Busy Moms’ Book Club: The Universe Has Your Back

Welcome to the Mom On Purpose Podcast. I’m Lara Johnson and I’m here to teach you how to get out of your funk, be in a better mood, and play more with your kids. Manage your home better. Get your to-do list done and live your life on purpose with my proven method. This is possible for you, and I’ll show you how. You’re not alone anymore. We’re in this together. Hello, welcome to the Mom on Purpose Book Club. We are very excited about this book today. Well, I’m very excited about this book. So, this is The Universe Has Your Back, by Gabrielle Bernstein. She goes by Gabby, and it was kind of fun because as I read this book, it’s come at like a really unique time I feel like in our lives, because I have had this like background thought for about three years ever since we’ve moved into the home that we live in. Now that life just keeps coming at us, and so it was really fascinating to kind of take that thought out and examine it as I’ve been reading this book and recognize how much that’s not the case and how much the universe really does have my back, and so I’ll be sharing some of my experience and some of the thoughts that I noticed as I was reading this book so that we can kind of learn together and go through this. So, I don’t know much about Gabby, except for just her beginning, where she talks about, she had in 2015, She had this huge meltdown in a yoga class. She thought she was sick, she thought she had cancer and really what it all came down to was that like she really needed to go inward and do some inner healing. And I think that’s really fascinating because that’s been so much of my similar experience, not like the big, huge meltdown, but so much of the physical struggles that I’ve had, and I would go to the doctors, and they tell me that there was nothing wrong. It was very frustrating, but then to realize that I needed to go inside and do a lot of inner healing because those were just physical manifestations of the things that were happening inside of my mind and my soul. So that’s just a little bit. I know she’s written a lot of books. She’s a New York Times bestseller and she just has a very fun way of writing. So, in the book, as you go throughout the chapters and we’re going to use our chapters as kind of our checklist but as you go through the chapters, she has what she calls like her universal, universal lesson, and you could even just go and read all of those universal lessons and get a lot out of the book. But within the chapters, it’s almost like a short manual for like meditation. So, some of the chapters have like how you go through and meditate on something specific which I thought was really fascinating. I personally don’t have a ton of meditation experience. She does, she has studied it extensively and so it was just like bringing that to my mind because my heart’s already kind of been feeling that and wanting to learn more about that and the benefits of it. I mean, I already know the benefits of it, I’ve studied that but to actually put it more into practice, and so this was a really beautiful invitation in order to do that. So, we are going to dive in. Like I said, within each chapter you can see that I have it all marked up. We’re going to take like the chapter titles and use them as our guideposts as we’re going through this. If you’ve ever read the Gifts of Imperfection, it kind of reminds me of that, like the whole-hearted living. That’s a book by Brene Brown. I think we did it a very long time ago in Book Club, one of my favorite books, but that’s kind of how we’re going to use her chapters as like those guideposts. So, the first one is what she talks about in the very beginning. She says you have a hidden power. So, she talks about in the beginning how she was really struggling with depression. When she was 16 years old. She went and talked to her mom and her mom is like a very free spirit, very you know no, I can’t. I’m trying to remember. She’d call her a hippie, a meditator, and a yogi. I’ll mix into one. So, she said my mother taught me her mantra so hum, so hum. As I read that I’m like that’s so not me. I’m going to chant or do something. That’s not me, but its fun being able to learn about other people and I think, well, what if it could be me? And so, at the beginning I was already like a little weirded out by the introduction of the book. So, I just want to put that out there, that as you dive into it. If it doesn’t resonate with you right from the beginning, that’s okay, stick with it. So, the very beginning. She talks about how we have this hidden power, and our hidden power is to connect to the universe or God or a higher being. Whatever it is that you believe in. I personally believe in God and the universe is like the existence of all of us you know, working together at any given time. Our hidden power is that we can connect with that higher being and by tapping into that and that’s what she said was when she was able to step back and really tap into it, she was able to start healing a lot that was going on in her body. But then as time moved on, she kind of forgot about that experience. When she was 16 years old, she got into a lot of drinking and kind of like left that side of things and at one point she said she found herself coming back to this. True source of love is what she calls, you know, the universe that we can tap into and reconnect to it. And she said, when we’re able to tap into it. So, I love this. She just says our happiness, success and safety can be measured by our genuine capacity to tune into the loving vibration of the