After a week of communication challenges everywhere I turned, I woke up Friday morning determined to bring my world into balance. In three situations, this required patience, persistence and trust despite any agitation or anxiety I might be feeling about money.
First, I had to find a way to turn down a job offer tactfully. For karmic balance, it was important to honor my own position and to cause no harm or insult to the program’s founder. Since there had been some disharmony in the past, this required a deft hand.
Next, a rental car scenario proved frustrating. I didn’t notice until I was driving home that the car they gave me smelled like smoke. Bad weather delayed a trade in, and limited availability at that location further complicated the exchange. I had to drive to another site; I ended up with a large SUV; and, I was charged incorrectly. At some point during the week, I’d spoken with every representative at that office. This was the morning to work it out.
Before making that call, however, I happened to look at my cell phone bill online. I hadn’t been notified of the due date (yesterday), and the amount startled me. This meant another call to work out charges and correct the notification.
I was up to my nose in financial misunderstandings. But what did I expect? On Monday morning, I’d asked Life to teach me about financial flow.
I often use a simple technique as a learning tool, which works something like this: Knowing that somewhere in the universe is someone who can teach me the truth about a topic (in this case, money), I ask to be taught. Then I watch carefully for anything that appears in my world to answer my request.
This week’s lesson and challenge was to slow down to the moment of goodwill and allow a resolution to occur naturally —a different rhythm than forcing my point. To help me learn, Life gave me a polite, proficient customer service representative at the phone company who even had a sense of humor. He walked me through the charges to my account as I put attention on calming my instinctive reaction to panic, fight or defend. He posted a credit where he could, even though the mistake had, unknowingly, been mine.
By the time I called the rental car company, the costs had somehow been corrected, and I was given a way for a third party to pay the bill. Then I wrote an email to the program director with as much grace as I could muster, releasing the job offer as well as any residual angst from my heart.
Charges may come and go; jobs may come and go. But the opportunity to ask and learn from Life directly is a constant gift. Isn’t it interesting that the same words used for the uplifting qualities of life—balance, trust—also have significant meaning in the world of finance?