Adnan, my Sufi teacher, often told us to be in the world but not of it. This was his instruction for handling the daily challenges of human existence. He encouraged us to focus on our spiritual development and assured us that the rest of life would take care of itself. 

Most of us, from Adnan’s point of view, had a balance issue. We devote way too much of our time to human worries and the indulgences we use to feel better. Years of our human habits frequently frustrated his effort to change us. He never gave up. 

The basic problem is that we inhabit human bodies and they have their own agenda. When things go wrong, we feel threatened, disrespected, or thwarted, our body floods us with emotional, physical, and mental tantrums.

I had a recent experience with this: 

Last Saturday, I participated in a Toastmasters' Evaluation Speech Contest at the District Level -- the highest level of competition in a series of four competitions.

A speech evaluation is a 3-minute quickly prepared speech with valuable feedback to a "test speaker" about what they did well and how they might improve their speech. Gentle, motivating feedback is the hallmark of a good Toastmasters evaluation. 

I took this competition seriously and practiced giving evaluations at numerous clubs every week over the last two months. It was not so much about winning as doing my best, i.e. practicing Adnan’s concept of excellence. It adds spice to life.

Unfortunately, many things went wrong during this contest. The test speaker we were evaluating, gave his speech through Zoom on a terrible internet connection. His video constantly froze and distorted his words. I missed about a third of what he was saying, which was too bad because what I did catch was very good. It was like being caught in a bad dream trying to decipher an essential message and unable to make any sense.

We had 5 minutes to prepare our evaluation. Randomly selected, I was the first of 6 to speak. Unfortunately, I was prematurely called to speak and went on stage without a microphone. When the audio technician realized the oversight, he intruded on my stage and interrupted my speech to deliver a handle-held microphone.

Further misfortune, he had to fiddle with it several times to get it to work properly interrupting my performance not once but three times. All the while, the time clock ticked away my allotted three minutes. I am sad to report that my performance seriously deteriorated after his interruption. I lost my words, my speech, and my confidence. I felt like I had failed myself and everyone who was rooting for me.

Because of all the Sufi work, I have learned to treat life mishaps, such as this, as the voice of the universe trying to teach me an important lesson.

Last year, for example, while competing in the Toastmasters International Speech Contest, my 7-minute speech performance was interrupted by a telephone call on my cell phone. Normally, I do not get cell phone calls. It is usually off and tucked away in my office. I had it out to help keep track of my speech time. That it was on at that time and ringing at that precise moment in my contest was so absurd it was laughable. I let the phone run out of rings because I didn't know how to turn it off and then resumed my speech. Unfortunately, that unexpected disruption caused me to exceed my speech time limit by 4 seconds and I was disqualified.

What is the universe trying to tell me? Should I not compete in speech contests? Am I spending too much time on Toastmasters? Should I start studying improv so I can adapt to the unexpected? Why is this happening? This is where my thought went for the second time after the Evaluation contest.

At home, I explained to my husband why I didn’t win the contest I expected to win. George was appalled by my story and insisted I write a letter of complaint to the organizers of the event and demand a rematch. I didn’t want to do that! I just wanted to distract my hurt with food and a movie. 

Writing a complaint letter didn’t sound very spiritual! Shouldn’t I be able to rise above such egoic feelings?

My human body, however, was not interested in spirituality! She was mad and upset. Sunday morning awoke at 4 am replaying the whole event over and over in my head. I could not get back to sleep. Maybe my husband was right! I got out of bed and started to write the letter. Maybe the lesson was to stand up for myself!

My negative thought loop stopped when I finished my draft -- just in time for my Sunday Sufi Class. See what I mean about the human body giving us a hard time until we address its needs? 

After a relaxing day visiting a friend, and complaining a little more, I wrote the perfect letter. My emotions had settled. I included appreciation for the Herculean efforts of the volunteer conference team. I expressed compassion for the mistakes that happen. I gave a clear description of what went wrong, what should have happened and how things could be rectified. 

You may be wondering why I am rehashing this story AGAIN now. I am wondering that myself. Am I still stuck in the body loop? I hope not. I wanted to share this experience because it is a great example of the challenges of living in human form and restoring connection to spirit. 

Balance is not a static state. It must be reset over and over as the disruptions of life constantly knock us off track.

Sometimes, you have to give the dog a bone, Adnan told us. We have to yield to our body’s needs. That is why we always had Tuesday day off at summer camp. We needed to go to town to blow off steam and restore balance so that we were ready to go deeper in spirit when we returned.

The Sufi work makes it easier to restore the balance between spirit and human being.

Could you use some rebalancing? Join me today, Tuesday, May 14 at 10:30 am PST or come Sunday, May 19th at 8 am PST.

The Zoom link is:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/89999494833?pwd=V2pOS28yYUdXM3hkaW1rVWIvSjBUdz09

Meeting ID: 899 9949 4833

Passcode: SUFI

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Be peaceful. 

Michelle

Dr. Michelle Peticolas

Life Transformation Coach

Empowering Women to Reinvent Their Life After Loss

Secrets of Life and Death

https://www.facebook.com/secretsoflifeanddeath.com