On Friday I went to the Healing Touch centre in Worcester, where I sometimes deliver Lightning Process seminars. This time I went for a First Aid course. It was booked for January, and that was the day it snowed. I got half way to the station in a taxi and realised we'd never make it. The taxi driver didn't want to risk the steep hill to my house, so I asked him to drop me at the bottom of the park and I walked a mile or so through the soft, clean snow, loving the way it was clinging to the trees.
No snow Friday, so I cycled the half hour to the station, including another of Bristol's unbelievably steep hills, nearly got myself killed by a car - but that's another story - and arrived in time to put my bike on the Worcester train for the hour and a half journey. It was raining when I got off, but an easy cycle downhill (yes!) brought me to Healing Touch. As soon as I opened the door I realised something hadn't gone according to plan. The other practitioners, who are all local to Worcester, looked at me, worried at how I might take the news, and announced that the trainer had just cancelled due to illness.
How do you deal with changes and challenges in your day?
Of course it's tempting to huff and puff and complain and regret and be angry in these situations. I could have stomped and cried and shouted at the unfairness of it all, the waste of a whole working day, the train fare.......and so on.
But one of the most useful things I've learned from my Lightning Process training is to consider the serenity prayer in these situations (although I'm not religious and this is my own version of the wording):
Lord give me the courage to change what I can change
Give me the serenity to accept what I can't change
And the wisdom to know the difference
There was nothing I could do about the training not happening and the loss of a working day and it wasn't anyone's fault , so I had to remember to accept what I couldn't change, to get on with enjoying my day anyway. So, I had a good chat with the other practitioners, reminding them to send me any clients who seemed particularly stuck with any chronic illness, helped myself to a large piece of coffee cake in the local cafe, and cycled back up the hill and on to a train after a couple of hours wait.
