Gentle lessons that the Universe has taught us.

[I Have A Dream]

I'm a strong believer that the Universe will give us our lessons gently if we can be taught this way. (A friend of mine used the analogy of getting them with 'pink ribbons and silver paper' rather than getting them with a sledge hammer.)

I had one such gentle lesson today that made me laugh out loud.

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Yesterday, I took my laptop into my local city because I had to work on a speech that I'm to give Monday night. My husband and I were going to be in the city doing various chores, and some of the time, I'd be sitting in the car waiting, so I hoped that I'd be able to get some work done. I'd never taken the laptop with me before, so, while procrastinating instead of actually working on the speech, I started sniffing around just to see if I could find an open wireless network. I wasn't planning to use it, but I just wanted to see how many unsecure wireless networks were there. I found a few, and, being tempted, I started clicking on them. One let me in, and I gave into temptation and started going to my regular places on the Internet. I rationalized this by saying "It's only for a few minutes. They're probably not even on the Internet right now, so I'm not hurting anyone." There was a piece of me (obviously my Higher Self) that said that it wasn't right, but I pushed it out of my mind.

This morning, I woke up and looked out the window to see if my paper was there, which it was. 30 seconds later, I looked out again, and there was another paper as well. I walked outside and discovered that it was a complimentary copy of the New York Times. The first thing that I saw on the front page was an article entitled "Hey Neighbor, Stop Piggybacking on My Wireless". In it, it discussed the very thing that I did. I just started laughing.

I also got the message in my head that if someone left their front door to their home unlocked, that would not give me permission to enter to make a local call on their telephone even though it wouldn't cost them any money.


I love that the Universe used such a wonderful way to teach me my lesson. Needless to say, I won't be doing this again. I'm a strong believer in the slippery slope anyway, so I might have even made myself not do it again even without this lesson. However, I really appreciate the gentle way that I was clearly told that it was not acceptable.

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Do you have any similar experiences of gentle lessons from the Universe?

[Delphinus]

1. That's a wonderfully gentle lesson indeed!

I'm sure I have something similar, but I can't think of them right now. It does, however, remind me of something I heard in a dream just a few days ago ... "do the loving thing".

[Grateful for Hope]

2. what a wonderful way to experience a lesson!

I'm afraid mine are usually not so gentle. I think this speaks to your willingness to learn.

[BlueIris]

3. Not so much. The Universe has this lovely way of "teaching" me

lessons by metaphorically throwing me off the cliffs. No such thing as a soft landing for me, either. Screw you, Universe. You suck.

Ahem. I'm having a frustrating morning, all.

[undergroundpanther]

4. You are not the only one

Be happy, life,it's not a permanent condition! *smirk*

[FreedomAngel82]

5. Very interesting experience

I don't know if I've ever had anything like that. I'll have to think about it but for now I'm off to bed since it's getting late and I have some of a report to work on tomorrow.

[Quakerfriend]

6. So neat!

Well, since I am born in the sun sign of Aries, the sledge hammer effect is more my style.

However, I have found that just in the nick of time the universe will extend it's gentle hand and sort of 'save' me from running head long over the edge of the cliff.

It has happened too often to be accidental!

Of course, the lesson is always thankfully received!!

[crikkett]

7. Story was in all the papers here (SF Bay Area)

but if you read the articles, you'll see how many people purposefully leave their networks open to let their neighbors ride. It's that way in my town. My ISP encourages connection sharing. I share my broadband connx with my landlord, which has remarkably improved our relationship.

Universe's lessons notwithstanding, since hopping on a neighbor's network does open your ctr to threats, please understand that ISP's make money per user, not per packet (yet) and they have entire departments of people who write press releases encouraging their customers NOT to share. A little social engineering to boost profits.

I think of how as a child I was allowed to cut through neighbors' yards and now, sadly, our lives are so fenced in and secluded from each other... all in the name of 'safety' and 'privacy'. Privacy! What privacy? Yet, I felt so much safer when I could see down the hill and walk to my neighbor's backdoor. I felt like I was part of a community that cared for its members and let noone go wanting, versus a block of folks taught to jealously guard their possessions.

-c

[Quakerfriend]

8. Very cool, crikkett! And, I love your analogy to memories of

crossing through the neighbors yards. I, too, miss those days!

