What To Do When They Start Drilling in the Middle of Your Calls
Three weeks ago, I interviewed 14 amazing women for the Six Figure Breakthrough Summit. I was totally prepared for awesomeness, the honor of interviewing 14 amazing women and a fun week. And most of that did happen – the speakers were amazing, and the summit was a fantastic learning experience. In fact, I was so busy taking notes that I could hardly keep up with hosting the calls.
Here’s what I wasn’t prepared for: They started reconstructing the apartment next door. There were drills, hammering and even the water was turned off. The noise started at 7:30 AM and continued all day long until 6:00 PM. By Tuesday I was in a total panic. How was I going to be able to run this summit in a construction zone? On top of all of this, all of my e-mails got erased and my family had some serious health issues. I started to spiral downwards into a flurry of fits and worries.
Why couldn’t this just be smooth? Where was that easy flow that everyone keeps talking about? There had to be some middle current that was really fast, and if I stepped into it, life would always go the way I wanted it to go.
And then I suddenly remembered a story from my past – one that I had learned during a summer that I did a ten day silent meditation.
Two wealthy, royal brothers were left with a box after their father died. The box contained one gold ring, ornate with gems and diamonds and one plain silver ring. Being smart and greedy, the older brother quickly seized the gold ring for himself, claiming that because he was older he deserved it. The younger brother settled for the plain silver band.
As the years went by, both brothers experienced great highs and lows in their lives, times of great prosperity and love and times of scarcity and aversion. The older brother suffered greatly in the times of scarcity, bemoaning his terrible luck, even getting very close to selling his gold ring.
One day the younger brother began to wonder why his wealthy father had saved such a plain, worthless silver ring. He took it off and examined the inside. It said ” This too shall pass.” He suddenly understood why his father had valued the ring – it reminded him not to get too attached to times of wealth and not to suffer so much in times of scarcity. Everything, good or bad would come and go. It was all a part of life’s process. The younger brother did not suffer through life like his older brother. Instead, he found a sort of peace in accepting both the positive and the negative.
As I was listening to this story, my legs tired and sore from eight hours of meditation, I suddenly realized that there is no fast current in life like the one I had imagined. There is no consistent way to make everything go exactly the way you want it to go. You can’t work harder, love more people or make more promises to ensure that everything will always be OK.
This week, as I sat in the midst of trying to figure out what to do about the telesummit, I remembered what I head learned. The fastest current is about accepting what life brings my way, and not resisting the situations that challenge me. It seems like common sense, but it can be the hardest principle I know how to follow. Resistance can be much easier than acceptance.
After, sitting with that realization for some time, I picked up the phone, called some friends and relocated my office to another apartment. I fixed my e-mail and my assistant and I are still wading through the 4000 e-mails that came in off the server. I then made a list of all that I was grateful for and stopped resisting that which I could not control.
The result? The summit reminded me of one of the most important lessons of life – once you stop resisting, life gets a lot easier (and most of the time solutions start to just show up).
To you out there who are struggling through your own version of drilling in the apartment next door, and still looking for that inner fast current without success, hang in there. Realize that acceptance of where you are and gratitude for what is present is the first step in moving forward.
Don’t worry, you won’t be alone. Somewhere out there, I’ll probably be doing the same thing.
