I'M FINE WITH WHAT HAPPENS

Each day I take a walk with my dog or children or both through my neighborhood in our beach community of Southern California.  Usually I take the same path - a tight circle around my block - but occasionally I try something new.  Today was a new day

 As I walked through the neighborhood on my new path, I came across a house I had probably seen a thousand times from my car driving by, but never really paid attention to.  It is a small, unassuming home, light brown and set back from the street.  In front of it are a vast array of tropical looking plants and trees.  It's hard to see the house through the 'jungle' in front, but once you arrive at the gate there is a beautiful walkway to the front door (which was wide open by the way).  Looking down I noticed that the bubbling noise I kept hearing was a coy pond with a small water feature sending fresh recycled water back into the pond.  Lilly pads and pond fronds completed the scene.  And even though there was no music playing, I could almost hear the sound of Tibetan bowls chiming in the very light breeze from the sea.

I stood there for maybe 10 minutes, just appreciating the scene, and all the time I was intrigued that the front door remained open, but no person seemed to be around.  The beauty of it... in the middle of a busy street in a busy neighborhood, a mile from a busy freeway, stood an oasis unto itself.  Clearly the resident of the house - having taken so much time and care to create such a peaceful and serene environment - felt no need to protect it by closing or locking the doors.

At the beginning of this year I made a New Year's resolution that I would be 'fine with what happens.'  Well this year has been extraordinarily challenging for me in many ways and being with what is so - a mantra I always teach to my clients and students - has been hard medicine for the doctor to swallow.  And yet, by finding that small oasis in the middle of my walk reminded me that no matter what happens outside of us, we still have the ability and choice to make our own little corner of the world as peaceful and complete as we want.  And when we keep our door open, instead of locking out the rest of the world, we invite prosperity to come in as well.

Know yourself, don't NO yourself.