Picture Credit – Jeannie Selda
Over the weekend, while I was in San Juan, Puerto Rico, I lost my phone.
I was leaving for the airport at 4:15 in the morning, beyond tired after barely sleeping for three days, and somewhere along the way my phone slipped out of my bag at the airport. I didn’t realize it until I was already on the plane. I knew it wasn’t lost forever, but in that moment, I also knew I had a choice. I could let myself get pulled into stress and frustration, or I could stay with myself.
It made me think about the basis of our work at The Wide Awakening, and something life keeps giving me opportunities to practice in real time:
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Live in your presence with wisdom.
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Dance with everything and anything while being pulled by absolutely nothing.
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When you go into the unknown where you don’t know the outcomes, you forget that everything happens for you. When you are in the “mystery” it is possible to be curious and thrilled to discover the potential outcomes.
At first, I didn’t fully grasp what not having my phone was going to mean. No 2FA for important softwares, no pictures on my walks, no efficiency calls to my team or clients in the car (which I love to do).
THEN, I found out it would take two weeks or more to get my phone back. That’s when I started to realize how much of my life now runs through that one little device.
The deeper awareness wasn’t about inconvenience. It was orientation. Yes, it has been a bigger deal than I first realized. My iPad wasn’t set up to do everything my phone could do, so I had to learn quickly and also receive help! Everything is now living on my iPad. I learned about Wi-Fi calling. I learned that I need all of my contacts properly uploaded into iCloud. I realized that WhatsApp, which we use for Flight School, our 1:1 clients, and our trips, wasn’t available because I had not previously installed it (and you need your phone to QR code the installation), which meant the team had to step in and do that piece. I also realized that for a couple of weeks, I won’t really be taking pictures.
Beautiful paradigm shifts kept presenting.
Because what happens when I go for a walk without my phone to call my Mom, take pics of sunsets and get Siri to read my messages?
What happens when I can’t so easily distract myself?
I am more here. More present. More available to life as it is actually happening.
I love that my team is taking pictures and connecting with clients instead of me.
So this whole experience has become a reminder that our freedom is not in controlling every variable. It is in how we meet what is here. Presence with wisdom. Dancing with everything, pulled by nothing. Entering the mystery with curiosity and excitement instead of fear.
That is how I chose to orient myself toward losing my phone in San Juan.
Your orientation to life (and mine) creates your circumstances in real time, it gifts you new awareness if you let yourself receive it, and even causes you to write a different newsletter than the notes you had made on your phone!!! LOL.
Think of something that is taking you out of your flow. Maybe you can re-orient yourself and be curious? I mean you can. But do you choose to?
With love,
Jennifer
P.S. Flight School is starting this week and I’m so excited. Jeannie is here in Asheville, which is so awesome! Imagine embodying this paradigm so you actually don’t have to remember it… it is just the way you are. It’s not too late to join. Find out more and book a discovery call here: https://thewideawakening.com/