All challenges are a sign of spiritual strength, and of the readiness of the Soul to move on; to evolve even further.
~ Neale Donald Walsch
I shared a portion of this experience in my mid-April newsletter and received an outpouring of responses expressing concern as well as appreciation for choosing to share my experience. As I mentioned, I recently shared two blogs on the topic of self-love (Journey of Empowerment through Self-Love and Empowering Acts of Self-Love) based on my recent talk at Unity of Fayetteville. Apparently, this was a topic that I needed to address personally for myself because Spirit/Universe provided me with a huge lesson in practicing self-love one week ago today.
These are the events as they unfolded:
I got up and around, so that I could make the hour drive to Tulsa to run a few errands and to get a massage, which I had scheduled the week before. Looking forward to practicing self-love, I didn’t even make it out of my driveway to enjoy the pampering, but did receive a valuable lesson in self-love that day.
At 7:20 am, I pulled out of the carport (like I’ve done the past 22 years), straightened the car and proceeded to drive down the driveway. The rising sun was shining in the windshield, which fogged up because it was 38 degrees outside. Instead of stopping to adjust, so I could see, I reached over to touch the defrost button on the screen.
The next thing I knew, the car was stopped and was not going anywhere. A surreal moment, I looked up at the fogged windshield to discern what had just occurred. A digitized voice from the car began talking to me asking if it needed to call someone and report it. I was able to quickly locate the disconnect phone button on the steering wheel, but was obviously in a daze as to what had just happened. I put the car in reverse and backed up. Then, got out to assess the damage, and it was bad. Veering slightly to the left off the driveway, the front end of my car had made impact with the pipe fence, which was still intact, but had moved approximately 2 inches, and the fence wires were no longer taut.
I’m sure the astonished look on my face would have been a sight to behold had anyone been there to view it as I recognized my car was incapacitated. I wasn’t going anywhere, especially to get a massage, and the car would need to be hauled to get to the body shop. I called my husband to tell him what had just happened, and I took full responsibility for my f*ck up.
Next, I chronicled the experience with a portfolio of pictures for the insurance as well as my own collection.
*I’ve included a few pictures below for those of you that would like a visual.
I walked the mail down to the mail box and proceeded into the house where I opted to contact both my kids and then my mom to tell them what had just happened. None cared about the car; they just wanted to make sure I was okay. I filed the insurance claim online and then let the body shop know they would have a new arrival. It didn’t take long for the insurance to contact me and thankfully the agent was very kind as she listened to me relay the moment leading up to my car’s impact with an inanimate stationary object.
My husband came home from work and realized his trailer wouldn’t work and the damage was too severe to attempt it without potentially causing more damage, so I called AAA to have a roll off tow truck transport my car to the body shop. We drove to the body shop and signed the paperwork knowing it would be a few days before they had an estimate of cost as well as a time frame. Neither truly mattered as it was going to be fixed, and I was going to have to be patient.
I subsequently proceeded to continue to “beat myself up” the rest of the day for my “stupidity” and inattentiveness. Needing to breathe and gain clarity, at the end of the day, I went for a walk and asked for guidance on the lesson I was supposed to learn from this experience. I heard “Perhaps Shelly, you simply had a momentary out-of-body experience.” All I could do was laugh in that moment. Then, I heard that the experience was a reminder to focus and pay attention, especially to what’s right in front of me. I knew I really needed to practice self-love and let the experience go.
I even pondered that maybe this incident prevented me from being somewhere or involved in something more. The thought came to me that maybe I was supposed to have an “accident,” but Universe said, “Let’s keep it minimal. No one else involved. No one hurt. Just mess up her car really good.” I’ve replayed the scenario in my mind several times in the past week. Each time, the time lapse (from entering car to impact) went very fast, and I just keep seeing the fogged windshield in my mind.
The estimate for repair is now at $6K (that could change), and it will probably be the end of the month before it’s ready to pick up. I’m surrendering and releasing the experience to the Universe, and I have definitely learned from it! I certainly know that I will make sure my windshield is clear in the future before I attempt to move. As I stated before, self-love is not rehashing your self-perceived mistakes and instead choosing to see them as opportunities for learning and growth.
