by Maryanne Pope
“When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.”
~Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
But sometimes we bury what we once wanted.
Sometimes we get so busy trying to keep up with the demands and responsibilities of our current life that we lose sight of the dream life we know, deep in our soul, is waiting for us.
The Universe Nudges You When It’s Time to Move On
“Someday,” we tell ourselves, when that little voice inside softly suggests the time has come to move on. Then we return to the task, the life, at hand because that seems easier, wiser, and more prudent than rocking the boat—and the lives and comfort levels of everyone in the boat—by taking the next step towards achieving our dream.
But my experience has taught me that when THE time comes to move on from a certain chapter in our life, that little voice no longer whispers. It roars.
Or…it starts sobbing and won’t stop. Either way, we have no choice but to pay attention.
Likewise, when the Universe seems to be nudging us in a certain direction, I have learned it is prudent to pay attention…before the nudge becomes a big fat push.
So Many People Seem to be Sound Asleep
Years ago, I gave a presentation in my hometown (where I lived at the time) to a group of writers. It was entitled “Wake Up to Your Dreams” and I spoke about my experience of writing my book, A Widow’s Awakening.
In the Q&A afterwards, a guy in the audience asked me to explain in more detail about the awakening process. “Because so many people,” he said, “seem to be sound asleep.”
I paused a moment before answering, thinking how best to articulate my perspective on the concept of a spiritual awakening.
“The day after my husband died,” I began, “I remember noticing how slowly my parents seemed to be talking. In fact, right from the moment I was told of my husband’s fall, it felt like I was in a different level of consciousness than everyone around me…as if the shock of his imminent death had launched me into a heightened state of awareness.
“I remember being really irritated with people those first few days. It was as if my soul inherently understood the significance of my husband’s death—but everyone else around me just seemed stunned. I wanted to scream, ‘Wake up! Pay attention!’”
The guy in the audience nodded slowly. He seemed to understand what I was trying to say.
“And in that state of heightened awareness,” I continued, “I was able to make connections between seemingly unrelated events. It was like I suddenly realized that everything is connected. And it quickly became clear to me that I was needed to write a book about my experience.”
Becoming a writer had been my life-long dream, but it took my husband’s death to get my butt in the chair and actually start writing.
Do People Need a Tragedy to Wake Them UP to the Importance of Going After Their Dreams?
“So do you think people need a tragedy,” the guy in the audience asked, “or something significant, to wake them up to the importance of pursuing their dreams?”
“No,” I said. “I think there are plenty of people living their dreams because they chose to do so and took the necessary steps to achieve their goals…rather than being forced into doing so after experiencing some sort of huge loss, tragedy or life-altering event.”
The guy shook his head. “I don’t agree. I think most people need a pretty big wake-up call. It seems to me most people are sound asleep at the wheel. They aren’t paying attention to what’s going on around them…or in them.”
In hindsight, I can hear the angels laughing.
There I was, delivering a presentation called “Wake Up to Your Dreams,” and although I was on the path of writing dream, I was certainly not living my dream LIFE. Far from it. That I was managing to squeeze in any writing during my chaotic, whirlwind lifestyle was a miracle.
And wouldn’t you know it, but the very next day I got another powerful wake-up call…that hurt like the dickens. Thankfully, this one wasn’t a heart-breaking tragedy…at least, not a real one.
It was a play.
The Universe Communicates in Ways Best Suited to Get Our Attention
When it comes to nudges, I suspect the Universe communicates to us through channels that will have the best chance of catching our attention. It’s like listening to the radio. We tend to listen to certain stations, so although we may flip between two or three different ones, the Universe likely wouldn’t send us an important news bulletin on a station we never listen to!
As a playwright and a lover of the theatre, it makes sense that it would be a play that got through to me.
The play was a one-woman show about a twelve-year-old girl hiding out in the boiler room of her junior high. The actress played four different characters: the twelve-year-old girl, her dad, her dad’s new wife, and the school janitor. When changing from one character to another, the actress would put on a different mask and change her voice and mannerisms. It was brilliant.
About two thirds of the way through the performance, the twelve-year-old girl was so distraught that she was screaming at us—the audience—about her horrible experience over the weekend of having to go to her dad’s wedding. She had a ruler in her hand and was waving it at us, as she got angrier and angrier, explaining the humiliation of having to wear this God-awful dress with a huge bow on her bum.
I howled with laughter. So did my mom beside me. We all did…it was hilarious! But then, something didn’t feel quite right with me. Although I was laughing, it also felt like a whole bunch of emotion was building…but was stuck behind my eyes.
