The Domino Effect

“Why is this woman blocking me on the escalator?” I wondered. I became fascinated that the universe knows even the smallest detail of what to do in order for something else to happen or not to happen. Not in a facetious way, but on a spiritual level, I knew there was a reason. Was she slowing me down to protect me from getting into an accident? Was she holding me back so I would be able to be in the right place at the right time to meet Mr. Right? Or would I just be positioned perfectly in line at Walgreen’s to have a nice chat with the right cashier? Or maybe it was simply so that I would have an introduction for this essay. Everything happens for the best of reasons, even when someone is blocking you on the escalator. You may never know what those reasons are, but be grateful that the universe does.

It came as quite a shock when my husband came home and announced he wanted a divorce. We were the best of friends. We stayed up nightly until 1 or 2 in the morning sharing the events of our day and our future dreams. Two weeks prior to that day, he had written a love letter to me. Needless to say, I was a bit surprised.

Not only was my heart breaking, but I only worked part-time and financially could not support myself. I had to find a full-time job and a roommate to make ends meet as early as yesterday if I were going to survive. I not only had to deal with my emotional state, but my financial state, as well. My whole life felt as though it were collapsing.

I asked my employer if I could work full-time and I found a roommate within a few days. My heart went through the healing process and eventually mended itself. I survived.

A year later I found the perfect job as a party planner. Within one year of working there, I was promoted three times from being one of the corporate sales planners to being the only corporate sales planner for all the sales managers. Next, I moved into to a sales manager position myself of the newest and smallest market and finally I became sales manager of the largest. In the first year, I loved my job and was delighted to dedicate my life to the position.

The second year was fine, but things began to slowly change. The sales manager before me in the same territory made history the previous year with the highest sales numbers in the companies 2 decades. When I took over, my sales numbers exceeded the history making previous year. However, the owners wanted us to improve sales that year by an unreasonable degree; something like 30% over the year before. We all had to sign a contract agreeing that we would accomplish this goal. In order to keep our jobs, we all complied to these absurd agreements. Instead of saving money for a rainy day, they wanted to spend more money on the basis of these faux numbers, building a new office that they could not afford among other things and when we were not making the agreed increase they demanded, tensions skyrocketed.

I was by far and away the best salesperson, but management started singling me out and treating me horribly, embarrassing me at every turn and I was losing my self confidence. When I was literally 30 seconds late to our daily morning meeting I would be reprimanded in front of the staff. While the rest of my colleagues could arrive 5 minutes late, coffee in hand, with impunity. I remember once at a meeting, the owner demanded that I tell him why the numbers were down. I asked him if he looked at the numbers yet, because I had exceeded them and was the only to do so and I didn’t understand why I was yelling at me. He embarrassed me and I wanted to embarrass him back. It worked, but they treated me more and more harshly. My stress level increased dramatically and I found that I was having panic attacks on a daily basis.

By my third year, the dot.com boom was officially over and company sales had plummeted. Then came September 11th, 2001. The terrorist attacks struck fear in our country and the party planning industry suffered enormously. Understandably, no one wanted to celebrate. We were too busy mourning the losses of so many lives and fear conquered our waking moments. We didn’t want to leave our houses. The nation along with the rest of the world was glued to our TV’s watching the nightly news reports.

Businesses were hurting, but our industry was hit harder than most. There were two rounds of layoffs. By then my job had become unbearable and I remember praying that I would be one of them. Alas, because I was the only one exceeding my sales goals they would never lay me off. My numbers ranged from 156-186% over my goals the first four months of 2002 while the next highest person was at 25% to goal. I was paying managements salaries, so in their eyes, I was there to stay.

In January of that year they owed me around $6,000 and kept making excuses why they were not paying me. I walked out and started making phone calls from my home to lawyers, the labor board and anyone else I could think of that could help me.

