The universe is constantly in communication with us.

This is a message that all of my teachers—be they yoga instructors, Reiki healers, breathwork facilitators, or psychics—seem to convey. That the world around us is trying to tell us something and that it’s up to us to choose whether to listen for the messages its trying to tell us.

Or not.

I think many of us could agree that we’d like some outside assistance in our lives. Have you ever gone to a healer or seer, someone who seems to have special clairvoyant gifts that is able to foresee the future or steer us in the direction of happiness and success?

We want to be told that everything is going to be okay, that everything is going to work out, that one day we will receive whatever prize or promotion we are striving for.

The truth is, we all possess this special gift, it’s just a matter of being open to and understanding the signs.

I took a psychic intuitive course a few months ago to help me hone in on such abilities, and one of the key points that my teacher made was to learn to not only trust our gut (and the feelings that come when we realize a relationship is over, that it’s time to move to a new city or state despite not knowing anyone there nor having much savings, that a friend is having a rougher time than is letting on, etc.) but to trust in the signs that occur around us.

How many times have you experienced “weird” coincidences?

Street lamps going out when you walk under them, noticing a specific type of candy or blue lighters on the ground on a regular basis, thinking you should call so-and-so and then receiving a call from that same person later that day or week?

It’s the universe letting you know that you are, in fact, in sync with it—that you have all the answers, tools and guides at your disposal.

A great example is a story one woman shared in that psychic intuitive course.

She had planned to go away on a weekend trip and everything seemed to be working against her, trying to keep her home. Bad weather, the friends she was going to visit were sick, the flight was even cancelled but she was able to find a seat on another flight that would get her there that day.

On her way to the airport, she was sitting in traffic that threatened to keep her from missing her plane, so she asked for a sign (as if the others weren’t enough) to help her decide what she should do. At that moment, a bus cut in front of her, a sticker on its backside read: “Stay home, you’ve got better things to do.”

Sometimes the signs can be as obvious as the sticker on the back of that bus, sometimes the signs can be more subtle.

For instance, I recently was on my way to teach a yoga class when I got stuck in traffic on the parkway. There had been an accident in the lane I was in, and there was a flat-bed truck on the scene to hoist the cars up and take them away so that the moving cars could continue on by. The cars in front of me merged as they approached the truck, and finally it was my turn. As I began to make my way into the neighboring lane, the truck, too, seemed to be on its way just as I was trying to make my way around it.

Had it been any other day, I might have thought to myself, “Of course, it takes off as soon as I try to get around it.” Perhaps you would think this to yourself as well. But this same exact thing happened to me a few days prior—another road, another accident, the truck taking the broken-down car away just as I was trying to pass it.

For this second incident, I was frustrated for about a second, when I remembered that I had had a conversation with the universe earlier that morning.

Taking a nice leisurely walk outside, I called out to the universe: “Okay, universe! I am ready to receive whatever messages you have to give me. I am listening!”

No, really, I actually said this. Like, out loud.

(Side note: It helped that I read Pam Grout’s E-Squared: Nine Do-It-Yourself Experiments that Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality. The first exercise has you call out to the universe or higher spirit to have it make itself known to you.)

So as I thought about how weird that this same incident happened to me twice in one week, I tried to decipher what the message could be.

My answer?

That obstacles are being cleared from my path, that things are going to get a little easier.

A great message to receive considering my boyfriend and I recently split, the apartment I was really excited about and had put down a deposit on fell through, and was stiffed on a recent freelance gig that should have brought me a sizable check that I had been counting on since cutting back on my office work—to try to make more time to focus on teaching yoga and giving Reiki sessions to clients.

The message hit home even further when two days later, after joining an online dating service at the suggestion of a friend—to help distract me from the end of my recent relationship, I found my ex on the site.

My ex who spent so much time on his job helping others in need that he barely had any time for himself, much less for me.

Who, according to his profile, had last been active three hours prior to my discovery of him on the site.

It hurt to see him there.

A lot.

He had no time to coddle our existing relationship, yet apparently is willing to put in the time to meet someone new. I felt even more rejected, devastated even.

Then I remembered those accidents, those trucks that had left my path just as I was trying to get around them, and I realized that my ex is/was one of those obstacles keeping me from being happy, from being my highest self.

When we broke up, my ex told me that I deserved better.

In fact, many of my friends echoed this statement as well.

Because I was dating someone who is completely dedicated to helping others less fortunate, I had found that hard to believe. I was convinced he had a heart of gold, how was I going to find anyone better?

But after finding him on that site, actively looking for someone else, I realized that his heart doesn’t have room for me, or anyone in a long term-commitment kind of way and that I do deserve better.

I deserve someone who cares enough about me to make time for me to be in their life, a message that my friends also told me but I was too stubborn to accept. I would never have come to the same conclusion on my own had I not been open to listening to the messages the universe had for me.

Maybe in searching for some answers, in trying to understand what your next step should be, the universe won’t come in the form of a flat-bed truck, won’t bring you to a dating site that will have you come face-to-face with your ex. But I guarantee that if you consciously make a vow to listen and be open to receive messages from the world around you to help you on your journey, you will find all the answers you need in order to move forward in your life.

 

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Apprentice Editor: Lauryn DeGrado/Editor: Travis May

Photo: Hartwig HKD/Flickr