Two wrecks in six weeks! Yes, and in addition to that, I had drawn police to me in the oddest places to give me a ticket my entire life until I began to balance in the mornings. My record started the first night I drove a car. I attracted the attention of a policeman on 23d street in Oklahoma City. He stopped me and wrote a ticket in memory of my first night with a driver’s license. I had to go home to share the experience with my mother and father, plus tell them I also backed into a pole and dented the fender when I picked up a friend. The excitement of a driver’s license got me! It was awhile before I got to take the car out again.
Police officers seemed to appear out of nowhere for the rest of my life, especially during life’s difficult times. For instance, it happened several times when we were moving across the country. I would be in one car while Don was driving a U-Haul. Of course, I had two small children in the car with me. I would be following him, traveling at the same rate of speed. He would not get a ticket, but I would have the honor of being stopped. He generally would drive a distance ahead and wait for us to catch up to him. One time, however, the policeman did not give me a ticket. Being in a small town in Texas, the policeman decided I needed to see the Justice of the Peace and pay a fine. Don had the money. I did not. Ugh! They finally realized my husband was not coming back for our children or me. They decided that I could go and mail the money back by a certain date. I did not see Don again until I arrived at my parents’ home in Oklahoma City, our first destination. I was more than unhappy.
Life went on and policemen with tickets continued to crop up here and there. When Don got sick and was in the hospital in Clovis, NM, I got more than one ticket. Let’s just say that he was in and out of the hospital for years and so I got multiple tickets. Two tickets were written for me by the same policeman within an hours’ time. Not fun. I never got so many tickets that I lost my license, not even when Don was dying or afterwards.
The next difficult time that happened with police wanting to stop me came during the divorce. Plus a ticket I received, I totaled my fairly new Lincoln Town Car during rain. I was hydroplaning as I passed through an I-35 construction area on the way to do a seminar in Oklahoma City. I first hit the concrete barrier on the west side of the road and then the car careened across both lanes to the east side of the road where I slammed into another concrete barrier. Luckily everyone on I-35 had slowed as they watched me, and no one was beside me. I had the whole road plus a policeman right behind me that could not believe I did this. I could not either, because I was not going fast at all! My car could not be driven, had to be towed, and then was declared totaled. However, the final decision was to fix it, because it was so new. Insurance paid for a rental car until the car was fixed. I did do the seminar.
I picked up my car when I received the call that it was ready and drove it for about two weeks. This space in time for my next accident fell between filing for divorce and waiting to go back to court to end the marriage. I simply was going to go to the grocery store. I slid into the seat of my car and drove, stopping at the corner where there was a stop sign. I looked both ways before turning onto a busy street. It was a rainy day with light fog. I pulled out, turned left, and had a head-on collision with another car. A very kind couple jumped out of their vehicle to see if I was hurt. I was afraid that they might be the ones hurt because I crossed the line and was in their lane when my car hydroplaned right into the front of their vehicle. Thank goodness we were all three just fine. The insurance company was not happy with me at all. I had destroyed the car twice in six weeks. Again the car was towed to the same people that just fixed it. I felt safer in a rental car. Once more, they made my black Town Car look like new! By this time, I was hesitant about driving my car.
I received the call. My car was fixed, but I was scared to even drive this car. Was it jinxed? I went to pick it up and actually had the man that handed me my keys go outside with me to bless my car. He said, “Are you serious?” I said, “Yes.” He complied because I explained that I was not going to get into it until somebody did that with me. This was not normal for me to wreck a car twice in a short time! I only got tickets, so I knew that something was really wrong, and decided that it was me and the fact that I truly was having a difficult time filing for divorce and going through the divorce. It was something I did not believe I would ever do, and I was truly off-balanced. My awareness was not good. I had to do something before I hurt someone seriously, or maybe me. I began to do activities to balance myself every morning.