And then the twelve-year-old girl said, through her tears, how FURIOUS she was at her dad for leaving their family, and how lonely her mother would be now, and how she wouldn’t get to see her dad very much anymore, and how he obviously didn’t care about her feelings…
I wasn’t laughing anymore. I was bawling—and couldn’t stop for two days.
Franz Kafka famously wrote, “A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us.” In my case, the axe was a play that splintered open a wound in my heart that had frozen over forty years earlier.
The Play Brought My Past Hurtling Back
When the play ended, I turned to my mom. She took one look at the tears streaming down my face.
“Oh my God!” she cried. “What have I done? Look how hurt you still are over the divorce! What could I have done better? That damn father of yours!”
“Mom,” I said, “let’s go get something to eat.”
My parents divorced when I was six. My dad remarried a couple of years later. The catch was how he told me the news. He picked me up from school one day and casually announced, over his shoulder to me in the back seat, that he’d got married over the weekend.
Thanks for the invite.
“You cried for days,” my mom told me over dinner that night after the play. “You were so upset that my boss sent me home from work to take care of you.”
I had no recollection of that.
I know, now, that my dad didn’t intend to hurt me. He made the best decision he could at the time. But reflecting back on the incident, forty years later, I think the best word to describe his behaviour would be indifference. I guess I had buried the hurt resulting from that indifference.
Until an annoyingly effective play brought it all to the surface.
After dinner with my mom, I went home and cried some more. Interestingly, my dad lived with me at the time. But he happened to be away that week— which was probably a good thing.
Is This My Dream Life?
The next morning, I woke up feeling significantly better about that matter, having cried most of it out of my system. But then I proceeded to start crying again.
“Oh, for God’s sake,” I snapped at the fireplace, “NOW what’s the problem?”
And that’s when I heard that little voice deep inside me whisper, “You can move on now.”
“WHAT?” I yelled at the fireplace.
“IT’S TIME TO MOVE ON!” the voice roared back, obviously fed-up with the gentle approach. “YOU ARE DONE HERE. YOU HAVE DEALT WITH ALL YOU NEEDED TO AND NOW YOU CAN LEAVE.”
I looked around my familiar living room with new eyes…as if I just woke up. Again.
Why am I still living in the same neighbourhood I grew up in? In the same house my husband and I bought more than a decade ago? I am a 41-year-old widow. My alcoholic father lives in my basement. I live in the suburbs of a big city in the middle of the prairies. Yes, I am writing…sometimes…but for the most part, I am run ragged, trying to keep up with the myriad of demands placed upon me by a ridiculous number of people.
Is this my dream life?
Not even close.
My dad had moved in three years before and had been a tremendous help to me with my home, yard, and dogs during a period when I had a lot of other demands on my time. As I continued to cry my way through that Sunday morning, I realized that even though it had taken him more than thirty years to come back to me, in his own way he had…when I needed him most.
But that chapter was now over.
And I suspect the dislodging of all those old emotions from childhood must have made room for a long-buried dream to bubble to the surface, because my next thought wasn’t about the past. It was about my future. And, for the first time since Saturday afternoon, I smiled.
I’m Going to be a Writer by the Sea
A few hours later, I called my mom. “I’m moving to the coast,” I said. “At long last, I’m gonna be a writer by the sea.”
“WHAT?!” she cried.
Being a writer who lived by the ocean had always been my ultimate dream. My husband’s death had woken me up to the importance of achieving the writing part of that. But what about the lifestyle? Writing, puttering in the garden, taking long walks on a beautiful beach…
I calmly told my mom the details I’d worked out so far, including selling my home in the spring.
“Why don’t you just rent it out,” she suggested. “In case you change your mind.”
Why?
“Because I’m a widow. My husband is dead and he’s not coming back,” I heard myself say. “I live in a house that was built for a family, and I am obviously not having one. So why would I want to keep the door open to a life that was slammed shut a decade ago?”
Silence. Then, my mom said softly, “You’re right.”
“I know I am,” I said. “And it’s about flippin’ time I realized that. It’s time to move on.”
“What about your dad?” she asked. “Where will he go?”
“He’ll be fine,” I assured her. “We’ll find him a new place to live.”
Three months later, my dad moved into his own digs, happy as a clam to be on his own again. Three months after that, I sold my house—in four days—and moved to a cute little bungalow by the sea on Vancouver Island. All because of a play…sure glad I paid attention.
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Maryanne Pope is the author of A Widow’s Awakening. She also writes screenplays, playscripts and blogs.
Maryanne is the CEO of Pink Gazelle Productions and a Director with the John Petropoulos Memorial Fund.
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