Learning Through Disasters

Learning through disasters

During this week’s podcast, Dee and I are talking about our recent trials. Everyone’s trials are different, and if it feels like a disaster to you, than it is. No comparisons! When you find yourself crying in the back of an Uber (like Dee!), or crying on the steps of your home after almost burning it down, (like me!)- it qualifies as a disaster (or, if you’d like- a mini disaster.) 

My mini-disaster:

Many of you may know my own story at this point.  I’m currently going on 6 weeks without a kitchen. No cabinets, no counter space, just walls down to their studs. My kitchen is gone because I recently got into making candles using lavender, basil, soy wax, and essential oils- which I love- doing by the way, and, well, six weeks ago my hobby turned into a giant clusterf$*k. On this day, I wanted to make a few candles for an upcoming ladies’ retreat, but I was also multitasking and loading the RV to go camping for the weekend. Normally I start by putting the candle wax in the microwave. In a moment of brilliance, I put the soy wax on the stove, hoping to make two candles at a time instead of just one in the microwave. Of course you can see where this is going. After losing track of time (think: totally f’ing forgot), from inside my home office, I heard an alarm going off through the closed door. It took me a moment to even figure out what’s happening… I thought at first it had to be my neighbors! Once I opened the door and saw the smoke, it dawned on me that I left the oil on the stove. Entering the kitchen, I saw the pot of melted wax oil was literally on fire, and so was the microwave above it. I’ve never seen anything so crazy – the microwave was melting and dripping onto the stove below it. 

I ran through the smoke to reach the blazing pot. Grabbing the hose nozzle from the sink, I tried to spray the fire, but it didn’t reach. I dumped a cup of water on the pot, and I learned this lesson the hard way: do not put water on an oil fire. The flames flared up with the addition of the water engulfing the cabinets and ceiling, so I did the second most stupid thing: I tried to beat the fire out with a towel- so the towel caught fire. Next, I grabbed yet another towel and thought maybe I could move the pot outside, but I dropped the hot pot, so now the floor was on fire too. Finally I realized I needed to get out. While grabbing my dog and my phone, I remembered I have a fire extinguisher in my RV. I’d never used one before, but I finally got the pins and hoses out and used the up the entire extinguisher to finally put the fire out. In shock, I called my husband, and he called the fire department. 

Here were the very practical fire prevention lessons I learned. 

• Because of the chemicals in our paints and appliances, house fires burn much faster than they did decades ago. 
• Don’t leave oil unattended. Stay there! 
• Put a lid on any pot – even water. It’s less likely to catch fire because there’s less oxygen with a lid.
• Have a fire extinguisher in your home (they expire, so check the date!). I’ve been sending them out as early holiday gifts. Plus, learn how to use it! Ideally before there’s an emergency, because you really can’t think clearly in the middle of a crisis. 

Meeting with the fire department was super helpful, but it also triggered so much guilt, shame and embarrassment. They were pulled away from another emergency to address my stupid mistake. I was crying for days, honestly, working through the guilt and shame. I even felt guilty about getting money from the insurance company! But, as I’ve been processing, I’ve just been reminding myself that I’ve been paying insurance bills for years and there is a reason we have insurance policies!  There’s a reason why we pay the taxes we do: local, state, federal, etc. So when we need those resources, it’s okay to use them! That weird feeling in my stomach is passing. Now, instead of feeling shame welling up inside me when I think about it, I can say, “I made a mistake and we’re working through it.” For where I’m at today, I’m feeling good. 

And, I have to put it in perspective. For instance, my family of 5 is now using a mini-fridge and tiny microwave in our laundry room as our ‘kitchen’. But, my aunt reminded me: our laundry room is bigger than another family member’s kitchen in his New York City apartment.  Ultimately, it’s just stuff. It’s just a kitchen. We did have to lose our couches and mattresses- our “soft goods,” because the smoke and extinguisher damage extended through the whole downstairs, but the same day the insurance adjuster and cleaning company showed up. It was a disaster, but I have so much gratitude for the lessons learned, both practical and personal and my biggest treasures are safe- my loved ones. 