universe. And I found that as I was reading her book. I wish I had it like a search function for the book where I could just type in love, and that, to me, was one of the biggest takeaways from her book was everything was coming back to love. Like the universe is our source for genuine love. When we turn back to love, when we allow love to be our teacher and this is what she later on says is her mission is that she wants to turn all of us back to love, and so I thought that was really beautiful to think about. Like our hidden power isn’t just to connect to God or the universe. Our hidden power is to connect to God’s love that exists out there and the universe is love for us and I talk a lot about this on my podcast as well is that when we’re able to step back and grow our capacity for love, that’s when we’re able to stay connected more, and we’re going to dive more into that because she speaks a lot about that, but I just wanted to mention that, as she talked about like tuning into that vibration of love and our capacity to feel it. So, within this first hidden power, she says there’s a couple steps to remember, and she gives a couple steps in almost every chapter. Some of them will go through, some of them we want, but what I liked about this one is that she said at this point, you can either choose fear or you can choose love. And I liked that, because oftentimes in the Christian culture we talk about faith, or we talk about fear. But it felt different and hit different when I thought about fear versus love and when I started thinking about that I’m like that is faith, faith is love, and so I’m just thinking about that in the back of your mind as we’re diving into this and talking about love versus fear. So, she said, the first step in order to think about this is to think about. Our mind is always playing some kind of fearful movie, and so that’s what her first step is to determine what fearful movie we have playing. So, when you start getting really clear on what this fearful movie is, then you can start seeing how it’s, it’s blocking you. So let me give you an example of the fearful movie that played in my life forever, and it was the despair. Like if you’ve ever seen Princess Bride, you remember the, the white, you know he had like a, like a white face and like the shaggy hair, and he’s in the pit of despair, and I felt like I spent so much of my life in despair, and this pit of despair and that was like the image that always haunted me was like that guy I think there’s a meme out there now, and for me it was always that I was going to keep trying and never get anywhere, and then I would start feeling despair. That was the fearful movie, that that, regardless of how hard I worked, regardless of talents that I thought I had, if it didn’t work out, then I didn’t really have those talents and I would just start despairing, and so that, for me, was my movie for the longest time. So, I want you to stop for just a second and I want you to think about what’s the fearful movie that is always playing in your mind. For me, it was always that fear of I’m never going to be capable enough. Okay, so then the second step, she says, is what’s the positive movie you’ve been playing? What I liked about this is we put so much emphasis on our fear sometimes, and we need to solve for our fear, that we don’t ever give airtime to the positive stories that are in our head, and so I really like that. She called this out that if we are to tap into the love of God and the love of the universe, we have to also recognize what are we currently doing that’s working. You know that’s that positive movie that you have been playing and so I what I love about this and when I really stopped and thought about this for myself, like what is the positive movie? And ultimately, like inside of me I do feel a lot of love for others, like I’ve always felt really connected to others, like on a spiritual level. I’ve always felt really connected to animals. I’ve always felt really connected to nature and the world around me, and so that’s always been my positive story that I’ve told. Like it’s very empowering to me to think when I’m around other living things, I feel more love and feel more connected. So, then she goes on to say this third step in order to connect to our hidden power is to reconnect to the power. So here she says I can easily describe to you what it feels like to be connected and in my power of presence. When I’m aligned with my presence, I breathe easily, words come to me without overthinking, I feel genuinely confident, and people resonate with my energy. I feel safe and calm and the flow of whatever is happening to me. And she says she can tell when she switches into disconnection to her power. So, in your notes, I want you just to think about that for yourself. How is it that you feel when you are connected to power versus disconnected? Because it can be a very subtle shift for you, but if you feel when that shift starts to happen, it’s very easy to shift back. So, I one of the things that, like I wrote down for me like the difference and so this might be helpful. So, if you’re taking notes, I want you just to be thinking about this for yourself. I know that when I’m disconnected, I have a lot of worry, I feel very, I have a very frantic energy, I breathe more shallow, I get more snippy and I get more naggy and it’s almost like my heart is racing, like I have somewhere to be, but I don’t actually know where I’m supposed to be. So, for me, that’s when I feel very disconnected. But when I’m connected, I feel very joyful. A time starts to slow down is, like