchen.

There I saw the mess. A yucky looking mixture of dates, water, and soap was distributed all over the walls, window, cupboard , and floor. He had mixed dates and water in the blender and was now trying to clean the blender. Apparently, he had forgotten to put the lid on. The result was visible.

And what did I do?

I burst into laughter and said, “I am so grateful that this wasn’t raspberry puree!”

I helped him clean the mess and thought, that the floor needed a cleaning anyway and that this was the chance to do it now.

I was amazed by two things. First, how did I know that I had to grab the towel since I didn’t know what had happened? Somehow my intuition must have become better. And second, I noticed that I had handled this is a relaxed way.  I was able burst into laughter and stay at peace. Before the inner journey to that peace inside which is always available,  I would probably have yelled and been angry.

***

This post is part of a series about my spiritual journey (table of contents).

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Courage to set boundaries

In February 2014, my boss asked me to take over a programming task of a colleague who would leave our team for the duration of half a year. I had been warned before by the colleague that my boss would ask me.

And my colleague also let me know that the coding was partly object-oriented . That would make the maintenance of the coding much harder because it would be more difficult to understand. Whereas old-fashioned procedural computer programming can be read like a how-to-bake-a-cake recipe, object-oriented coding is more generic and cannot be understood that easily.

There was a bit of a backstory to this request of my boss to take over the coding of my colleague. The first thing was that I was disappointed about how my engagement at work had not been appreciated the way I hoped it would be appreciated. I wrote about it here.

The second thing was that in 2012 my boss had said he could recommend me for a promotion when I would take care of a certain task in 2013. But even though I did the task, there was no mention that I would be promoted in early 2014.

So, when my boss approached me in Feburary 2014 with the request to take over the rather challenging coding of a colleague, I declined. I said it would be too difficult for me to handle because it was partly object-oriented and we had only one day for the handover of a large amount of coding which is too little time, in my opinion.

My boss would not give up easily. He tried to convince me  to agree to do the maintenance of the coding. I should be more flexible. And there would be chances for me. And I should be engaged in development.

But I still refused.

In the end, he warned me that once I was promoted, he would more often demand such tasks of me. And if I would refuse them, then I would be graded as “does not fulfill expectations”.

That was when I lost my calm.

“This promotion is not gonna happen anyway,” I blurted out. “It is just a carrot, forever dangling in front of my nose in order to keep me motivated.”

Now he was upset. He said that this was an allegation and not true. He surely was planning to recommend me for a promotion – at some point in time in the future.

“I have learned to give up the hope that a promotion will ever happen,” I said. “And I will take over only such tasks that will not put me under undue stress. Taking over the maintenance of the colleague’s coding would be too stressful for me. Therefore, I will not do it.”

Finally, he gave in and let me off the hook. He said he would find someone else who would do the task.

***

That encounter was important because I stood up for myself and spoke up courageously and did not let myself be exploited anymore.

I want to note that setting boundaries was not something that has changed for me with awakening. I think I was never the typical people pleaser. I had quite a few situations in my life where I needed to set boundaries even at the cost of upsetting others.  But, still, I bring this story up here, first, because I would like to share how the events at work unfolded. And second, because I want to let you know that having my courage tested was part of the integration part of my spiritual journey.

In the spiritual teachings there is often the talk of ‘no resistance’. But what does that mean? Should we do everything someone asks of us?

I think it does not mean to become a doormat to other people’s wishes. But it is more about having no resistance to one’s inner guidance. It is not about following the boss at work but the boss inside (higher self).

I had come to know how important it is to be in inner peace. And now I had a clear direction, i.e. to remain in inner peace. And doing a task which likely would be very stressful (and felt nearly impossible for me to tackle) just for the sake of pleasing my boss or getting a promotion – this would distract me from the inner peace. And therefore, I rejected it.

About a month after this conversation with my boss, I read a German newspaper article that was like a thumbs up from the universe. A young woman had worked in an internship at a supermarket in Germany for several months. But even though she was doing all the work of a normal employee, she did not get paid at all.

Every month she was told that she needed to work for just one more month without pay – and then they would offer her a position as an apprentice.  The poor woman followed the carrot in front of her nose for eight months always hoping to become an apprentice.

Until she finally woke up and said “Enough!” and filed a lawsuit against the supermarket. She won the case.

I felt like this story was a metaphor for how I had handled work for a long time and that it was time now to say “Enough!”.

***

This post is part of a series about my spiritual journey (table of contents).

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Getting messages from people in dreams

On the integration part of the downhill path, there were not only lessons and tests but also development of heightened intuition. Here, I share two stories where I received messages from people in dreams.

The red-haired woman

I saw an ad about an upcoming African choir concert in our town and made a mental note that I wanted to go there. Then I forgot about it.

But three days before the concert I had a dream. A woman appeared to me and told me that this concert was going to be great.

The woman in the dream had a very peculiar haircut. Reddish, straight, glossy hair down to her shoulders, and she had a pony. Usually I don’t dream with colors. But if there is a color then it means something.

So, I went to this concert, enjoyed it, and wondered all the time, “Who was that woman with this red hair who appeared to me in my dream?” I couldn’t see her.

Then it happened. After the concert was over, a woman went around and distributed flyers for the next upcoming choir event. She had the exact same haircut and face as the woman in my dream! Except that the one in my dream looked twenty years younger than the actual one.

The children’s bike

When my younger son was in kindergarten, he had a little red kid’s bike which he loved and rode frequently.

Then another mom at the same kindergarten was looking to buy a used bike for her daughter. She asked me whether we would sell my son’s red bike.

“No,” I replied, “we can’t sell it yet. He hasn’t outgrown it yet and is still using it a lot.”

One night at the weekend, this woman appeared in my dream. In a very enraged tone of voice, she told me that she had waited long enough and she must have the bike now.

She didn’t come to me personally after the dream to bug me about the bike. But right after the dream, I saw a new request on the notice-board of the kindergarten “Looking to buy kid’s bike”, and the phone number below it seemed familiar.

“Is that your ad on the notice-board?” I asked.

“Yes,” she replied, “I am still looking for an affordable bike.”

Ok, even though my son was still riding his bike a lot, I felt that I should offer her to buy it since she had managed to show up in my dream. That was a sign that I felt I should take seriously.

She bought the bike and her daughter was happy. My son was finally ready to ride a bigger bike.

***

This post is part of a series about my spiritual journey (table of contents).

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