My Random Encounter With A Stranger.
I have heard about times when people have been in need and they have been approached by a random stranger who has done something incredibly kind or profound for them. That this person appeared apparently from nowhere, and disappeared as quickly never to be seen again. I do believe this happens, it had just never happened to me and I wasn’t sure it ever would. Until I was that person in need.
When you are in a very difficult financial position, many luxuries disappear including having your hair done. I used to have my hair coloured every 4-6 weeks, have it trimmed and styled and it was my 2 hours of me-time, the time during the day I would read purely for pleasure. But when I was made redundant and struggled to find new employment, that luxury was stopped. I even cut my own fringe (bangs), which frankly was an utter disaster but needs must and all that. It was the colour I missed the most, though. I had used a root spray, but I desperately wanted my roots done. So, when I did get some money I took the decision that I was going to treat myself and have my hair done, and I booked the appointment. In order to get it within a couple of weeks, I had to book a mid-week appointment as they are so busy and a weekend appointment would have been a couple of months away something I wasn’t prepared to wait for.
Another thing that goes is extras such as a second car. We didn’t have the money for the tax and insurance, it was coming time in the near future for new – and expensive – tyres, so we had to offload the second car. Which meant as I wasn’t working, I didn’t have a car anymore for the first time since my 30s (I’d been either a student or living in London and hadn’t needed one before). We live in the countryside, with no shops in our village only in the next village which is about 2 or 3 miles away. Walking there isn’t a problem for me, I used to run to the village and back three times a week, and I’ve walked to the shops before. The hairdressers is in the next village and walking there wasn’t a problem for me. Except. A couple of weeks before the appointment, I had a chest infection which laid me low. I felt terrible at the time, but started to recover and by the time the day of the appointment dawned, I felt I was capable of making the walk.
It was in November, so it was chilly but I wrapped up warm and I had a take away mug of coffee in my hands. I was fine, I was set. About 7 minutes into the walk, I realised I wasn’t fine at all. My chest was burning and I felt I couldn’t breath, and I hadn’t even got to the steep inclines yet. I also didn’t have the levels of energy I thought I had after the infection, and I was struggling. As I walked, I prayed that someone I knew would happen to drive past and give me a lift to the hairdressers, while telling myself that likely wouldn’t happen and I just needed to make it. I slowed my steps, and kept going giving myself positive pep talks when I had to stop to breath properly. There are no pavements on the roads where I live, because it’s the countryside so I was glad when cars came along and I had to step to the side and stop, just so I could catch my breath.
Then a car stopped and a woman I didn’t know wound down her window. She was middle-aged, probably slightly older than me, and she had the most beautiful smile. She asked me if I was okay and if I wanted a lift to the village. I almost wept with gratitude, I honestly felt so terrible by then. I accepted the offer and spent the next 10 minutes of the journey thanking her profusely and explaining why I was so terribly unfit. She was kindness personified and explained she was driving into our local town when she had seen me and realised I wasn’t a hiker because of my handbag. She’d thought I looked as though I needed a lift hence why she had stopped. It was literally my prayers answered, and as I walked into the hairdressers 20 minutes early for my appointment, I was wreathed in smiles at the kindness a stranger had shown me. And then it hit me – was this one of those angel stories I’d heard about?
I have never seen the lady from that day to this, never once in the village or on the road. And I have looked out for her because I want to thank her for what she did for me that day. She will never know otherwise how she helped me feel a new woman, how she stopped me probably making myself ill again, and just how that demonstration of kindness made me feel as though there was still some love in the world when I was feeling particularly embattled by life. She did, though, apparently appear out of nowhere and disappeared again just as quickly and, as I say, I have never seen her since.
