My nomadic journey has been founded upon the intentions of being involved in meaningful work, following where life is calling me and of trusting that if I give of my gifts freely I will receive whatever I need to sustain me. Believing in these intentions does not come naturally or easily. I have been conditioned to figure things out, plan where I will be and what I will be doing and generally to make things happen. So I am most comfortable when I have clarity and a set of plans to live by. Thus, it has been a rich and challenging experience to let go of most of those plans and efforts to figure out where I am going and to learn to go with the flow.
Yesterday I finally acknowledged to myself how much discomfort I have been experiencing in my current situation. While I have avoided making a lot of detailed plans, I have generally known where I would be a couple of months in advance. These plans plans included going to India in September after completing work in Zimbabwe. Recently the India project fell through and I was left without any sense of the place or the work that was calling me. Since I’ve been in Cairo I have not had the energy or initiative to work on a new project as I had anticipated. I attributed this lack of endergy to the heat and Ramadan and a cultural adjustment from my two months on the Camino; I had not consciously connected it with my lack of direction and the resultant sense of groundlessness.
Our brains operate on the principles of quantum physics according to Jeffery Schwartz in the book The Mind and the Brain: Neuroplasticity and the Power of Mental Force. He explains how our mind, through the power of intention and attention, selects from multiple possible alternative futures in each moment. While we have well established neural pathways and associated ways of thinking and behaving, we also have choice of where we direct our attention and this allows our minds to rewire our brains. I resonated with this as I recognized my own process of rewiring my brain. It is my intention to experience living life as it wants to happen rather than trying to control it and, in doing so, I am rewiring my brain to accept that life will provide what I need including meaningful work and learning to live in the place of not knowing.
Fresh from having finished Schwartz’ book and based upon these implications of intention and attention, I decided around 4pm yesterday to ask the universe “what’s next?”. I began preparing to write to friends around the world to ask for input and I actually began looking at where I could get the cheapest flights from Zimbabwe (always good to have a rational plan to fall back on if the universe doesn’t come through for me).
At 6pm I went out to dinner to celebrate the end of coaching with a friend and former coachee. After dinner we went to a coffee shop to meet someone she knew. It turns out that this person is a hero of the Egyptian revolution and a leader in one of the alternative political parties that is working to find a nonviolent way forward. By 10 pm we were sharing experiences and dreams and possibilities for a project focused on compassion and forgiveness to support dialog between rival factions as an alternative to violent confrontations. By midnight we were joined by another friend who is a leader in another Egyptian organization working toward similar goals. By the time we headed our separate directions around 1:30am, we had another meeting scheduled to develop a this conversational process, I had a new possible new coaching client, I had been asked to return to Egypt in September to train and support revolutionary leaders in hosting dialog groups, I was exploring opportunities for applying social healing approaches with traumatized survivors of revolutionary violence and I had been asked if it is possible to provide Art of Hosting, Warrior of the Heart and Art of Practicing Peace trainings to leaders in the revolution. In other words, I had more than enough work to occupy me here in Cairo beginning in September. What a rush to have my request answered so quickly and with such abundance!
I have to admit that I still cannot quite believe this. To have asked for what I need and to have had it provided with such abundance within eight hours is seriously challenging my old patterns of skepticism and my need for rational materialistic explanations. The universe, life, some power heard my request and generously gave me all that I could want (well, maybe an airline ticket from Zimbabwe to Cairo would also have been nice). The path ahead is not necessarily an easy one. There will likely be no income from this work so I will be giving it as a gift and trusting that my needs will continue to be met. The situation in Cairo is becoming more chaotic and unstable meaning that I will need to pay more attention to safety and security issues and to be prepared for a lot of uncertainty. Doing this work will be challenging and will likely stretch me in many ways. But this is my journey. This is a wonderful fit with so many of my skills and gifts. So, once again I am in awe and gratitude for this amazing journey of life.
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