“Everything that happens is the best possible thing that can happen to me” – Zen and the Art of Happiness

I was stuck in a creative funk until I met with a friend of mine. My friend reminded me of the overarching part of myself that I’ve worked very hard to build.

There are times when I feel disappointed in myself and my mind begins to drift into daydreams of the ‘safer’ path. Lately, there’s been another part of my mind that’s been shutting down those thoughts with more ease each time. Sometimes my mind still isn’t enough, and life brings me help through other people, like this occurrence with my friend that reminded me to not give up on my dreams.

I recently sat with a good friend of mine for a couple hours. She continues to hold the label of the most inspiring person I’ve ever met. I feel lucky to spend time with her whenever I’m in her presence.

She has been the strongest, most deeply confident person I’ve ever known since we met in 6^th grade. I remember admiring her, and feeling as though she was years ahead of her time in maturity. She was unapologetically herself, and always fun to spend time with.

I have a tough time typing this, so I can’t imagine what it was to live it.

When my friend was in high school, her mother committed suicide and her life was forever changed.

She’s now 26, running her own business, and constantly overcoming goal after goal in her work as a hair stylist. I have so much respect for anyone, at ANY age, who chooses to start their own business, but what I think is even more admirable, is that she’s consistently overcoming goals in her spirituality as well.

She puts a strong focus on healing her spirit and mind, and the resulted energy is easily felt when you spend time with her. Every meeting with her leaves me feeling overcome with inspiration. Any space she’s in is a space you want to be in. I can’t wait until she picks a location for her salon, Le Papillon. She’s going to transform the space she finds and she will make it incredible, and then, you can go see it for yourself.

In my most recent meeting with her, after hours of deeply talking about life, she looked at me and said, “Sarah, I am at the point where I can honestly say that I’m happy for every single thing that has happened in my life, and I know that when you think about me saying that, it can be confusing, but I feel that I’m blessed because everything that happened has made me into who I am today.”

I’ve heard people say those words countless times, but this time it felt profoundly different.

I was immediately struck with emotion in every cell of my body. It was sadness, happiness, love and inspiration all in one. I wanted to tell her I was proud of her, but who was I to say those words? I was left speechless with tears in my eyes.

She spoke of how she spends significant time and effort meeting with different spiritual healers, who help her release her story while welcoming new narratives in her life. She said that what changed the course of her life, was noticing the three paths set before her:

1. She could live life as a victim, constantly telling her story and letting it overcome and define her, life would then continue to give her events that would overcome her and define her as a struggling victim.

2. She could teeter on the line of being the victim and moving on through perseverance, ignoring the deeper parts of herself that she would be too fearful to explore, eventually losing herself in a limbo of avoidance.

3. She could take control of her life. She could make the decision to work on the deep, dark parts of herself, constantly overcoming her demons, constantly growing stronger allowing her to step up to the next plateau of life, while enjoying and appreciating the blissful moments of being a conqueror in between her battles.

She made her decision and stuck to it.

When you walk into her place of work, you can feel it. There’s a unique energy that comes with someone pulling themselves out of the dirt and going after what they’re meant to do. What pulls the energy of her space together, is her. You can feel that she went through leaps and bounds to get to where she is mentally.

It leaves you feeling inspired AND beautiful (because she’s pretty much a magician when it comes to hair).

She left me feeling hopeful for those suffering through dark nights. She gave me the strength to continue to explore my soul on a deep level.

She showed me clarity, and in our short time, she managed to teach me a practice of how to remember what’s really important to me.

We’re all faced with these three options in our own ways. Some of us are lucky enough to not have a knife at our soul, forcing us to choose which path to go down at a young age like my friend did.

Life will repeatedly provide us with events that we deem as good, bad, or horrific because it’s always reminding us that we are meant to grow.

We must change as the seasons do, constantly losing our leaves so new ones have room to grow. We must welcome life as it happens, and we must learn our own unique way of flowing with it.

Later that evening (I kid you not) I opened up my book to the following excerpt, and I immediately sent it to my friend:

Page 177 of The Zahir, by Paulo Coehlo::

“Esther asks why people are sad.

“ ‘That’s simple,’ says the old man. ‘They are the prisoners of their personal history. Everyone believes that the main aim in life is to follow a plan. They never ask if that plan is theirs or if it was created by another person. They accumulate experiences, memories, things, other people’s ideas, and it is more than they can possibly cope with. And that is why they forget their dreams.”

The book goes on to explain that to no longer be a prisoner of your personal history, you must repeat your story over and over, until it is no longer important to you, but as you let your story go, you must fill yourself with a new world that you never dared to enter, full of new experiences and a new story that fills your soul with feelings of being alive.

∞

If you’re looking for a new hair magician, check out my friend’s page here (@_life.of.coco_) If you’re lucky, you’ll snag an appointment with her. She’s in the process of finding a new location for her salon. Send good vibes her way!