I call it, like a long gating time, like it just seems to shift in a way. My brain feels on, but I have this capacity to see the fun and be creative and I’m very okay when I don’t have all the answers and there’s like a very deep level of trust that it’s all going to work out. And so, when? So, what she invites us to do, and I love what she says here is your desire is enough to reconnect to your power. I think that is so critical because when we are sitting in church, when we are having, you know, lessons, we’re thinking we need to pray, we need to study the Word of God, we need to, and we add more and more and more we need to go out and serve. And in order for us to reconnect to our power and remember what the power is love, and you can feel love in an instance, and our desire to feel love and to connect to love is enough. And I think, like if you think about it in terms of like one of your children or your spouse, if you just think or have a desire to love them and look for the ways that you love them, suddenly you reconnect to them. So, I think this is such a beautiful way that she lays it out for us that in the very beginning, we can connect just based on our desire, and I. That’s going to lay the foundation for the next chapter, which is, you were the dreamer of your dream. So, she talks a lot about this course that she took in her book. It’s called the course in miracles, and I can’t remember who the courses by. I’d have to go back and find it somewhere in the book. But she references this a lot and I really like one. Just the thought of like a course in miracles that just sounds really fun. But the way that she’s kind of pieced it together it’s almost like this underlying like the universe has our backs is essentially learning how miracles work for us in our lives and I think that’s just such a fun and beautiful way to be thinking about each of these steps that we go through is really that’s all we’re doing, is it’s we’re studying miracles and that’s how we know that the universe has her back. So, she says in this course of miracles. It says I am responsible for what I see. The course emphasizes that we perceive. What we perceive is based solely on our interpretation. We can perceive a negative health diagnosis, with complete terror, or a chance to slow down and truly start embracing each moment with gratitude, and I will say that’s really hard to do, and especially when we live in this world where you always want to be careful of toxic positivity and honoring what you feel, and you never want to use these thoughts against yourself. And but being able to step back and as I shared with you in the beginning with my health stuff we were I was able to really start to see how the universe has invited me to grow my capacity of love and invited me to look at things in a new light, and so, in that way, I do feel very grateful for a lot of the health challenges that I had and still do at times. She goes on to say I trusted that by changing my internal story, I be guided to new perceptions. So, I hit my knees and prayed for a new perception on my body, and I’m very grateful that she talks about that, because so often we’re not, at least for me, and so at times where I’ve asked, I’ve been asking for my body to be healed. I’m too young for this, this shouldn’t be happening, and I’ve spent a lot of my focus on healing my body instead of going back to how can I change my internal story about my body, and so I really appreciated her and I’m very grateful for that, and so I’m very grateful for that, and so I really appreciated her, and so I’m very grateful for that, and so I’m very grateful for that, and so trying to change that internal story, we’re trying to force these beliefs on ourselves, but I will tell you that the most powerful experiences usually come from thoughts that are not my own and so profound and create such a shy, a seismic shift within my body that you know they are divine. And she shares a story about that. Well, like you know, just a continuation of the story, she says I’m becoming stronger in each moment, and she started to learn that her body was a vessel in order to share love. Those were the beliefs for her and for me. I remember thinking that my body is my compass and it helps me navigate my emotional well-being where I’m unaware of it, and that, for me, was like a really cool shift that like at any time not a compass, it was a barometer. At any time, I know what the weather is within my body based on what my barometer is reading, which is my pain levels, which is kind of fun to think about. So, she gives us again a couple steps, talking about like being the dream of our dream, like creating the life that we want by also being able to embrace and change those internal stories that we have. So, the first thing that she says is to ask for guidance. The moment you pray for guidance, you reconnect with your inner wisdom, the voice of love, and would I like yeah, wait, we’re just going to leave that there, okay, because I want to talk about this. So, she says practice the holy instant. So, she references the holy instant a lot in her book, and so it’s important for us to know what that is. She says the holy instant is the moment that you surrender your fear to the care of the universe and accept the perspective of love. And that word she uses it later on the word surrender it feels very scary. It also at times can feel defeating, but when we are looking at it from a place of the holy instance, it’s like we are turning over to trust. We are laying it down at his feet and I think about that, just making sure my sitter is getting