I put an affirmation on my mirror to say every morning. “I like myself just as I am.” It was simple. This was the beginning of improving my self worth. If I flinched, I knew I did not yet believe it. However, if I smiled while I said it, I knew I was beginning to think so. Next, I explained to God that I wanted to be able to hear my guidance; however, I needed help with this. I talked to God as if He was sitting in a chair right across from me. Since I had messed up several critical situations in my lifetime, I asked God to bring answers through other people on earth until I learned to hear in different ways. Other people might include a minister preaching, a friend, a salesperson, whomever.
I then explained reading books others suggested prior filing for my divorce helped. I told God, “I will listen intently, and if I hear the name of a book three times, no matter what the book is, I will buy it and find my answer within it.” Then I began listening for a books’ name everywhere I went. Sometimes I caught the title of a book as I eavesdropped on a conversation. Unexpectedly, it made me begin to be more present in my life. I was actively listening to receive answers. When I did hear the name of a book three times, I bought it. Sometimes many answers for me were in a book, and sometimes I had to wait until I was deep into a book before my “aha” came. Book names and answers did come! I generally found the books named in the Science Fiction area, Business area, self-help, or inspirational. I never knew and it was a fun adventure to find some of the more rare titles.
Now I was finding answers in Al-Anon and in books. With my self-worth diminished through the marriage I just left, I gave myself a gift every day for thirty days. That was a suggestion from a friend I began passing onto others when they were going through difficult times. Since I was tight on money and was left with all the bills after the divorce, I had to devise simple gifts for me that cost only a little or nothing at all but brought a smile to me. One giift was giving myself time to sit on the porch and watch for a beautiful sunset. Another was going to lunch with my daughter or son. Then there was giving myself time to visit a friend or telephone someone I wanted to visit with! I sometimes spent time with a flower, thinking about how it grows, drops its petals and lets go so easily, and how another then how another flower is birthed.
With those gifts, I gave myself permission to be kinder to me and took time to do so. One activity seemed to lead to another. I began working on increasing ways to “hear” guidance. I would go to a bookstore and stand in front of the books in the Self-Help section or the Spiritual section, or I would look at the new releases. I watched for a name of a book that calledto me. I was attempting to improve or develop my intuition. This was different from hearing the name of a book three times and going to the bookstore for a specific book. By going and standing in front of aisles of books in someplace like Barnes and Noble or by “stepping over boundaries” and going into a bookstore that I never entered before, I had to learn to “listen within” and develop my intuitive skills.
So every morning I made a “prayer” and then opened an inspirational book and read for ten minutes before work. The 15 minutes expanded. What did I discover? I was becoming happier. I was reclaiming my Self and, well, everything felt better, period. The tv was off and what I was learning about life “by listening” without and within was much more interesting.
LESSON: Begin your day with time for you. Meditate or pray or do both. Listen to your universal source to begin guiding you. Then pick up an inspirational book and read for ten to fifteen minutes.
LESSON: If you decide to give yourself a gift for one day when you are moving through a difficult time or for thirty days. Before you sleep, think about what you can give yourself tomorrow and all the good possibilities coming into your life. Especially do this if a door has closed with a life-changing event of if there has been a multitude of events that have might cause depression to set in. Then be certain to follow through. Do give yourself your gifts! You deserve it. See what you feel like in a few weeks.
GIFT: Life can throw us some very difficult times. We can make it through them. Center Self. I got more done in a day by taking the time to balance in the morning. Everything went smoother. In other words, I made fewer mistakes and did not draw chaotic situations to me.
BIG GIFT: Once I began balancing every morning before beginning work or leaving the house, my life began to change. Life became more smooth. I quit drawing policemen to me. I checked myself on each of these next two situations: I was off-balanced when each of these happened. One dark night on Highway 9 going into Norman, a deer jumped in front of me. My car was hurt, but not the deer. About ten years later, I pulled out of a driveway going very slowly and ran into a van that I absolutely did not see. It was a specific green color that is difficult for me to see to this day. No other accidents, no totals! After each one of these incidents, I went right back into my 10-25 minutes in the mornings for me to gain balance. I have also been stopped twice in the last thirty-one years by a highway patrolman and received a warning each time. On both of those times, I was trying to do too many things in too short a period of time and had not balanced in the morning. It makes all the difference in the world!