Lesson Learned

Yesterday was Hansel’s birthday and to celebrate we packed up the car and headed out on a mini-roadtrip–destination: Prescott, Arizona.  A place not too far from Phoenix, but certainly considerably cooler than the inferno temperatures happening here!  When we got there we had something to eat in the cute little town, skipped past the popcorn store (which is one of my favorites), and ended our trip with a hike to watch the sunset over Watson Lake.

Now..we’re not your typical hikers.  When we hike Hansel has like a million pounds of camera supplies strapped to each shoulder and I’ve got my journal and this time I opted for my video camera instead of my paints and art supplies.  Thought I’d “keep things light”–so that’s why I decided to leave the tri-pod back in the car as well.

Eventually inspiration hit me big time and I needed the tri-pod and asked Hansel if I could use his.  Being that inspiration seemed to have hit him pretty dang hard at the same exact time he wasn’t very keen on lending it to me at that moment as well.

Ok.  So we had a tiff.  And I went storming off walking waaaaaaaaaaaay back to the car to go retrieve my own tri-pod.  (I mean, he was the birthday-boy, what could I do?!?)

Photo of me at my favorite spot on the trail–taken a few years ago by Hansel.

About half way back to the car I came to one of my favorite spots on the trail– a tiny little area with a bench that sits underneath a thick canopy of tree tops.  And it hit me.  I just spent a good 15 minutes or so walking–obsessing over the whole tiff.  Actually, I was still participating in the tiff in my mind–even though Hansel wasn’t there.  I was still arguing and protesting an obviously lost battle and I just missed, which I’m sure, might have been a very peaceful, renewing, pretty hike back to the car in it’s own right.

My Yoga Teacher Training teacher Eric always says softly to us “how are you using this opportunity” when we are silently meditating before starting class.  That question is one I try to ask myself a lot.

Under the canopy of trees it hit me–Connie, how are you using this opportunity?

So I excused myself from the tiff still going on in my mind and sat down on the bench instead and pulled out my journal.  I began to write:

Connie, how are you using this opportunity?

Photo by Hansel.

Now here’s the funny part.

Today was suppose to be the first day of Total Alignment–a video series I have been planning on launching every Friday.  I made this great introduction video for the first week–that even included me painting–and yesterday before we went on our trip I kept trying to upload it to Vimeo and it kept failing.

I tried everything.  I even changed a few things in the video with the filters and such and tried processing all over again–and still-wouldn’t upload.

I took a random video I had stored that had nothing to do with Total Alignment and tried to upload it–and it worked.  Huh?

So, eventually I decided to go celebrate Hansel’s birthday and come back to it in the evening when we return home. (Still same problem.)

Ok–the real funny part is that the video was all about “staying in the flow” and how “we” (more like “I”) throw debris and obstacles in our own way of staying in the flow by what we choose to focus on.

Dontcha love how the Universe likes to play jokes with us?!?

So once again I would like to blame technical difficulties as my reason why something I said would launch today isn’t—but actually, I think the Universe is trying to show me that before I go off trying to teach something to others–I better get a good handle on it myself!!!