"Wake Up and Smell the Guidance"
I've always envied people who have those big wake-up calls in life, events such as near-death experiences and life threatening illnesses that shatter their illusions of reality and propel them onto the path of their true destiny. I read about them all the time, in best-selling books and in magazine articles, on spiritual web sites and church newsletters, and I always wonder why I can never seem to tap into that strange force that seems so available to some... and so unreachable to others.
My calls always come in a quite different manner. My calls always come slow and labored and often in disguise. Years fighting and recovering from alcoholism and addiction; a lifelong battle with depression and anxiety; small but increasingly frequent mini-breakdowns that jar me awake from the numbness of my usual walking slumber. On a more positive note, they'd trickle in from the hundreds of books, tapes and lectures I'd exposed myself to over the course of many years of soul seeking and spirit searching. And from the hours spent just sitting in quiet meditation, listening for the call of spirit's voice, but hearing just silence. And maybe even from the moments of utter clarity I've had when I look at someone I love or something wonderful I've achieved.
Still, I'd long for that one lightning bolt of life-changing experience I'd read about in all those books, and heard about in all those tapes and lectures. That "big bang" that would plummet my universe into a forward thrust of momentum, catapulting my career and my finances and my health into a stratosphere of success. Not once did it cross my mind that this kind of big bang would lead quickly to a fiery burn-out, or that I might be moving forward so fast I'd smash into my own limitations. All I could see was the flash and the fireworks of that "moment of truth" we often see actors experience in heroic epics, the moment when their instinct and intuition kicks in like a bucking bronco and their lives move from the path of normalcy to their glorious destiny... and they never look back again.
It took me a long time to realize how lucky and blessed I was NOT to have a big, bodacious wake-up call; how lucky and blessed I was to be receptive to the many mini-calls I got along the way. How lucky and blessed I was to be able to recognize the little whispers of the Universe offering me steady and continual guidance, sometimes so quietly I almost missed their presence. I realized that we get these smaller wake-up calls all the time, and that we usually do not pay attention to them. Then, when our backs are against the wall, the Universe has no choice but to shake us up with something bold and undeniable, like cancer or a heart attack or a devastating car accident. Sometimes, that shake up occurs in a major news event or a shocking situation that unfolds halfway across the globe, like a school shooting that takes the lives of so many people younger than us, or a terrorist bombing that kills children whom never even had a chance to live.
