Who really knows why we are attracted to certain, specific things and yet, not attracted to other ones?  Case in point, many years ago, I remember hearing about “The Four Agreements” by don Miguel Ruiz.  Some of my friends and acquaintances in the personal development space raved about how great the book was.  And I might or might not have looked up the book on amazon.com, though never purchased it or looked to see if it was available at my local library.  It sounded interesting, and I’m glad my friends and acquaintances got value from it, but for me there wasn’t anything more which compelled me to take further action.

Until now.

I recently came across another don Miguel Ruiz book entitled “The Mastery of Love, A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship, A Toltec Wisdom Book”.  Now THAT book caught and held my attention long enough to look into it more and then add it to my amazon.com shopping cart.  When I was considering purchase (or not) – I “felt” like I wanted to own this book and also, mastering love? yes! -- sign me up!  In addition, the topic of mastering love spoke to me because at my core I believe love is elemental (like earth, water, fire, air) and love is a fundamental topic I’ll be using with my ideal clients/church people, so these facts gave me even more justification to purchase.

But getting back to my original question of who really knows why we are attracted to certain, specific things and yet, not attracted to other ones?... beyond my pat, literal answer for ‘who’ (God/The Universe/...) I do believe there is something greater at work in our lives, and the awesome thing is I don’t really have to wonder about or try to figure out the ‘why’ of it all.  I/we can learn to trust and relax into its wisdom and then PAY ATTENTION to those times when certain, specific things cause a stirred up awareness within and then TAKE ACTION.

“The Mastery of Love” book arrived today.  I’m glad I “listened” and took action on the stirrings within… no need to ask why, just looking forward to immersing myself in and journeying through the wisdom of its words!             

While pottering in the house last Saturday, I found myself thinking about a quirky experience I had about fifteen years ago, when I was starting over in life after leaving my day job. 

I was spending a lot of time alone in a tiny studio apartment where I lived, trying to start a business with no resources whatsoever. My hermit mood was particularly strong at the time, possibly as a reaction against the risk of coming out as a sovereign offerer of value in the world.

Because I was opening up for client work from a tiny space I also lived in, every furniture choice mattered a great deal. 

Each piece had to be dirt cheap, serve more than one function in the small space and look beautiful, both for my own and clients’ wellbeing. 

One such “impossible” piece I needed was a coffee table that had to double up as a bedside table and also to earn its keep in storage. 

I got there half way by laying flat a wooden shelf unit I had and painting it in a lovely colour that suited the space. 

But there was a snag: the top surface was not flat, with some pieces of wood sticking up, i.e not quite like a table.

If only I had a piece of glass, I thought. It could sit on top and complete the table as well as create additional storage space underneath. Glass would let the light through and so protect visual spaciousness in the small room.   

But where would I find toughened glass that would be just that nonstandard size, cost next to nothing (I was living on benefits at the time) and also have rounded corners? 

I had only seen square pieces of glass on tables before, where I grew up. Yet my table top would need rounded corners, else it would be awkward moving around it in a tiny space. 

The requirements looked quite impossible so I let the idea be.

Some days afterwards, I took myself on a walk, to ease the cabin fever I was feeling. 

The neighbourhood was new to me so I just walked along the main street in order to get some fresh air quickly. At some point though, a wave of depression came over me, out of the blue, and the feeling was so wretched that it almost bent me over physically. 

Somehow, in that movement of the body, I walked into a side road and the discomfort and the inertia of walking pushed me along the unfamiliar road. I was thinking that I’d need to turn right twice more in order to get back to the main road, when I saw a skip outside a house. 

It was filled up and right on the top, at my chest level, lay a piece of toughened glass.

I noticed it, instantly awake, because it had rounded corners!

A quick glance established that it was undamaged and about the right size for what I needed so I took it home, with some trepidation about the size. 

Yet indeed, it fit perfectly, as you can see in the photo.

Until that experience, I had heard a lot of TALK about the so called “manifesting” from the various new age friends and in fact experienced a lot of disappointment about manifesting not manifesting for me. Trusting that when you jump "the net will appear" had in fact landed me in scary financial trouble.

But the precise way in which my glass top had found me was nonetheless striking and I loooooved that table so much.

So last Saturday I found myself wondering: why was it a WRETCHED feeling that preceded my miraculous find?

Why not a lovely feeling, say a sweet hunch or a pull of curiosity?

 Is that a necessary part of birthing something new or was it just what I needed in order to receive guidance?

I have experienced other times of wretchedness before a breakthrough since (even wrote about the most recent one), but I wonder: does it HAVE to go through a wretched phase?

Surely this way must be too much for many people to make it through. Yet there is an expression about the darkest time coming before dawn so other people have noticed something similar.

To complete the story, you should know that just as it was given, my beloved table top was also taken away. About a year later, my friend’s boisterous son broke it one day during a visit and it was quite a blow.

Well, at the time. 

I hadn’t known it but not long afterwards, I meet a new partner with whom we rented a home that needed different furniture again. 

Two things I’d like you to take from my experience. 

One is that wretchedness may indeed be a good sign, even if it does feel wretched and everything in you may be screaming otherwise.

The other thing is that whether something is a loss or a gift is not what you should decide quickly, even if - again - you may feel quite wretched about it for a good while.  

These are not easy lessons perhaps but they are useful to know against a bad day, which let's face it, comes to everyone sooner or later.