my son today, because their whole school schedule’s off right now, and so I think about the holy instant a lot in my life, and we’ll reference it as we keep going. But she challenges us to make a fast comeback by using the holy instant over and over Now. I think about this in times when there’s been challenges with my kids, when I jump in and I’m like wanting to make decisions and I’m trying to get them to do things, and you just take a moment and you just take a deep breath and you think, okay, I’m reconnecting to love. And I thought about this the other day when I was cleaning my toy room. Actually, it had been like over nine months since I had even touched the toy room just with baby. It’s like not on my priority list in the least bit, but I did get to a point where I was able to go in and start cleaning it up and there were dolls with all their hair cut off. They were like storing the hair, they were like in buckets. I’m like am I raising like a witch? Like what is she doing with all this hair? You know her and her friends and just like so much stuff. And in that moment, I was able to like take a holy instant I didn’t know that’s what I was doing and like reconnect to love. And I was able to stop and see so much creativity among the things that I was cleaning up and it really was this cool like fast comeback to where that could have been such a negative experience to clean the toy room out to being so enjoyable and positive and such a wonderful memory that I will always store within my heart. And so, when we’re connecting, you know we’re going back and connecting to that power and we’re trusting that the universe always has our back. We can use that to our advantage to make these fast comebacks. So, then she also said she has a couple more steps. On this one she says to put out what you want to receive, and we’ll go through the last ones a little bit quicker. Then she says create a purpose statement. And then she says you’re the dreamer of your dreams. That’s step six, like be the dreamer of your dreams. And it’s funny because so my husband’s in the middle of a job change right now. This job that he took, we laugh because he knows he manifested it. I’m like that’s the best way. You know I was talking about manifesting to him one day and you know he’s a very snarky type of personality. I love it. It’s so different from me. And he’s like that’s just stupid. And I was like well, what have you got to lose? Like you’re unhappy at your job right now, like what have you got to lose? I’m like, what company would you want to work for? And I still remember him like standing in the kitchen and like throwing his arms up and he’s, like you know, like so snarky, like I’m manifesting working at this company, Like so snarky and within probably it was within a month, that CEO was reached out to him and this, you know, this is a couple of years ago, and he ended up getting a job at this company that he wanted to work for. But what was so funny about that was he wanted to work for a tech company. He wanted to work for a company that was growing really fast, like all these, like specific things about the company, and he wanted to make a lot of money. And so, it was just so funny because he ended up going and it checked all of those boxes. But he was so determined to check all of those boxes he never actually said like these are the outcomes, the overall purpose of things that I want to achieve within a company, and so he got into it and the company hasn’t been doing well ever since, and so we were laughing, you know, a few months ago, or like I think you manifested the wrong thing. You were manifesting things about the company like a sexy company on paper, when in reality that’s not actually what you want. You want something very different. And he’s like, yeah, I do. I say like, yeah, I do. He was like you know, that says yeah, yeah, I do, okay. So, it was really funny because then he was able to like, we were able to talk about it and again, like he’s really struggled, he’s not the one that feels like he can call on the universe for these things. Sometimes I feel like I’m calling on the universe for my family, but I remember, like sitting down, being like, okay, I don’t know what this next thing’s going to look like, but I know that, like following the checklist of what a company looks like on paper wasn’t the right thing, and so the thing that like has come to him is so it’s a company so different than anything he’s ever considered before, but it really feels like the path to take. And so, when I look at this, you know, like putting out what we want to receive, like really thinking about that purpose statement. There’s a lot of things that will be coming. It will still be challenging, but we were able to really bring and ask God for something that meets our needs in a very different way and then allow the magic to happen All right. So, and I think this is a perfect segue into the next step or the next guide post we’re going to say is that you are always being guided, even when it doesn’t feel like it and this is a really hard one for me over the last couple of years, I feel like but it’s always been guided and I feel like this one has always been a part of me. If you go back and listen to my podcast about manifesting, there’s just been times where I’ve manifested things in my life, when I’ve just trusted in God and the universe so deeply that things just randomly happen. It seems very happenstance in my life, and I realize I’ve always had this belief that I’m always being guided. But the last three years have really challenged that for me and to