.
Three nights in a row I had really bad dreams and a mild headache that lingered for a few days. Not normal for me at all. On the third night, I woke up in the middle of the night and I prayed, asking for answers and wondering what I could do to change things. Immediately a vision came to me of jumping in the lake. I couldn’t get it out of my head. Energetically, I felt stuck somehow. Hard to put into words what I was feeling. Like something was clinging to me that I needed to let go of. A fog of sorts. It felt deeper than just some unpleasant dreams and a bit of a headache. It felt like I needed to shake things off in a major way. I needed to let go of things that were no longer serving me, or things that never had in the first place. Old patterns, old behaviors. I needed to stop looking at myself through the eyes of others and judging myself based on their perspectives of me. I needed to stop doubting myself and the direction my spirit has been leading me. I needed to clear my energy. I needed a transformation.
That morning I got up and set to work. I washed our bedding. Whenever I have a bad dream, one of the first things I do is wash the bedding. (Don’t know why I didn’t do that the first two nights.) My spirit kept urging me: go to the lake. My brain kept arguing: there’s too much to be done around here, no way there’s time for that. Finally I said something to Jeff along the lines of: “I need to swim in the lake, I can’t get it out of my head, but I keep dismissing the idea because there’s so much to do today and I don’t feel like we have time for it.” Jeff was buried in work that day. We both had so much before us, so much to do that day, that the idea seemed a bit crazy. But he said he’d get some work tied up, we’d go, and then we’d work extra hard to get caught up in the afternoon. I love how supportive he is, time and time again, when I get a feeling about something. We both encourage each other to to listen to that more. We sprang into action. He headed out to his shop to finish as much as he could. I got all our online orders packaged up to mail out on the way, sheets hung to dry, swimming gear gathered. We set off. Our brains said: Isn’t there somewhere closer you could swim so it won’t take as long? But my spirit kept gently, yet firmly urging: go to the lake. And that’s what Jeff felt too, so we went to the lake. There was a forest filled with huckleberries and we ate them as we walked. We had a swimming spot all to ourselves. I dove in and it felt incredible. The water was cold, but not as cold as I had been preparing myself for. Jeff is not much of a water person, he didn’t know if he was going to swim at all. He ended up swimming and loving it. We all did. We swam and swam. Jeff was pain-free in the water, getting some relief from his almost constant sciatic pain these days. Bracken didn’t want to leave and I could hardly get him out of the water when we finally decided it was time to go. He said to us “more next time!”
It felt like a really magical day for us. On the way home Jeff wanted to stop by Habitat for Humanity to pick something up quickly. Bracken and I were going to wait in the car while he ran in, but then Bracken said he didn’t want to be in the car. We sat on the curb in the sunshine until Jeff popped his head out of the door of the store and said something like “come see this.” He showed us something he’d found that would work great for what he was needing. Bracken and I wandered around the store a bit and came across a wooden seat. I immediately felt drawn to it. It was so sweet and I loved it. I sat Bracken down in it and he fit perfectly. He sat in it with a big smile on his face. Someone who worked there asked if I was going to buy it. I said it wasn’t in the budget that day, but maybe if it was there the next time we came it would be meant to be. He said “you better get it before he grows out of it.” There was a line at the cash register and we walked around a bit more. Then we went up to pay. The kind woman working the cash register (who always has fun with Bracken when he comes in) said to us: “I just want to let you know that the woman in line in front of you paid for that chair for your son.” We were so shocked we didn’t even know what to say. We’d never had anything like that happen before. With tears in my eyes I asked where she was so I could thank her. The lady at the cash register told me she wanted to be anonymous. She wasn’t in the store anymore. But I walked to the door of the store and she was backing her car out. I looked in her eyes, holding them for a moment, and mouthed the words: “Thank you.” She smiled back at me and drove away. We were all so touched by the experience. Even the woman working there was tearing up. Truly. It’s the kind of thing that makes you feel like the world is such a beautiful place. The thing is, I didn’t have any interaction with the woman who bought us the seat while we were in the store. I didn’t know she even saw us sitting in the seat or was paying any attention to what we were saying. But she quietly watched and decided to do something kind for a family she had never met. As we drove home, I said to Jeff that we would pay it forward the next time an opportunity presented itself. He said yes, we definitely would. If you’re reading this: do something kind for someone today, it could make their whole day. Pay it forward. Every little act of kindness makes the world a better place.
I can’t even begin to say how renewed I felt from swimming in the lake. I felt cleared out, like a whole new person. Headache gone. A new clarity and peace settled in. I came home with much more energy to tackle the things before me. That night I snuggled into the clean sheets completely exhausted and slept deeply. No bad dream. And the next night I took some big steps in a reoccurring dream of sorts that I’ve been having for years. Progress. Moving forward. Sometimes when I’m feeling off, I need some time outside, time in the garden. Sometimes I need a heart to heart with someone I love. Sometimes I need to slow down and take a break. Or cover myself in clay. Sometimes I need time to write. Or to create. Or jump in a lake. The things I need to renew my spirit don’t always make sense to my brain or even come at convenient times. But I’ll tell you what, the cold lake cure certainly worked it’s magic this week. And that unexpected gift really filled my heart.
Leave a Reply