I messed up today…or did I?

Well this afternoon felt like it was one wrong decision after another. I made arrangements to have a babysitter so I could get my hair done and go to a meeting in Toronto. I originally estimated that from my house I would need two hours to get to T.O. and that was being safe since I’d be driving in rush hour yet I would be traveling south. Now that I was getting my hair done…I thought 1.5 hours would be sufficient as I would now be closer to the highway, but I would still aim for giving myself 2 hours.

I wasn’t watching the time as I was fully enjoying my experience at the hairdresser. I met a wonderful woman, loved the conversation and was in gratitude for the head massage at the washing station… everything was perfect! I loved my ME time and felt like a million bucks when I was done. My hair, however, ended up taking longer than anticipated. My original goal was to leave by 4:30, but I thought 5pm would be the latest. I finished by 5:15 and my friend who showed up at the hairdressers unexpectedly, asked if I could drive her home. I thought since it’s on the way to the hwy and it would be a brief detour, what difference would it make at this point. So I agreed to drive her home and while on route, I noticed my gas was low. After dropping her off, I stopped for gas. I was still on the dvp by 6:30pm (the meeting start time). I thought okay maybe I’ll be 20 minutes late…that’s not too bad…30 minutes tops…”okay for some reason I’m not supposed to be there at the start of the meeting…”trying to think positive.

By the time I got to the Lakeshore it was 6:45pm…I left the meeting organizer a voice mail to make sure she knew I was on route. Traffic thickened…I forgot the CNE was on. I was now crawling along the Lakeshore. I finally made it to Highpark by 7:10pm and now needed to find the cafe where we were meeting.

Some how I made a wrong turn and ended up on a one way road in Highpark which led me out of the park and now I was confused as to which direction to turn and how to get back into the park. After stopping for directions several times, as I’m directionally challenged, I called the meeting organizer once again to give her the heads up. Again I got her voice mail and this time I left her my phone number, hoping she’d call me back to direct me to Highpark. After I hung up, my phone went dead. I was out of batteries with no charger. I didn’t have my gps with me and now I was more frustrated and even frantic about whether I’d even find HighPark again.

Finally, I found my way back into the park through thick traffic and several one way streets. I made it to the cafe by 7:45pm. I was an hour and 15 minutes late and the group I was meeting had already left.

Frustrated with myself and feeling like I failed, I ordered a salad and sat there by myself, contemplating the reasoning for this situation. Were my priorities not straight today? Was I simply not supposed to attend this meeting? Was it a reminder to trust?

I put a lot of trust in the universe and follow my heart as situations arise. 99% of the time things go beautifully. Today I had truly felt like everything was going as it was meant to go until… I felt like it wasn’t working out in the manner as I HAD EXPECTED. Things started to get stressful when I was later than I thought was acceptable.

I couldn’t find fun songs on the radio to transmute my stress, I didn’t have a favourite cd in the car. I tried so hard to focus my thoughts on the positive, but nothing seemed to be going right. To top it off, while driving home I hit an animal with my car…a racoon, cat or fox, I’m not sure…but that’s when I started to cry. That’s when my feelings of failure came to a climax.

Some days I have no problems dealing with obstacles and other days situations can be more challenging. The amount of sleep I’ve been getting, if allergies or colds have been affecting me, foods I’ve eaten, exercise – any one of those things or more can affect the way I deal with issues. I had a couple of those going on, so I know I wasn’t performing at my optimal potential.

So, did I mess up or was it meant to be? Well, I have to say it was meant to be. If I focus on “I messed up” is that going to help me? No, that type of thought process will only build feelings of inadequacy and will fuel my body with negatively charged energy that will adversely affect my holistic balance and will attract more negative situations. If I go with the thought “it was meant to be”, I have an opportunity to learn from my actions and I’m open to seeing any possible reasons why I wasn’t supposed to go. Maybe a month from now the reason will be clear why I wasn’t supposed to be there. Or maybe I’ll never know the reason.

I know one thing that I’ve learned from the scenario, is that I really MUST prioritize my activities. What ever is truly most important must get priority with lots of traveling leeway should I be driving in Toronto traffic. Maybe that was simply the lesson I needed to learn. Having this learning for a meeting that wasn’t urgent is the best way to have it…isn’t it? Maybe it was also a reminder to use some of my other stress releasing strategies such as brain gym or connecting to source energy. Maybe I needed these reminders to prevent future more disruptive situations from happening.

I hope my story will help you to deal with some of your moments of inadequacy. I feel better myself for sharing it.

By the way…say a prayer for the animal I hit please. For some reason the death of that animal was meant to be too. It has to be right? Other wise I’d be fueling myself with guilt and that won’t help me either will it?

Make sure you are not too hard on yourself. It won’t do you any good!

Jacquie Hermans