Safe in a world that loves and protects me
“If you don’t become the ocean, you’ll be seasick every day.”—Leonard Cohen
Albert Einstein is reported to have said that the most important decision anyone can make is whether or not they live in a friendly universe.
One of the gazillion reasons I practice what I call ferocious gratitude is because it allows me to live in a friendly universe. It enables me to see every person as a friend, every situation as happening for my good.
It grants me the privilege of stepping out into the world expecting things to always work out for me. No matter how it might appear.
I’ve been thinking about my early travel days before cell phones provided we wayfarers with non-stop contact, GPS and all sorts of perceived safeguards.
No matter what situation I found myself in, things had a way of always working out. Even the time I landed in Germany without knowing how to reach the friend I was staying with. Or the time I lost my motorcycle key in the Greek ocean. Or the time I was left in the middle of the north island of New Zealand by a boyfriend who decided he didn’t like me anymore.
I’m not suggesting I didn’t panic a time or two. Especially in countries that converse in different languages. But always, 100 percent of the time, it worked out.
What I now know for sure is that there is a life force that always looks out for me. Like today’s Course lesson says, “I am safe in a world which protects me and loves me.”
This force, this guidance, this love will never abandon me. And the only reason some of you might be rolling your eyes and sarcastically thinking, “Right, Pam” is because you don’t yet trust how supremely loved you are.
Fear is the ONLY THING that can ever get in the way of this non-stop loving care. Worry, disbelief and all its mean girl cousins can block the awareness. But it’s never not available.
Once you come to trust this fact your whole life changes. You know that everything you could ever need will be rolled out before you like a gorgeous Persian carpet.
Last summer, when I was in Spain, my sister, my Mister and I lost the keys to our apartment. This is something I’m known to do, but let’s just say my compadres freaked out just a tad little bit. We were at the beach, we had left our phones, our money, our credit cards in the apartment and well, nobody on that beach in southern Spain spoke anything but their native language. And my months of Duolingo hadn’t covered, “Help! I’m currently penniless in your country.”
For a short frantic time, as we pawed through the sand, I was pretty curious how we were going to access our place again. Especially since the phone number of the mighty companions who had so generously offered us their beautiful pad on the beach was dutifully entered in the cell phones back in the apartment. They were in Canada, we knew no one else, and, well, all rational reasonable people would have believed we were screwed.
Except I had a quiet confidence (from years of accessing that friendly universe) that somehow this, too, would work out.
Eventually, of course, like Max from the Where the Wild Things Are, we sailed across years, across days and back into our very own apartment where–maybe not hot dinner–but our phones, our money and our credit cards were waiting for us.
We might think these man-made conveniences provide some sort of safety net. But truly, friends, our real security, our real peace of mind come from the ever-so beneficent universe that waits patiently for us to release our fears and come back home.
Once again, dear mighty companions, have the very best, the most astonishing weekend of your lives!!
#222 Forever!
Pam Grout is the author of 20 books including E-Squared, E-Cubed, Thank & Grow Rich and her latest book, The Course in Miracles Experiment: A Starter Kit for Rewiring Your Mind (And Therefore Your World)