be able to stand back and examine my thoughts, like I mentioned at the beginning, about how that thought has really come into question, and maybe that’s why things have felt so hard, because I haven’t been secure in trusting and knowing this. So, she goes on to say each instance, hold on, let me back up. She says life gives rise to one of two choices to learn through the perception of love or to learn through the perception of fear. Each instance is a holy encounter, providing a divine spiritual assignment in which you can choose to heal, or you can stay stuck in the bondage of your past. If you choose to show up for these universal assignments with a willingness to heal, then many miracles will be presented to you. And I just thought that was really I don’t know how you would say that like it’s hard, it’s hard to take responsibility, right, like, like I felt kind of called out on, like well, I don’t think that I’ve been wanting to stay in bondage of my past, like I could feel my brain wanting to argue, and so it’s been really like a gentle experience, a gentle invitation, as I’ve been looking through this over the last little while and the challenges that we keep getting presented with and how I didn’t realize at how stuck I was staying, but being able to go back to this belief that I’m always being guided and then being able to take responsibility for my own happiness. So, one of the things that she says in here is that let me. So, she says again, she gives us steps. I’m not going to go; I’m just going to read these steps. I’m not going to write them out because there’s a lot on this one. She says the first thing is to recognize the assignment and call it by its name, like this is my assignment, this is my assignment to accept love in this moment. The second is to accept that you can’t avoid the assignment, and I think she said here, or maybe it’s somewhere else, oh no, it is right here. She said the second step is all about accepting that you can’t avoid the assignment, you can only postpone it. I was like that’s a bummer. Like if you don’t choose to accept the assignment today, it will continue to present itself in new relationships and experiences. If you don’t show up for it, it will continue to show up for you. I was like, oh man, maybe that’s what’s been happening the last three years. I just keep postponing these lessons. So, I enjoyed that. I’ve learned a lot over the last couple of years and so I am appreciative of that. But I do feel like I’ve been learning the same lesson over and over because I’ve just been postponing it. So, she says step three is to honor your feelings, like recognize that any time pain is triggered, it’s just showing you that you can heal from the past and that’s your next hidden wound that you can heal. She goes on to say step four is call on compassion. She says compassion gives you the permission to let go and allow deep healing to begin. Step five is to place your faith in the universe. And she said by embracing the universe as your support system, you’re no longer relying solely on your own power to solve your problems. And let’s just pause there for just a second, because what a beautiful imagery that is on embracing the universe as your support system, like if you were to think about the universe as like this all-encompassing hug all around you, that it’s there supporting you no matter what and you’re relying solely on that. That’s really hard to do, but the more I imagine being encompassed in those arms of love, the easier it feels to be like supported and held up in a way. She goes on to say step six is take care of your side of the street. She said as that, where is it? She said when you’re ready to clean up your side of the street, don’t be afraid to be vulnerable. And so, she invites us in this that, like when we accept that assignment and we recognize that the way we’re showing up for other people, where we might be projecting some of our assignment and lesson to learn on to other people and blaming them, we need to take a step back and clean up our stuff first and approach those relationships with vulnerability and apologize if needed. She says step seven is to welcome healing. She says you’ll deepen your faith in the universe and be presented with new opportunities for release when you surrender and allow the universe to do her thing. True, healing is presented to you, and she said it’s. Surrendering may feel scary right now. That’s normal. Expect to feel it. And so, I just love. I loved that whole chapter. I think it was just a good reminder for all of us that we can always come back to being guided. So, the next one she says is that your vibes speak louder than your words. And when I talk about like our vibe or energy with my clients, I talk about it in terms of like our energy’s bio or our body odor. Okay, so imagine, the best way to describe this is have you ever been down like a grocery aisle, and you walk by someone and you’re like whoa, like their body odor. You know it’s been a long time since someone has cared for their body odor. When you walk by at the grocery store and you’re like can’t get away fast enough, you’re like, whatever that ingredient is, I don’t need it anymore. And then you walk down, you know by somebody else that just has, like this, naturally more pleasant scent. It doesn’t even have to be perfume, it doesn’t have to be hair products, it’s just something that smells or feels different about them. This is the same thing that I think about when I think about, like our vibes. What we radiate, what we put out into the world, has a vibration and people pick up to