What that experience did also do for me was make me wonder about the power of prayer or intent or wish or whatever you want to call it. I didn’t pray to God as in the Christian interpretation, I prayed to the divine that is present everywhere. I prayed to the universe. I was basically trying to manifest an instant miracle, and because I know enough people in the area who drive around a lot, there was a possibility it could happen. And it happened albeit with a complete stranger offering me the lift. Making the instant miracle more miraculous because had it been a strange man, I would have refused the offer. I might not even have taken up the offer from a young woman. But given she was an older woman with the most beatific smile on her face, I felt comfortable saying yes. Absolutely everything was lined up for me in the most perfect way to allow me to say yes to the offer. So, I have become more sure that we can manifest, that miracles and magic do exist in the world if we just open ourselves up to it. That in our hour of need, there are angels who come in to help us if we allow it. I was so desperate, I was prepared to allow it to happen because I honestly did not see how I could make that walk in the condition I was in. I had seriously underestimated my recovery, assuming it had been complete but not factoring in the impact of cold air on my still not 100% chest. And I hadn’t even considered that I might be weak from it still. All I was focused upon was getting my hair done and feeling like me again.
This has reminded me that I woke up yesterday morning (and this morning) with Lady Gaga’s ‘Abracadabra’ song playing over and over in my head. I haven’t heard it in over a week so it isn’t that I’ve listened to it recently. And when I had heard it, I knew it had some significance because of the word ‘Abracadabra’. I always thought it was a word used by magicians and was, basically, something made up. It turns out, it isn’t. It is an ancient word, and while this is disputed by some academics, it may stem from an Aramaic or Hebrew word which essentially means ‘I create as I speak’. What is known is that in ancient times, it was used to ward off evil spirits and to help people recover from illness. For Lady Gaga, the song is about facing up to the challenges of life, the challenges of the night and facing the magic of it all. Hence Abracadabra. She has said that the song is about your internal dialogue, the challenge that can bring to you and how the world can reflect that challenge back to you. ‘I create as I speak’. Spirit has a very funny way at times of bringing to you the things you need to focus your attention on!
It is also linked to being true to yourself, as Lady Gaga says in her lyrics. ‘I create as I speak’ is also best served by being true to yourself. To create what you really want, you have to know what you really want. And to know what you really want is to know yourself. And therefore, to be true to yourself. We do speak our world into existence, we create our own experience through our internal dialogue constantly. I had an internal dialogue that November day about truly wanting to be ‘rescued’ from the walk, and I spoke an experience into existence in that way. It takes knowing ourselves, knowing what that internal dialogue is to explain to us, to understand, what existence we are speaking ourselves into. It isn’t enough to just speak our intentions out loud, we have to back that intention up with the rest of our thoughts and words – like the As If principle in manifesting, really. If we set the intention of, say, getting a particular job, but the rest of our internal dialogue talks against that then we aren’t going to speak that existence into reality. We are going to reach an impasse because we aren’t going to see all the ways in which opportunities are coming.
I have spent a long time wanting to focus on my writing, but I am nervous because in doing so two years ago I brought about a financial disaster the likes of which I have never before experienced. Mostly because while I spoke the time into existence, I didn’t really open my mind to the ways in which the resources could come for me. So, I didn’t see the options and opportunities. I actively rejected some. My external dialogue was focused on there only being one way it could happen, and it didn’t because my internal dialogue didn’t truly believe it could. So, I reached impasse. Now, faced with additional hours at work that are encroaching on my writing time, I have made different choices. I have been clear that the work I am doing is not my career, that I want my writing to be. So, giving enough time to my employer, I am not prepared to take up the extra hours for the long term. In fact, I am going to cut my hours back further so I can truly focus on writing. And I know how I can sort things for that financially. I am going to make writing a success for me, one way or the other. Which means giving myself more time, giving myself some rest so I’m not constantly rushing it, and being clear what my career direction is now. I am speaking THAT future into existence and in the process, I am being true to myself.
We do, though, have to be mindful of our internal dialogue. That niggly voice (our egoic or subconscious mind) that is playing out our belief system that may, or may not, support our intentions. That voice that is the difference between manifesting something, and not. Of creating the push/pull with the Universe. We have tens of thousands of thoughts a day, most of which are entirely unconscious and repetitive the majority of which are negative. We speak to ourselves sometimes as we wouldn’t our worst enemy. It’s being aware of that dialogue, really paying attention to our thoughts and feelings on a moment-by-moment basis that will enable us to see the world as we want it to be. There is no reality, only our own. The one we make. So, by applying the principle of Abracadabra, we can speak into existence the world we want if we’re prepared to put the work in.
And maybe, if you’re in real need, you can speak your very own angel into existence.
Louisa Simpson 