We Are All Connected

Several years ago I did a year-long energy mentorship with an integrative medicine doctor. To this day, I consider her to be one of my greatest teachers. Over the course of that year (and beyond), my teacher helped me to understand energy, intuition, and the power of the universe.

The first thing I, and the other handful of curious women in my class, needed to understand, is that we are all connected, every tiny molecule in the universe is connected. 

Believing in the oneness of the universe is a huge pill to swallow, a great leap of faith, but my teacher helped me to understand this concept by sharing how it is explained and understood in different traditions. She also broke it down for our class, giving us little exercises to see our own inter-connectedness.

The very first exercise we did was to look in our closets every morning and not think about what we would wear, but simply go for the first thing that we reached for. Then, later in the day we could notice if this made sense — did the weather change and we were grateful to have a sweater instead of a blouse? Did we have an unusually long walk and we were relieved to be wearing comfortable shoes?

One class we went to a nature preserve and walked in solitude until we found a plant that called to us. We were encouraged to spend time with that piece of nature and notice what we could learn from it. I found a tiny weed by a creek and sat with it for thirty minutes noticing every tiny detail of the plant that I would have otherwise passed by.

One year I went to India with my teacher and shared with one of my traveling companions about a lunchtime laughing class that they were offering at the trauma hospital in Seattle. I shared how I hoped to take that class upon my return. Later that afternoon, on the bulletin board of the ashram where we were staying, there was a flyer advertising a laughing class in the town we were in — 8000 miles away and 13.5 hours time difference. We laughed together, wide-eyed, at this unusual and magical connection.

There was a time in Mexico when I knew, on a visceral level, that even though the people transporting us seemed legitimate — they were wearing uniforms and made a “phone call” to our hotel to prove their identity — there was something off. I tried to convince my partner that we were being swindled but her counter arguments were strong and I, prone to anxiety, chalked my sixth sense up to being anxious instead of intuition. In the end, my inexplicable knowing that something was wrong was right. We got taken for a fake ride, losing over $300 in the process.

Over the last several years since that first energy mentorship class, I’ve learned countless ways to listen to my intuition. I believe wholeheartedly that we are all connected. This is my faith, the thing that I can tune into when I struggle to make a decision or choose a reaction in my life. I trust that I am not alone, that there is a greater force helping me.

My family likes to tease me about my belief system. Sometimes I’ll say, “I just know” or “I’ve got a feeling about this” and eyes will roll. But sometimes I’m right. When I sold my business just four months before COVID hit, it had been a long-time coming. I went back and forth on the decision. After almost twenty years it was hard to let it go. But in the end I lowered the price for the right buyer and said goodbye. That was the right decision.

I trust my gut on most things, especially big decisions, because I need the support of the universe. I don’t want to be alone in this world.

My greatest struggle of late has been the slow painful letting go of my eighteen-year-old daughter. In the past I had control over her. She still lives at home. She still checks in about her whereabouts. She’s still my daughter. But I am recognizing each day that the actual “control” I have is slipping away. And it should. My daughter’s job is to graduate into full independence. My job is to let her go.

Sometimes, oftentimes, I panic. I worry about my daughter. Is she safe? How can I protect her when she’s at a party and there’s alcohol, and she drinks, and a football player takes advantage of her? What if someone brings a gun to school? How can I protect her then? I can’t. 

Last night my daughter went out with two friends. I rarely see her these days. She’s out more than she’s in, filling her social coffers with the constant flow of friendship. I went to sleep around 10:00pm and woke around 11:00pm to the sound of her voice. “Mommmmmmmmy,” the voice cried from downstairs. The voice sounded unfamiliar, like a much younger child. 

I woke up and called back to the voice. “Lucia,” I yelled loudly down the stairs. There was no answer and the hall light was still on which meant she wasn’t home yet. “It must have been a dream,” I thought to myself. My heart beat fast as I walked down the stairs towards the basement to see if she was in her room. On the way, I looked out the front window and saw her car. There she was, sitting in the driver’s seat, having just pulled up. She was looking at her phone as she often does when she first parks.

When Lucia walked in I shouted down to her, “the craziest thing just happened….” and I shared how I’d awoken from a dream to her calling me and that she’d pulled up in her car at just that moment. I said, “See, we really are all connected.”

“Mom,” she said, “I’ve been sitting out there for like twenty minutes.” I let it go. I didn’t need to annoy her further. I went back to bed filled with a mixture of relief and gratitude. I closed my eyes and drifted back to sleep. We really are all connected.