that and are drawn to certain energy types. So, even though you may be speaking some particular way, you know a really good example of this would be I could be standing side by side with another coach whom I love, but we have very different vibes, and our vibes are calling to specific people. It doesn’t mean that I’m any less than she is or and she’s not any better than me. We just have very different vibes and people pick up on that. But also remember that your vibes can get in the way of other things coming to you, and so you can be blocking a lot of the things that the universe always has your back and wants to bring things to you. You can actually be blocking it Even though you’re saying you want these things in your life energetically. You could be blocking it with your own fear. So, she said the first thing is to get out of the way. She said when our fearful thoughts take over, we get caught up in the littleness and cut off our connection to our power. She says I recognize that chaotic thoughts is my resistance to love. I use this prayer, I step back and let the universe lead the way. I will also say just briefly, as you go through when she kind of shares her mantras or her prayers, I don’t speak and that’s not my natural voice, and so some of those when she’s like, repeat this mantra, I’m like, oh, that doesn’t really drive with me. If I can find it in my notes as we’re going through, then I’ll read some of the ones that did mean more to me. So just recognize that as you’re going through, that if you’re reading something and it doesn’t feel like you tweet the words a little bit, just use her stuff as a template and find what does resonate with you. So, then she goes on to talking about, like recalibrating your energy so that you can be more in alignment with the universe. She says that she does this with meditation. There’s lots of ways that you can do it free writing prayer, like find whatever it is to, like change that vibration and you’ll feel that because you’ll feel stronger, you’ll feel more calm, you’ll feel more peace. So, she said, whatever you’re putting out, the universe starts to pick up. And this is the spot that I really loved because she talks about the power of joy. And this is step four. If you’re following along in the book, she said, when we’re focusing on our joy, it automatically raises our vibration, and our vibration is put out into the world. And the way I think about this is what we’re commanded to do, of put, like, don’t hide your light under a bushel, put it on a hill for all to see. And so, what she’s inviting us to do is to share our light and to share that vibe, that energetic vibration, with other people so that they can also be raised. And she says the way that we do that is through our joys. So of course, you know I love that because we talk a lot about that in my coaching and she says make joy your priority and tune into this joy daily. She says you have the power to be a spiritual activist. You have the positive energy to bring forth healing to everyone around you. She says lean towards joy, and you will be led. So, I love the questions she gave and then we’re going to continue. Actually, I really want to share that story. We’re going to have to go through the other stuff really quick, but she shares this really cool story about celebrating the support. So, as you’re connecting to that joy, as you’re focusing on your joy you know I talk a lot about that in my coaching like being able to discover what your joy is. You can go listen to that on the podcast. But what she talks about is being able to celebrate your support from the universe, and there’s a lot of support that comes in ways of synchronicities. For me, the ongoing thing I’ve always thought about was the universe speaks in threes. I don’t understand why, but when the universe speaks in threes, I always know it’s what I’m supposed to listen to. But what she talks about was that when she was connecting to her joy and practicing, celebrating the support from the universe, and really embracing that love. She said that, like in one of her before she went out and spoke, she said she felt like she had angel wings. She was imagining this, like she was on stage, and she had these 50-foot angel wings that like spread across the entire stage. So then, you know, she comes out of her meditation, and she goes out, and she goes out to speak. And it was just really cool because as she was speaking, she said she felt like those angel wings were there. And then later, after, you know, somebody came up to her and thanked her for her presentation and she said it just felt like you had angel wings on the stage. And she’s like oh, my goodness, right. So, then she goes on to continue, like she goes back, she’s starting to clean up and as she’s cleaning up, somebody that’s with her found this little charm and it had angel wings with the word receive on it. And this person like picked it up and was like I think this is for you. She’s like whoa, that’s crazy. So fast forward. I think it’s another year later. She’s presenting, you know, on a stage somewhere, and someone comes up to her after and was like oh my gosh, I saw you last year. Did you get my present. I left you these little angel wings that with the word receive on it. She said again the synchronicities. She said so all of these little pieces all came back to just help her see how the universe was supporting her through all of it. She goes on to talk about okay, we’re going to just I’m going to read just a couple of these very quickly. So, the next one she talks about having fun. Again, we talk a lot