Within a few hours my boss called and ever so sweetly asked where I was. I told him I was at home. He asked if he could come over to bring my check. I agreed. He came into my house, sat at my kitchen table and told me that I was completely f#@ked. That I better shape up or ship out. I said nothing, but I took my check and escorted him out. I couldn’t believe this man came into my home to tell me off after they illegally withheld my check.

One day in March, I had to take another sick day (among many) because my panic attack was so intense, I couldn’t get out of bed. My grandmother called me that day and I burst into tears telling her everything. I felt stuck. By the end, I said, “…and all I want to do is quit my job and move to Paris for a couple of months!”

“Then why don’t you?” she responded. It never occurred to me to actually take my own advice seriously!

After I calmed down, a new enthusiasm arose within me. “Why don’t I quit my job and go to Paris. I have the money and everything else will just work out,” I reasoned. I found an apartment online in the 5th district of Paris. I bought my airline ticket. I started teaching myself French. I packed my bags and the night before I quit my job, my friends at work took me out to a goodbye dinner. I will never forget that they kept my secret and I am forever appreciative.

The next morning arrived, just a few days before I was about to leave for Europe and I wore my red power suit to work. To be totally frank, I looked good…no, I looked great!

I intentionally arrived 30 minutes early and waited for our ridiculous (at least in my mind) daily meeting. My boss commented on how lovely I looked in my suit. After the meeting I walked into his office and with a smile, I handed him my resignation effective immediately. IMMEDIATELY! It was the best thing I had ever done for myself. Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty I am free at last! Granted, my three years tenure there would not serve me on my resume, but to this day, I do not care. I took care of myself and moved to Paris for two months. Hallelulia!

While I was in Paris, I began to notice a shift in me, for I had a deep realization that everything happens for the best of reasons. If I hadn’t married Mark, I wouldn’t have left my full-time management position that would have easily supported me during the divorce. If he hadn’t left me, I wouldn’t have reached out to find a party planning job that I loved in the beginning and detested in the end. If I didn’t have this job where the management was not very nice to me, I would have never quit in order to move to Paris. I had wanted to live in Paris since I was in high school and I was now 36. All these pieces of the puzzle were maneuvering themselves to at last give me what I wanted all along; to be in Paris. On a Spiritual level, every player and situation was fulfilling their agreement with me. “Everything happens for the best of reasons,” became my mantra.

I wanted to thank Mark for marrying me and divorcing me. I wanted to thank my part-time employers for hiring me full-time. I wanted to thank the management team at my former job for being mean to me. Had they not, I wouldn’t be in Paris at that time, fulfilling my long awaited dream.

I paid attention to my new thought process because everything does indeed happen for the best of reasons, even if it is simply to learn a lesson. Simply have the awareness that it is a lesson, learn from it and you will no longer attract the same experience. You will have evolved. I evolved and I am continuing to do so. This is not simply a matter of evolving personally, but culturally and sociologically, as well.

From a physical perspective I have two words to say about war, “War sucks!” However, from a spiritual perspective I offer an alternative point of view. While I do still think on a Spiritual level that, “War sucks,” I think that we are on a path of evolution and we can’t jump from A-Z the first time out. There are a whole lot of other letters in between that we need to hit first.

Every time I travel I am astounded by the great sense of patriotism felt abroad. Americans probably haven’t felt that same sense of patriotism since World War II. Within days of 9/11, however, our country was unified like it has never been before. President Bush enjoyed a 96% approval. 96%! No one had ever seen the likes of it.

So, we went to war and everyone was happy that we were protecting ourselves and showing the world ‘who is boss’. The support we had from country after country was phenomenal.

The war lingered on and on and people began to resent it. Pacifists started to march in support of ending the war. The world turned against our political leaders. Our country’s emotional state became that of anger. Now, we are still at war; gas prices are too high. People are suffering financially and many are losing their homes.