Several years ago my husband and I had some chickens. We put the eggs we could not use in cartons and out on a table by the street with a small coin box that said "Take what you need. Leave what you can." The kids just loved it!

And, when we go to the mountains we always stop and get wood from a small farm by the road. The farmer leaves neatly cut wood, tied and stacked in small bundles. There's nothing like a fire when you arrive at a cold house late at night in the mountains.

We always leave $$ in the tin can to show our appreciation.

[NJCher]

9. gentle lesson which saved me from brutal consequences

Here's my story.

When I'm overloaded, I get forgetful and absentminded--even worse than usual. I'm really overloaded now and there's nothing I can do about it--I have to hold down two jobs and there are other time sinks which I won't even get into.

So the other day I came home from my "tough day," where I teach from 9:30 a.m. until 8:30 at night and am gone from the house a full 14 hours. What did I walk into? The burner on the gas range going full blast. It had been going full blast all day. I must have left it that way after making tea.

Thank heavens our kitchen has a lot of stainless steel; it's the only thing that saved our house from burning down.

It took me days to get over the fact that I did this. I didn't sleep at all that night because I was so upset with myself for being so absentminded. For days I couldn't think of anything else.

The worst part was wondering what would have happened to my two kitty cats. Would they have been able to escape a house in flames?

I wondered whether I should tell my husband when he got home from his business trip. As it turns out, I didn't tell him.

So a week later I'm down in the basement and I see my husband has stored these pressurized cans of fuel--where? Right by one of the radiator steam heat pipes!! The can says right on it to keep it out of temperature extremes!! The worst part is that where it was stored was right under our bedroom. Had this can exploded at night and caught fire (easy in a 200-year old house made of wood), we wouldn't have had a prayer of escaping.

Under normal circumstances I would have marched right up the stairs and raised hell with him about not paying attention to detail. I'm sure I would have yelled. I know I would have left no detail about being incinerated left unsaid.

But boy did I have to think twice about that after what I did.

I don't need to belabor the point. It was quite the lesson and I am so grateful for having been given a second chance. I wish I could say I'm as grateful about being reminded that I, too, make dumb, potentially disastrous mistakes. Still working on that one, though.





Cher

[I Have A Dream]

10. Oh, yes... I've gotten that lesson myself.

:blush:

Thanks for sharing your story, Cher.

[stellanoir]

11. ahhhhh nice stories of subtle synchronicites . . .

I've luckily had more than I can count or mention. Many have come through clients wrestling with issues I've experienced and I manage to process and release once I arrive at the place of objectivity by looking at the dilemma from the point of a third party so it's easier to forgive in guiding my clients to greater acceptance. Sort of feels like cheating though it's really not as most counselors draw from their life lessons and experience similar synchronicities even if they don't divulge them.

But here's the first most recent example of such a story that comes to mind which is not derived from my practice. . .

A short while ago I had been frequenting a spiritual message board and met a guy and we started e-mailing back and forth. Having had a pretty severe writer's block for quite a long time, I couldn't believe the profusion of stuff that poured out of me . In efforts to better understand how he was such a profound catalyst I sheepishly asked him for his birth data but instead he responded with one surname which just happened to belong to one of the most notoriously nasty characters in the metaphysical global community over the past several centuries.

Though I have remembered many of my past lives since I was a kid, I had blocked this particular one as it was not exactly one I was prepared to look at prior to that point i guess. As soon as I read that nefarious name, a plethora of memories and imagery came flooding through me. He had gotten me in a not so holy heap of trouble back then which was still having its unfortunate repercussions on my dynamic with another man who had lived back then and participated in that drama as well.

So I started addressing the one on the spiritual message board by saying "hey. . .you brute." It was funny for several times but one day when I typed it and it just didn't feel right. It just fell flat. I felt badly about it for the first time. He was no longer that person and was not in his usual confidant demeanor on that day.

Welp I live in a very rural community and there is only one privately owned little funky gas station that sells some other general supplies. The owner is a really incredibly jovial guy. He is sort of like a thirty year old Santa Claus. I've never seen him in a bad mood. Though I wasn't raised Catholic I always joked that the gas station is my confessional as I can tell this guy anything and he always makes me laugh about it.

