Sometimes I feel like
a bit of a hypocrite when I’m doing angel card readings. So often I relay angel
messages to clients about having faith that everything will work out, and
trusting in the Universe’s plan. Then I finish the reading, go home or log out
of Skype, and fall to pieces because cashflow is slow or a guy I like hasn’t
texted me back. Really, I could do with taking on the guidance I’m dispensing
myself – there are often messages in there for me too. As a very wise friend
once told me, we are here to teach what we need to learn.
Keeping the faith is
a recurring theme in my readings and, consequently, in this blog. In fact it
was the subject of the very first post I wrote on this blog, in November 2014.
It’s an ongoing struggle.
Every day we are
asked to believe in things which we cannot see or that are not guaranteed – weather
predictions, job security, recovery from debilitating illness and relationship
longevity, to name a few. Sometimes we do this easily, other times our desire
for control and our obsession with timeframes get in the way.
My love life is where
this shows up most for me. I have been told again and again and again in my own
readings that I will not be single forever. I have been sent signs, been
delivered messages in dreams and even had a message from a deceased relative
(via a spirit medium) all reassuring me that I will meet someone wonderful, and
I will know him when I meet him. This should be all the reassurance I need. But
I lose faith all the time. I look at all the beautiful, outgoing women in
Sydney and I think, well, since I can’t compete with that, what else can I
offer that would be attractive to men? And with no answers springing to mind, my
descent in a negative thought spiral begins.
On Saturday night
when I was leaving the Taylor Swift concert, I was feeling miserable because I’d
seen a selfie in which I looked really old and haggard, and I felt that no-one
would ever want to date me at this late age and stage. For the past few months I had been feeling, for the first time in recent years, really fine with being single and quite relaxed to let things play out as they are supposed to. This storm of doubt had come out of nowhere. Then I got a
ridiculously obvious sign that I needed to snap out of it: I was jabbed in the
shoulder with some angel wings. Literally, not metaphorically. As I was walking
among the bustling crowd heading to the train station, a girl in an angel
costume (dressing up is not unusual at a Swifty concert) bumped into me, the
sharp corner of her wing pressing into my shoulder. It would be difficult to
overlook the symbolism. In fact I would have laughed out loud if I hadn’t been
feeling so sorry for myself. I probably should have laughed out loud. The
Universe has a sense of humour, after all, and I definitely deserved a prod for
being so self-pitying. And I could certainly do with lightening the fuck up.
What the Universe was
saying to me was exactly what the band Journey expressed lyrically in the 80s:
don’t stop believin’ (hold on to that feelin’…). We live in a cynical world,
and of course we have no proof of anything much, so it’s only natural that our
faith will falter from time to time. The challenge is to keep rising back to
that place where you believe in your dreams and in your luminous, tantalising
future again. Nothing is a given – that’s why they call it faith instead of
certainty. But believe we must. Without faith, without hope, the world is a
very bleak place.
I know that my
present situation is not my future. I have no evidence of this but I believe it
anyway. I know I will doubt it again and again, but I also believe I have the
resilience to return to all the things I believe in: transformation and beauty
and human kindness and miracles. And now I know that if I don’t, the Universe
will find a way to jab me in the shoulder and remind me.
PS I thought I should
expand this story by adding what happened the next day. I was prompted to draw
a card for myself from the Romance With The Angels deck. This is what I got:
See what I mean about
that sense of humour?