about that in my coaching, how it’s really important. Yeah, this is the other story I wanted to share with you. She talks about like, really having fun. And so, her and her husband were going. They were looking for a house. They couldn’t find a house and they just felt you know what would be more fun. What if we look for a house in the countryside? We’ve always wanted to live in the country. And so, she was talking with one of her friends and she said you know, have you asked for a sign? And this is the next step, where step number five is the universe works fast when you’re having fun. And she said her friend invited her, like, have you looked for a sign? She’s like no, I haven’t. She’s like her friend said Well, my sign is a dragonfly. And so, she’s like what sounds fun to you? She’s like an owl. Yeah, I’m going to tell you why I laugh when I say that in a second. So, her and her husband go out, they’re looking at this house and she, you know, like she’s looking for this owl, like waiting for it to appear. She didn’t see it, but she did see a dragonfly at this house. She’s like, well, you know, maybe that was the sign, like maybe it was just my friend’s sign, but either way, she felt like when they went to this house it was like a coming home. And she said, her and her husband both felt it. They knew that was the house, but she hadn’t gotten her sign. So, as she was leaving, she I think they were driving behind someone and someone had a bumper sticker of like an owl flying. She’s like that’s my owl, there’s my sign. And so, I’ve thought of you know, and what makes me laugh about this is owls are actually my sign for things and you can’t see it. Actually, I’m going to grab it for you. So, this is what I have hanging in my office. Can you see my owl? Isn’t it cute Sitting on its little perch as a reminder? Because owls are my sign, so much that, like anytime we’re out, my kids are like, mom, there’s your owl for the day. I’m like, yes, it is. And so, they’re always looking too. I’ve seen owls on suitcases. Once we were at SeaWorld and not like out like pictures of owls. And we were out at SeaWorld, okay, and someone and I was like I would never see an owl at SeaWorld, but owls are my sign, like I always look for a sign. And so, when we were at SeaWorld, some kid in front of me no joke pulled a stuffed animal out of a bag that they had just bought, and it was an owl. Why the heck were they selling an owl at SeaWorld? Like it makes no sense. But honestly, like I told my husband about it, he’s like that’s kind of ridiculous. Again, like he’s kind of snarky. I was like, okay, fine, every single day, I’ll send you a picture of my owl Every single day. For like two weeks I send him pictures of owls. And he was like, okay, okay, I get it. And so, it just became something so fun, that’s my sign. And so, when I thought about this in terms of like can you really ask God for a sign? Is that faith? Like how does that fit? And what I love about it is that when I’m having fun, that’s when the universe is working for me, like the universe works really fast. So, a sign was just me having fun, I’m just having a good time, it’s something enjoyable for me and my kids, okay, so it’s just something fun. Same thing that she talks about, and so every single time I’m working on something, I’m looking for something, I’m like there’s my owl for the day. It’s just a reminder that the universe has my back. So, then she goes on and I’m not going to write these next ones down because we’re almost out of time, but she talks about how detours Um are sorry, obstacles are detours in the right direction, and it’s important to remember that when an obstacle comes up, it’s not a sign that you took the wrong path. The wrong path, it is simply a way for you to grow and embrace the discomfort, and it’s the way for you for the universe to help you learn. Whatever that next lesson is that you are meant to learn, and one of the things that she said in here is that when we’re in the should mentality, we’re actually trying to control and manipulate the situation instead of allowing and being very open to what the universe has for us to learn. So, one of her prayers, she says, is thank you, your universe, for helping me see beyond my limitations talking about like an obstacle. Thank you for expanding my perceptions so that I can attract genuine love. And so, I really just thought that was a beautiful sentiment. She goes on to say so this is chapter seven. Certainty clears the path for what you desire, and I thought this was interesting because I’ve really struggled with certainty for a long time. And like, what’s the difference between, like making a plan and doing what you can, versus surrendering to the universe, like she says in here, like you can choose your own reality? But she also talks about surrendering to the universe, and so I’ll probably do a whole podcast episode on that and share my thoughts. You know a little bit deeper, but I think it’s important for the time being is that your visions are your, those are your compass forward, and God can be co-creating those with you and allowing small nudges to further direct you on the path. He says so. For me that’s kind of what helps is that I find certainty that God is there side by side with me, not pulling me, not pushing me, but side by side with me and my dreams that I have. They are divinely placed within me, and his desire is to help me create them, sometimes better than I can see for myself with my limited, you know, human mindset. So that’s what I appreciated in there in that chapter. Like that, certainty clears the