I recently had an experience that reminded me of an inevitable part of life – how the unexpected drops out of nowhere and a day that seems like any other is suddenly something else entirely – and that put my relationship with my spiritual practices to the test. 

On a recent Monday, I began a regular day at work, looking forward to a busy, normal kind of week.  By late afternoon, I was waiting in the emergency room of a local hospital with a serious infection that arose from a toxin from some kind of bug bite.  After three-and-a-half days in the hospital, and many rounds of intravenous antibiotics, I was back out in the everyday world, going on with my life. 

I had the great gift of not feeling sick throughout the experience, even as the infection and reaction of my body to the toxin were serious and required energetic medical intervention.  Because I didn’t feel sick, I had lots of time to ponder the experience, and to explore its meaning to me.  I also found myself filled with gratitude that allopathic medicine has developed ways to help people heal, and keep them alive, that didn’t used to exist.  I also had a visit from a healer, whose work with me accelerated my recovery significantly.

What I noticed that surprised me was how my years of practice have become a resource I can rely on when the chips are down.  I found myself able to go with the flow of the experience without struggle, and that was both a great gift and something of a surprise.  The reason I wanted to share my experience is to offer an example of the spiritual wisdom that teaches us that practicing all the many things we do to recenter and restabilize ourselves on a daily basis really does build up a capacity that becomes available when we really need it.

And so, for this week’s experiment, I invite you to redouble your commitment to whatever mindfulness, grounding, or other practices you have chosen to do on a daily basis.  When we have the luxury to do these practices during relatively quiet times, when we aren’t challenged to the max, we give ourselves the gift of building in resources that will be available when we really need them.

As a side note, what I personally find most useful for dealing with unexpected challenges, are practices that come from mindfulness, that include practicing “no struggle”, curiosity, and being water.  There are many suggestions around these kinds of practices in previous experiments, so I invite you to look at some of what we’ve done together before to see if there are approaches that offer useful ways to prepare for future, unexpected and currently-unknown, challenges.