He has a poster board ladened with funny images from the net and photoshopped his funky little gas station onto pictures of varying landscapes and terrains from all around the globe. He also has a blackboard on which he writes the weekly word of the week. It's usually a fairly obscure term and the first person to define the word correctly wins a buck.

Well on that day when I had inappropriately typed "hey. . .you brute." I ventured down to my friendly neighborhood gas station and gazed upon the blackboard and the weekly word of the week was "imbrute." It was a message from spirit for stella to knock it off with the brutish commentary as its definition means -to make or become brutal. Yet I did not feel worthy of winning the buck for that particular word. Feeling the gentle sting of that cosmic rebuke, I had a total conversion experience at the confessional on that day.

Within two weeks of that day I had a spiritual epiphany and within three weeks I was on a total writing roll and I'm now up to more than 120 pages. I owe it all to the weekly word of the week as it may have just made one of the last vestiges of the victim karma I've struggle to overcome for much of my life to finally go "POOF."

[LaurenG]

12. This stuff does happen, all the time

My problem the last several months has been lack of gratitude. I know gratitude but I ignore it, particularly during stressful times and astrologically Saturn has been hating on me and I've been hating Saturn right back. Hate and anger leaves no room to learn gracefully or gently. Somehow I have been given grace though and I have been spared the hard knocks that I could have been put through. A recent incident reminded me of that.

I hate driving anymore. It takes so long to maneuver through town and there is always an unconscious driver making life more difficult and dangerous. I finally lost it one day when a driver was in the fast lane doing 50 and the speed limit is 60 to start with. I sped around him and just kept on that pedal until I was cruising at a nice 74 mph. As I approached my exit I see the red lights flashing and off I went to the shoulder of the exit to await my punishment... No punishment was forthcoming, the officer gave me a warning, a warning? That could have been a $250.00 ticket and a raise in my insurance premium and lord knows how many points off of my license. Suddenly I was full of gratitude, I couldn't have been more grateful.

That is when it dawned on me that the Universe/Saturn didn't really hate me and the Universe was giving me a warning to slow down and lighten up. I thought it was a very nice gesture and a wake up call full of grace.

Some periods of life are just so jammed packed full of lessons aren't
they.

Edit: spelling

[BlueIris]

13. Okay, just when I was complaining that the Universe never teaches

me anything in a kind way--I haven't been sleeping well the last few nights and have been wondering if I should drive today, or put my errands off until tomorrow. So, I wake up this morning and in a climate in which it NEVER snows, (I live in western Oregon) it's snowing. And I mean snowing. On March 9th. It's never snowed in this part of Oregon past mid-February in the 25 years I've been living here. I live on top of a gigantic hill that doesn't "drive easily" after even a little slush and won't be able to get down it for probably at least a day. Hilarious, universe. I think I've got it.

[wovenpaint]

14. My stories of gentle lessons

comes from a friend that I took a Prosperity class with (that she taught)-she cautioned us to be careful on how we ask for things and to be clear and focused with our intent. She told us of an instance where she was feeling very overwhelmed, so asked the universe for more time, she needed more time. That afternoon, while crossing a parking lot, she found a watch...more "time". She loved to tell that story!!
Also, my story- I met this teacher by "accident", after trying to find her.
I'd had a friend who'd gone to a psychic at a flea market, who told her that a friend with a sports car was in great danger...I was that friend. I didn't know when or where, but took her warning to heart. One morning as I woke up, I just knew that that was "the day" and was more careful then usu sal going to work. When I got there, I got sent out on errands (that never happened before)-didn't want to go, but was given the company car to use. So , I rationalized that it would be ok since I wasn't in my sports car-but was still careful. As I pulled out into traffic-stayed in breakdown lane with paranoia- a huge dump truck came flying up over the hill, in my lane! If I'd just pulled out "normally", I could have been hit head on.
So, I tried to find her to thank her-to no avail.
A couple of years later, I was told by another friend about a psychic that was very good and I should go to see her. So I did- and we got to talking. She told me that she had used to work at a flea market giving readings but had to stop as it was too draining but had now felt strong enough to do limited work. Gee, I asked where-and then realized that she was who I had looked for! Boy, that visit got emotional.
She was a police psychic and a graduate of the Silva school and was involved with the Edgar Cayce institute. What a great teacher she was! She moved to FL and I didn't hear from her again.....