Roughly two weeks before I lost my job, a good friend of mine resigned from her position at Wildfox and her departure sent ripples throughout the company. Like myself, she was around longer than most who walked the halls and occupied the desks. She had more than my 5 years under her belt and set the bar high for many. She understood everything that couldn’t be taught, knew the history of the company because she lived it and truly gave it her all for years. But the time had come for her to say goodbye and she took a leap of faith and resigned. She had no job lined up and no real back up plan. Instead she wanted to take minute to catch her breath and let life decide where it would take her.

The day after I heard the news I sent her an email applauding her courage and I told her that I regretbelieved higher powers are at work in our lives. I went on to say that in my experience, big shifts occur when we stray too far from our paths — and those crazy jolts are just the universe’s way of setting us straight and getting us back where we belong. I referenced my own experience of losing my retail stores and told her how that devastating event ultimately produced my kids, because truth be told, my husband and I probably would have divorced had we tried to ride out the recession. And life without my kids, and my husband isn’t something I can’t even fathom. I think I even added a quote about taking chances, how you won’t know if something is the greatest decision you’ve ever made until you make it. She replied with tearful thank you.

Little did I know just a few short weeks later I too would be getting a message from the universe that would forever alter my path. And alter it did. I was out of a job in an instant, so if you ask me it was more like a flash flood with zero warning that forced me to abandon my course than a “message.” And as much as I hate to admit it, my initial reaction involved equal parts water. I cried and sobbed and cried some more. But after about 4 days of replaying every detail in my head and feeling sorry for myself and being angry at everyone, I knew it was time to shut the pity party down. What I wrote to my friend about the universe telling us things, I believed when I wrote it and I knew from experience it to be true. So therefore, I also knew it applied to me now, like it or not.

“I know for sure that all of our hurdles have meaning.  And being open to learning from those challenges is the difference between succeeding and getting stuck.”  Oprah Winfrey

Now, we are all probably guilty of throwing out a casual “everything happens for a reason” to someone we know who’s hurting when honestly, we don’t know what else to say. And I swear this wasn’t one of those emails. It wasn’t a casual belief I dressed up to make her feel better, or a string of empty expressions that people hang on their walls without ever pondering their source, what I said I knew deep down to be true. It came from the heart, my heart. So imagine my surprise when my first source of strength and comfort was this email I wrote to someone else in hopes of comforting them. It was exactly what I needed to believe and remember and it couldn’t have been said better if I do say so myself.

It got me out of bed and moving, searching for not an answer as to why this happened to me, but just how far had I strayed, what was the message? What could I possibly need to learn that required this drastic of an action? In some weird way I knew a master plan unfolding, and that it started with that email. Did I write it for her or did I write it for me? Either way, I had work to do. I needed to figure out my path and find a little inspiration. I got on LinkedIn and I went to Barnes and Noble, two seemingly innocent moves that have now guided me along a new path.

“What I know for sure is that the only way to endure the quake is to adjust your stance.  You can’t avoid the daily tremors.  They come with being alive.  But I believe these experiences are gifts that force us to step to the right or left in search of a new center of gravity.  Don’t fight them.  Let them help you adjust your footing.”  O.W.

Whatever the universe was trying to tell me, I was all ears.