Yielding

What a week. My broadband went out last Saturday. At first, EE told me that it was an external fault. Every day for almost a week, I was asked to be patient, that engineers from British Telecom had to come and work out what was wrong, and that it may even require digging up the road – which could take longer, as they would need to get local permits. Just breathe, I told myself. You can hotspot to your phone.

Then yesterday, my phone didn’t have internet either. No email, no WhatsApp, no Zoom, and definitely no way to hotspot. Adding to my frustration, the estimated wait time for my broadband repair had been pushed out another week. I have a long fuse, but it was blown. I was livid. After another hour on the phone with EE, the broadband person told me it wasn’t actually an external fault – my router was defective, and she would send me a new one. (Why had no one else worked this out???) The mobile service person told me engineers were doing remote work all day and internet would be slow.

I had the option to take this all in stride, and even be grateful for the lack of connectivity. I didn’t actually have many calls yesterday, and the ones I did could be done via an old school phone call or by me walking to a bench overlooking the river (where I could get internet access) and joining from there. And I actually had quite a lot of offline work to do to prepare for a workshop in a few weeks, where what I needed most was uninterrupted thinking time. But instead, I spent the first half of the day venting to anyone who would listen, and the second half of the day attempting and re-attempting to connect to my hotspot. I got almost nothing done that I actually wanted to do.

“Life will always give you whatever experience is the most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness.” – Eckhart Tolle

This morning, as I was preparing for a monthly values coaching circle I’m participating in, I had to rate myself on a scale of 0-10 on how well I’m living my value of Surrender. And I started to laugh. I’m clearly not living it all that well! In about half an hour, Lisa Doig will ask me: “What would it look like to live this value 10/10?” and I know whole-heartedly that the answer will be “to trust in the perfection of every moment.”

How much better would this week have been had I just been grateful for the quiet time to do the work I needed to do, rather than getting worked up about my internet connection? And how many other things am I trying to control (like how my husband moves out of his flat in The Hague) would I be better off just setting aside so I could free up mental energy for the work that is mine to do?

If something feels like it is going wrong in your life – or at least not as you would have liked it to go – perhaps pause for a moment and consider whether this might be an example of life giving you what you need most, even if in a form you might not have chosen yourself. Maybe there is perfection in every moment after all.

About Friday Pauses

We can all sense how a lack of presence in our daily life affects the quality of our relationships, our ability to form real connections – and yet we struggle to set aside distractions. In my Friday Pauses, I want to encourage us all to do just that – pause for a moment and feel what it’s like to be present by reading a poem.

If you’re new to Friday Pause, here’s what I suggest:

• Minimize or close other screens.
• Put your phone on silent.
• Close your eyes and take a full breath in…and out. Maybe count to four on the inhale and six on the exhale.
• Read the poem below – out loud, if you can. It will slow you down and help you feel the words more.
• Take another deep breath in…and out.
• Resume your day.