Dee’s mini-disaster: 

Let me start with the full backstory. I’d been sick for 8 weeks and it had been a nuisance: I felt congested, but otherwise I was coping. So I went to San Francisco for work, but my cold transformed into a horrible aggravation. I flew home, but when I landed, instead of being able to go straight to bed, I had to go to Whole Foods to get food for a yoga instructor potluck following our 12-hour training session for the following day (we all know I can’t cook, so I’d agreed to bring a salad).  Now, the next day, on my trek down several flights of stairs to the parking garage, I had my huge bags with yoga mats/blankets/blocks plus all the salad ingredients, and after getting to my car and turning the key to start my car engine, I got that sinking feeling. It wouldn’t start. Even though every ounce of me wanted to go back to climb in bed, I called an Uber and dragged myself (with all my huge bags) to class. 

Now normally, I’m almost 100% committed to spiritual enlightenment. I’m really invested: not only am I paying a lot of money to be part of the yoga teacher training, but it truly means a lot to me. Except this had been a really tough week for me, as well as for the rest of the yoga class. Just a few weeks earlier, a classmate of ours died suddenly at a young age, which shocked our whole group. We started the training that day by sharing thoughts and prayers for her. The head yoga instructor spoke with such clarity and trust in the meaning of life, for our classmate and for life in general. On another note, we have a message board like Facebook where an outsider to the group was posting disturbing messages that led some people to wonder if that individual was going to hurt themselves or come to the group to hurt others. So we addressed that issue too, and once again the head instructor spoke with such clarity that I was transported from the terrible week I was having. 

The rest of the day was exhausting. After 12 hours of odd yoga exercises in public (imagine weird hazing-style activities from sorority pledging) and sitting on the floor for hours listening to a lecture, I crawled into the back of an Uber and ugly cried.  Pulling myself together after this meltdown, I called AAA to help with my car battery. When Monday morning arrived, I drove to the post office to deliver two packages that had been in my trunk since before my trip to San Francisco. When I got to the post office, I couldn’t find the packages in my trunk. Putting the pieces together, I realized the reason for the dead battery and my missing packages: someone broke into my car, stole the packages, realized there was nothing else to take, and likely left a light on. So then, like Shannon, I was calling the police department and feeling a combination of guilt and embarrassment. I felt bad for wasting the officers’ time on my Nordstrom’s return packages. But still, I decided I should submit a report since the packages contained my personal information. 

I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of RTT. It stands for Rapid Transformation Therapy. One thing I’ve been learning in RTT is that I have a big control issue. When I mention this to other people, they’re like, “Yeah, duh!” But I’m the fish in my own water – I’m so used to my control issues that I don’t notice it. So finally, on Tuesday during meditation, I started to reflect on the crazy events of the past week. On one hand, the circumstances forced me to push through my control issues. Because these situations were so far out out of my control, I just had to accept that it was out of my hands. I couldn’t control the car battery. I couldn’t get the packages back. And I couldn’t wave a magic wand and fix my cold. I could have just climbed back into bed, but I didn’t. Like Shannon always says, sometimes our superpower is just showing up. 

The takeaway: 

This expression doesn’t do it justice, and it doesn’t capture the beauty and complexity of Dee’s yoga teacher’s message, but “everything happens for a reason.” A Marian Williams podcast summed it up so beautifully. She said (more eloquently than this), “We don’t need to keep searching for a purpose to fulfill. In each moment, our purpose is to be present.”  If that looks like crying in an Uber, that’s okay! 

In other words, whatever is supposed to happen, will happen. Ideally we glean a lesson, or even find a blessing, from a hardship. Eventually we can laugh about it even. Whatever it looks like, there’s always a light and a lesson to be found in every challenge, tragedy, disaster, and trauma.

Listen to the whole show here: