Welcome to Day 5:

The late Ram Dass said, 

“I invite you, when you are caught in your stuff and your heart is closed, to reach out to find someone else who is suffering…to be there with them for a moment. 

“For those of you who have gotten caught in individualism and separation…the act of serving another human being is a doorway back to your connection to the universe. 

“Their real need pulls you out of yourself.”

That’s a strong definition of grace: to open yourself in moments when you are closing. 

Those moments happen many times each day.

If you’re gonna trust anything, consider grace.

Click the play button at the very top...

...to Listen to Day 5.

Enjoy,
David Romanelli


-Transcript of Day 5-

today, let's talk about trusting your challenges and obstacles. 

What if the things you come up against are actually charting your course, giving you direction, propulsion meaning? And yet a lot of us come up against obstacles and challenges. And we get frustrated. They piss us off. 

Today, I woke up, put my bag in my trunk to go to morning yoga. My bag got snagged in the lock and I could not open the trunk to my Subaru. It was totally jammed. So I'm just really frustrated. That means I have to take my car into the Subaru dealership. Who has time to do that? Those guys, they try to charge you for anything they can. It's going to be two hours out of my day.

What a terrible way to start the day. That was my initial thought process, but that's just one way to see it. 

Maybe for some reason, I'm supposed to go to the Subaru dealership to avoid being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Who knows? How many times have I put something in the trunk and how many times did the lock get snagged? This is the only time. Maybe it happened for a reason. 

Now, a lot of you listening to this, you're very successful. You place a huge emphasis on efficiency. when something does not work out the way you planned, I'm guessing you also get frustrated. You don't have time for things to not work out. And that efficiency, it might lead to greater success now, but I got to tell you, I do a lot of work with older people in their eighties and nineties and one hundreds and I've met a lot of elders who are very successful in their careers.

Efficiency was their mantra, but things did not work out as they planned in their older age, and they were really frustrated. Bitter. 

As you get older, things get challenging. Your body starts to shut down people, people you love, pass away. Efficiency is not important anymore. It's about softening and opening and appreciating.

Michael singer wrote the book, "the surrender experiment," and in that book he has a great quote:

"The highest state you have ever experienced is simply a result of how open you were. If you don't close, it can be like that all the time. 

"To achieve this state, allow the experience of life to pass through. You learn to be centered enough to watch stuff come up. Once you sit deeply enough inside to watch, your reward is a permanently open heart."

How do you come to your challenges and obstacles? Can you sit deeply enough inside to watch and not react? so that you can develop a sense of trust that maybe this happened for a reason, or maybe it just happened... 

Either way...

What kind of choices are you making in those moments of great challenge? 

So here's another way to see this. 

Just for you to exist, you were the result of one sperm out of 600 million sperms racing toward your mother's egg. You were the one sperm that made it. What are those odds? The odds of winning the Powerball are far better: 1 in 300 million. 

The idea that you are here is amazing. 

At a certain point, are you going to trust the experience of life as a gift and a blessing, or is it just one big fraeaking headache?

In those moments where life is not working... your relationship, your business meeting, your PowerPoint presentation, your trunk not opening...those are the moments we're meditating for. Those are the moments to activate trust.

But even more powerful than trust...Those are the moments to activate grace. 

Anne Lamott writes, "Grace means you are in a different universe from where you had been stuck, when you had absolutely no way to get there on your own."

Grace is a shift in your energy...a sudden recollection that you are the one out of 600 million instead of the odds being stacked against you and feeling like 600 million to one. 

Grace is that college basketball player, Kyle Guy. He played for the university of Virginia in last year's final four. He stepped to the free throw line with no time left on the clock. If he makes the free throw, he sends it in over time. If he misses the free throw, his team loses. Millions of people are watching on TV. 60,000 people are watching in the stadium.

How nervous must Kyle Guy have been to shoot this one free throw. And he said, when he stepped up to the free throw line, he leaned on the words of Nelson Mandela: "I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it." 

Grace is knowing that you have weaknesses and strengths and you're making the choice to stand in your strength.

Question for you. What is the headache or challenge that you're facing today?

With that in mind, can you call on grace? Can you call on the most elegant, peaceful, beautiful part of your nature, the part of you who sits deeply enough inside to watch and not react?

Take a moment to get a little more comfortable spread out. Take a deep breath if you can close your eyes.

Let's come to today's centering thought. It's from the book, "A course in miracles:"

By grace I live. By grace I am released by grace. 

By grace I live. by grace, I am released. 

"The highest state you have ever experienced is simply a result of how open you were."

By grace I live by grace. I am released. For a few minutes.

I will leave you to relax, to breathe, to meditate. When your attention wanders, come back to those words to center yourself in the moment. 

By grace I live, by grace I am released. by grace I live, By grace, I am released.

-Meditation begins-

-Meditation ends-

coming back to the moment.

To trust your obstacles and challenges, whether it's something silly like your trunk not opening or something different, like a health challenge or a relationship on the brink or whatever you're facing. 

Getting frustrated is always an option. But that makes it feel like the odds are stacked against you 600 million to one.

The truth is you are the one in 600 million.

Are you going to trust the experience of life as a gift, as a blessing, or is it just one big fricking headache? 

The practice in those moments of challenge and frustration. Activate grace, the most elegant, beautiful, peaceful part of your nature. 

By grace, I live by grace. By grace, I am released. 

"The highest state you have ever experienced is simply a result of how open you were."

By grace, I live by grace. I am released. 

See you tomorrow. Peace.