This week I’m sharing a strategy for staying centered and calm during stressful situations, especially when you have no control over the outcome.

We lost electricity in the huge lightning storm that pummeled the whole east coast last week and went on a mission to find a generator… as did several hundred thousand other people in Maryland! When we got a call from a relative who located one for us, we had to leap at the opportunity. But it meant driving our old “farm” truck with bad brakes all the way around the beltway for the 50 minute drive each way. What could have been incredibly stressful and exhausting, worrying about what could happen the whole time, actually turned into a profound and memorable spiritual experience because of the technique that I used while we drove the truck. I’m sharing this with you because it’s so simple and you can use it whenever you are faced with a situation over which you have no control.  Watch the video to hear that story.

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I Accept

The other thing I really worked on during SEVEN days without electricity was non-judgement.  After three days, it was easy to get upset that we hadn’t even seen a utility truck and that we still had wires, poles and trees in the road.  It took intentional acts of mindfulness to stop myself when the ‘bitching and complaining’ cycle started and to switch to finding things to appreciate.  But once I did that, I found LOTS to appreciate, like:

  • being able to scoop water from the pool to flush the toilets
  • finding a generator so we could save the food in the refrigerator and freezer
  • an electrician to hook the generator into our circuit breaker so we could stop scooping water from the pool to flush the toilets, and so we could take a shower and even watch tv and turn on the computers!
  • the incredibly wonderful, silky lightness of clean hair after days without a proper shower!
  • the miracle of an iPhone hotspot to connect to the internet
  • seeing a hilarious movie together in an air-conditioned theater when it was 102 degrees outside
During this week without electricity, a friend reminded me of  the story of the Taoist Farmer, which I had ironically just shared in the last video, and I realized that this was the perfect opportunity to LIVE that.  Because this was my soul’s creation, as is everything that happens to me, and it’s my opportunity to practice experiencing it with non-judgement, allowing it to be what it is and appreciating the experience.
Want to jumpstart your gratitude practice and move into non-judgement so you can stay centered in stressful situations?  Get Experience the Shift: Mindfulness Meditation Program. Click here to download it and get started now.