path for what you desire. It’s not certainty exactly in what the outcome is, it’s certainty that, no matter the outcome, it’s better than you could imagine. It goes on in chapter eight. The universe speaks in mysterious ways and one of the things that it says in there, so talking about like the synchronicities that I mentioned before, it says these synchronicities, or these miracles may seem wild and unexplainable at first, but the more faithful you become, the more commonly they occur. She says, A Course in Miracles teaches us miracles are natural. When they do not occur, something has gone wrong. And that, really, like stood out to me because we have a right. We have right almost sounds entitled, because we have a connection so deeply with our, with our God, that these miracles will continue, continually happen, and it’s our job to be connecting to that power so that we can see the miracles. So, she goes on to say that the next step is to spend mindful moments throughout the day looking for the, looking for love. Love is where, like, you bring your attention to these miracles, and you learn to expect the miracles. And then she says then it’s important for you to pray, to like get out of the way I sometimes I get my own way a lot. So, then she says, you know, as you’re heightening your faith and you’re committing to that faith, I really like this question that she left in at some point. You know we can like go back and journal about this, I think. But she says that this question is what would your life be like if you knew you were always being guided? I think that’s such a beautiful question for all of us to examine. So, she goes on to talk about how, when we are one with the universe, we are set free. And the phrase you are the universe and at first, it’s I felt a little like whoa, hey, I don’t feel like I can take on that title. But when you’re really accepting that you’re one with the universe, you are embracing that support system. I think about it in terms of like a marriage, like you are marrying yourself to the universe. You’re going to deeply become connected, always having your best interests in mind, and so you are each other like. You are independent, but together you become the universe that you know she kind of talks about. And then she has some prayers and some meditations that you can read through in there. So, we’ve got two more. So, I yeah, I’m just going to mention the last one. So, this is actually 12 and we’ll go back to 11. She says be an instrument for love, always find ways to be guided so that you can share love, the universe’s love, with other people, wherever you go. But I really liked chapter 11. When you think you’ve surrendered, surrender more, and that is the lesson that I think I have needed to learn over and over the last couple years. I have a very beautiful life. I have more than I ever could have imagined, and it has been really hard to surrender, to get here, and every time when I think I’ve got something figured out, I have an invitation to surrender again and to surrender again, and it always feels like I’m giving up something of tremendous value. But the thing I get back in return is exponential. Sometimes those are tangible things, sometimes they are intangible things, and that doesn’t mean that all of life magically goes away. We have everything that we’ve ever wanted. We’re leaving this life of bliss, but I am continually asked to surrender, because that is not my natural state of being. She says when we look outside for our faith, we get lost in the dreams of who we think we should be, what we think we need and when we think we need it. But when we turn inward, we surrender to the one and only truth, which is love. When we surrender to love, we can experience our darkest moment as the greatest catalyst for transformation, and I am so grateful that the challenges that I’ve experienced have always been my greatest catalyst for transformation Doesn’t mean I want to go back and relive them, but, gosh, I am grateful for the lessons I learned through them, and I don’t ever want to learn those lessons again. But I know that there will continually be more, and God will continually invite me to surrender and surrender over and over, and I am grateful that when I do that, I am continually reconnected to that love. I will also say, going back to that very first step or not the first step maybe where we talk about desire is enough. Desire is enough for me to connect to my power and desire is enough for me to surrender, and sometimes it comes more easily than other times, but I know that the more we’re connected to that love, the more that we’re embraced and seeing the universe always having our back, that surrendering becomes a very natural, very loving process. All right, so I hope you enjoyed that book. Just very briefly, you can go to Amazon and find The Practice by Seth Godin. This is her book for next month. I love this book, based on the things I have read about it that it’s not just learning about our creative endeavors and how to like, how to be creative and following that joy, following that fun, but actually shipping it out and putting it into the world, which can be so vulnerable for so many people. I see that all the time in my coaching and so my desire for our book next month is that we can start putting our creativity out into the world, because that is how we are, that instrument for love, just as Gabby Bernstein said. All right, until next month, have a wonderful time. Thank you for listening. Please share, review, and subscribe to this podcast so that together we can live life on purpose.