But, I ask, what else is happening? People are learning to live within their means. They are staying home with their families on vacations and relearning to value their families as they never have before. The world is opening its hearts to our Spiritual sides and learning (or should I say remembering) what our own humanity is all about. Television shows, movies, books and spiritual leaders such as Wayne Dyer, Deepak Chopra and Louise Hay are reflecting this burgeoning sense that we are bigger than we think. We are changing and we are promoting these changes, by slowly changing where our interests lie.

The 20th and 21st centuries have brought us great technological advances and along with those advances they have brought global warming to an obscene level. Imagine if Gore had won the 1st election. I know that many readers would say he should have been in the President’s chair. If he were, we wouldn’t have gone to war. The truth is Bill Clinton knew Osama bin Laden was a threat and war was imminent prior to Bush’s succession. It did not matter who was in office. Gore was not meant to be president…at least not yet. It was his passion and his destiny to inspire the world and bring global warming to our attention. Now, people have made a movement towards recycling. Had he been president in 2001, he would not have been able to fulfill this destiny. He was meant to win the Nobel Prize and an Oscar to boot, not fight a war. We are in the process of evolving because Gore accomplished a greater feat, by being our teacher. I thank him for that.

Because of the war, gas prices have risen dramatically. Our pocketbooks are being affected and this fact has opened the eyes of the populace. In the past, hybrids and other efficient cars were not successfully integrated into the automobile industry. Now that has changed. Instead of driving grandiose luxury SUV’s, more and more people are turning to Priuses and other hybrids to save money on the gas; which in turn is helping the environment from the devastation we have inadvertently created. From a lower level we are buying those cars to save money, but it is achieving our Higher Spiritual goals by helping to save the Earth.

For the first time since the Vietnam War, a critical mass has come to the conclusion that peace is the way. Before the war, we took peace for granted without much of a second thought. This war has taught us that we need to look at alternative solutions to war. It has educated us. We have evolved.

We are also looking at a new kind of candidate for president. We are looking for Barak Obama, a man of ‘The Light.’ Obama is a man and like every other person he is flawed, but indeed he recognizes his True Nature. He is a man of Spirit and follows the path of change; of evolution. We want him and without Bush being president before him, Obama as a first term senator would not have been able achieve the auspicious position he is in running for the highest office in the land. We demanded change and on a Spiritual level, Bush was the one that inspired us to see that we needed change.

Through my awakening process I have inspired to try and see everyone from their spiritual perspective. We are all of the Light. We are all Spiritual Beings here to create a better Universe. Not everyone remembers that fact and that is ok. George Bush is called evil, stupid and a plethora of other names. I believe that it was his destiny to be the catalyst for bringing change to our world. How would we know what we want unless we know what we don’t want? We don’t want war. We want peace. We want to save our planet by getting rid of petroleum based automobiles. We want a president of the Light. We want to be closer to our families. We want to embrace our great shift on this planet towards Spirituality. Would any of these things have occurred naturally if it weren’t for Bush? Perhaps down the road, but because of him, all this change is happening now. Is it uncomfortable making an incredible shift? Of course it is. Any transition is difficult, but the seeds are being planted to bring great peace, joy and abundance our way. A connection to the universe is being established, that hasn’t been open to such a large degree ever before. The current administration has moved the collective unconscious to change. We want and demand change and we will have change. As far as I'm concerned, George W. Bush took time out of his busy (eternal) life, to come down to Earth and withstand having an enormous amount of negative energy sent his way, to be the catalyst to inspire change in the masses and help springboard us into a great evolution. From a metaphysical point of view, George W. Bush has done his job and done it well.

The next time you are in your car and there is traffic, instead of arousing anger in yourself, know that there is a Domino Effect. Maybe the reason is because you will get the front row parking spot, maybe you will never know the reason. Just know that even in the smallest detail, the universe has a carefully thought out plan…and it’s always for the best of reasons.

Thank you for reading and Namaste! (The Light in me recognized the Light in you!)