I forgot to listen, that’s where I went wrong. So many signs along the way to make the right turn; to stop, to change directions, but not this strong willed A-type personality. I was moving full throttle ahead. No time to think, no time to look up, I was unhappily moving quickly, hastily. I just thought it was my lot in life. Consequences of decisions I had made that now carried responsibilities. I must muddle on through, I thought until this stage of life has past me by. It wasn’t until the universe knocked me on my knees, and took everything I had worked so hard for away. That I had many many many moments to pause and think. Why didn’t I allow myself the luxury to be true to who I really was. Why didn’t I stop and create the life that I wanted to be living, and why in the world din’t I pay attention to the signals life was bringing me. Signals that were telling me that I needed to stop, as I was truly headed in the wrong direction.
There were signs along the way that I missed, like the events that led up to my financial demise. All starting when I was getting financing to purchase land and build a home on a mountain lot in North Carolina. It was surprisingly taking months to get, when I was typically able to secure financing in a month. The lender kept wanting more and more information about the type of house I was building. Apparently they were not familiar with the word “timber frame”. After about six months of pushing and pulling I finally received word that financing was coming through, and a date was set for closing. The following week I took a drive by the lot, to envision the dream of this beautiful home only to arrive to find that the road had been blocked. Turns out that this road that had stood the test of time washed out in the last storm, and now I would no longer be able to access that lot. Close call, I thought, the bank didn’t even know about this. So pushing forward, I alerted the bank and talked in a frenzied state to my builder.
This is how I had been supplementing my income for the last ten or so years. Building or buying homes, fixing them up, living in them for 2 years, selling them and then moving on, in a semi seem-list wave of new beginnings. This six month delay had me off my rhythm, time was ticking and I was behind. So with my foot on the gas peddle and the brake, as if there was a real emergency, I asked my builder/friend what was I going to do. He suggest buying the lot that he owns, which was next to the spec house he’s building.
It’s slightly funny now but this lot that he suggests I buy is pretty much a cliff. He walks me down to the bottom and says excitedly look at how nice and level it is down here, and it was beautiful and level at the bottom and it felt as if I was standing in a forest. It was so pretty and serene, the trees were tall and big and he was so excited, without another thought I said I would take it. With financing ready to go we closed quickly.
But something strange is going on. The Builder and the Timber Framer are kind of at odds, and weeks and months go by with nothing happening. So I bring everyone together. They’re both hesitating and acting like, are we really going to do this, build this together, which again I think is strange because I’ve worked really hard doing my part, getting house design, blue prints and as you already know financing. Both of them wanted assurances of the other, and were worried that each party was not going to deliver. The timber framer didn’t want to begin without being paid since he had to purchase a lot of wood and the builder didn’t want to pay him until the job was completely finished, because he had other expenses. So this is where they were stalled and in my frustration to get things going as I approach a now year delay, I wrote the timber framer a check and said lets get moving.
It felt like the house was going up soooo slowly as they brought truck after truck after truck of fill dirt in to make a driveway for my new home, In my otherwise fast paced world it was coming along, and it was turning into one of the most beautiful homes I had every built or lived in. Those monthly interest payments however were now up to almost four thousand a month as we approached the two year mark. The builder suddenly wanted to renegotiate our contract, his funds were dwindling and so were mine.
In my quest to make myself happier, and be amongst people, I had switched careers two years earlier and began selling real estate. In our weekly sales meeting, their was this one manager that was brought in from out of town to help us, who kept talking about doom and gloom, warning us of an impending recession, he knew because he had a “friend” who told him. I was frustrated and even complained to one of the owners that it was hard to listen to all that negativity all the time, as my body was feeling the effects of stress. Frequent stomach problems plagued me.
In the end, I paid double for the house that I ended up losing, because that recession did happen in a big way. I leveraged everything to keep that house until the market turned and I could sell it. If only I could of let it go. The signs were warning me along the way to stop don’t do it. Delay in financing, road wash out, builders hesitating, actual verbal warnings, and stomach problems. If only I was listening. I lost everything I had worked so hard for. Everything that I had feared came to pass. I now was a single parent, alone, penniless, and without a home.
The next year wasn’t pretty either, but I finally had some time, some stillness. I was embarrassed and ashamed. Not only of my failure of losing everything, but by the relief felt by it. Why did I have to lose everything for me to see clearly. Then over months and through many tears, I started asking myself what would my perfect life look like, and everyday after my morning coffee I would write it down. Creating the scene, and deepening the vision. Editing as I deleted and adding what felt right to me. I started practicing Yoga and intuitively started meditating after, and in the silence and stillness came a clarity of mind. I became mindful and present. Then slowly, at first, my life began to change.
When I began building my new life, I noticed signs that were still there, and this time it was telling me I was on the right path. I had just moved to South Florida when from just a teaspoon of water my phone which had over 2000 contacts from my old unhappy years of life, lost all contacts and were unable to be recovered. Less than a month later my email address was not responding to my password, and was asking for my very first password to recover it. I entered what I thought could of possibly have been my first password but it was not accepting it. I had no way to claim this account, all my past was now, whether I wanted it to be or not, inaccessible. As if the universe was saying keep moving forward and don’t look back.
So if your reading this article, it’s possible that this may be a message for you. Please don’t be so hard headed that you have to wait for the universe to take everything away from you before you begin to listen to the signs that life is bringing you. Realize that you can start creating the life that you want to live now. Start moving in the direction of your dream, while you live the life your living.Trust your instincts, pay attention to the signs. Keep your end goal in sight, but don’t be so fixated on it. It may just be the way that causes you to go where you really need to be. Stay flexible and fluid. Because the journey as it turns out is the destination. The present moment is your life.
40,000 followers from around the world tune into Donna Melanson’s daily sunrise broadcast from the beach on periscope.tv (www.periscope.tv/azulyoga). Her intention is to spread peace to the world, starting with the self. Donna is the founder of Azul Yoga, Azul Yoga Institute, offering Yoga Teacher Training, Continuing Education, Classes and Retreats.