It’s All Divine (Even When It Really Doesn’t Feel Like It)

Years ago someone gave me a piece of advice that has never once let me down. They said, “always look for the gift in every situation.” I didn’t fully understand it at the time. I do now, because I’ve had a lot of practice.

Peru is my spiritual home. It has been for 30 years, and in that time I have tried to get back more than once, only to have the trip fall through, again and again. This time I was going for two reasons. One was personal, to reconnect with a place that lives in my body as much as my memory. The other was practical, to recce a trip so I could bring a group there next year.

Then my friend who lives there, told me what was happening in Ollantaytambo, my favourite base for group trips there. They’re building a bypass, a drivable road up to Aguas Calientes, the town at the foot of Machu Picchu. Right now that means sitting in standstill traffic for at least thirty minutes just to get in. And once that road is finished, the whole way people arrive at Machu Picchu will be different to how it’s been. So even if I went now, I’d be scouting a route that’s about to disappear, or change considerably.

I was bummed. And I was grateful. Grateful I had someone there to tell me before I wasted the trip finding out the hard way.

I sat with it for a day. I found myself asking the question I always come back to: why has my flow to Peru been interrupted every single time I’ve tried to go, for ten years straight? And underneath it I found something I wasn’t expecting. Fear. Not fear of Peru, but fear of Peru changing. I’ve already watched Machu Picchu become policed, limited, managed. I didn’t want to face the rest of that shift too. I wanted it to stay ancient. Pure. Untouched by the modern world I know is coming for it whether I watch or not.

Later, tapping into it and even muscle testing to check, I found the truth underneath the fear. I was relieved.

My dad is turning 91. He’s healthy, fit, sharp, genuinely making the most of his life. And I feel a real pull to spend as much time with him as I can while he’s still here, fully here, in this reality. I feel the same pull towards my people in the States, the life friends I don’t see enough. So the trip not happening wasn’t a loss. It was space opening up for something I actually needed more.

It’s all Divine. Even when it doesn’t feel like it. Even when, once again, my carefully researched plans are not being honoured by the universe.

I look back over my life and the pattern holds. My extremely well researched plan to move to Portugal was scuppered at the very last possible moment by the pandemic. At the time it felt like the floor dropping out. In hindsight, it was one of the truest gifts I’ve ever received, for reasons I could write a whole other post on.

So here’s what I’d offer you. If you miss a flight, miss a train, if a plan you’d set your heart on falls apart in a way you had no control over, get over the stress as fast as you can and ask a better question. What’s the higher reason here? Who might I meet because of this delay? What might I actually be avoiding by keeping myself so busy chasing the original plan?

This philosophy, that it’s all Divine, is what lets me move through upset and frustration so much faster than I used to. It doesn’t remove the feeling. It gives the feeling somewhere to go.

One of my own patterns is packing too much into too small a window. I am travelling south for an upcoming funeral and found myself trying to also fit in seeing friends, going dancing, cramming the trip full. None of it flowed. That was my first sign. When something isn’t flowing, pay attention to it. I did, and I saw the pattern for what it was. I got over myself and stripped the trip back to the one true reason I was going.

A funeral isn’t a happy occasion, but it is someone I absolutely needed to pay my respects to, and the universe was telling me loud and clear to simply be there. Present. No other plans, no other people, no fragmenting myself across a dozen small reunions. Just presence.

Being aligned within yourself is being present for yourself. And when you’re present for yourself, you can actually be present for others. Divinely.

Divinity, for me, was never about a dogmatic or religious God. It’s the first love light vibration. Pure white love light. Flow. Truth. Light. I do my best to live inside that principle while still feeling every single one of my feelings and emotions fully, so I can be my most Divinely Human self, not a spiritually bypassed version of one.

So I’ll leave you with the question I keep asking myself. What’s the gift you need to find in your most challenging situation right now?

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