How I Met The Love of My Life
And the words that brought us together.
Words are a special kind of magic. If I didn’t believe it I probably wouldn’t spend so much time obsessing over finding just the right ones. And true story, over four years ago I spoke some of the wildest (and possibly naïve) words over myself that changed the trajectory of my life.
My best friends and I were in Bali being young, wild and twenty-something. I was two years into becoming a nun (single and terrified of the mingle), and maybe it was something in the fried rice, or perhaps my failed attempt to contact my ex; but it was becoming uncomfortably clear that, as full as my life was, love was not in the cards.
There is psychological research that tells us the sensory stimuli we register depend in large part on our self-definition. If I am a student and walk into a classroom, the first things I will notice are probably the desks, the teacher, maybe my peers. If I am a janitor, I will notice something very different, the state of the floor, the fullness of the waste bin, perhaps the cleanliness of the windows and walls. And most of us do not bother to notice much else. It’s like the famous basketball experiment (click the photo below to experience what I mean).
We notice what we are primed to notice.
And now for the stupidly optimistic words that changed my life:
“I just have to keep hoping. I could meet the love of my life tomorrow.”
I had no idea what magic life had in store for me the moment I let those words fly. But I do know this: hope is the most potent spell any of us can cast.
Let the wishes come forward. Whisper them to yourself, write them on paper, or share them with the safest souls you know. Let them feel naïve and outlandish. But hope is never a fool’s errand. If you can believe in possibilities, you will see the invisible doors and unmarked paths that lead to a life like no other.
So I hope you never stop hoping. I hope that no matter how long the winter, you have the audacity of wildflowers, watching and preparing for spring. Because sometimes it is the wild hopes that have a habit of coming true.
PS
The following picture of my now husband and me was taken nearly five years ago. Exactly one day after I said I could meet the love of my life.
Great Reads:
“We keep looking so hard in life for the “specific message,” and yet we are blinded to the fact that the message is all around us, and within us all the time. We just have to stop demanding that it be on OUR terms or conditions, and instead open ourselves to the possibility that what we seek may be in front of us all the time.”
-Rosamund Stone Zander, The Art of Possibility
If you want a brilliant and life giving read about all the doors hope can open, The Art of Possibility is one of my favorites. Links are below and it also is available on Audible if you’re more of a listener.
Call and Response:
As we celebrate the changing of the seasons with the Fall equinox, what is something you are bringing with you from this past Summer? What are you preparing to shed this Fall?
Journal on your own or feel free to drop a comment as we nurture a climate of real human connection together.
Stay true lovebugs,
Dakota