Paths, doors and unexpected walls

In my last post, I wrote about how when one door closes, another door opens. For myself and for quite a few other people I know, this has been a week of possible new paths, of doors opening and closing, and of walking into unexpected brick walls. Sometimes, it seems, that open door leads nowhere.

In my own life, I have gotten discouraging news and responses as I've tried to find a new location. Since the Healing Loft closed, I have been looking for a group of complimentary healers with whom I could hook up, part time. A couple of the places I have looked at have indicated they were not interested in having a part time sublease or contracting practitioner. One person, another therapist said her life was already too chaotic to have another person associated with her studio. Another group said that things were too uncertain, etc.

The most recent disappointment was from a possibility I had really hoped would pan out. It was with a group located in the community center near my home. It was a very professional looking venue and it looked like it would really work - No Such Luck. I still have some more options to look at, none of them as ideal as the ones I had hoped would  materialize. Beyond that, I'm not sure where the footpath is leading me. In short, the responses I have gotten have been rather discouraging. So, what's the lesson here? What is the take-away message from all of this?

One of them, I see as being the difference between hopes and intentions. Steven Covey describes in his Seven Habits book series, the difference between the circle of influence and the circle of concern. The circle of concern is the set of things you care about. These are the external factors in your life, in which you are, in some way, a stakeholder.

Meanwhile, the circle of influence is the set of those things you can control or at least influence. Ideally, it is best to have the two circles be as close together as possible. Or in Saint Francis's prayer, "to change the things I can, accept the things I can't."

The other lesson I see is to actually learn the right lesson from whatever is happening. As I felt totally disappointed by the response I got yesterday I was tempted to slam the door on everything. It was a very reactive response. I often see this response in people when they get disappointing news.

In actuality, when something like this happens, one needs to count to ten - to step back and take stock of what's going on. The best thing we can do is to let the reaction pass. Sleep on it and look at it again in the morning. What's the big picture? What are the implications of whatever decision you make? It's at times like this when we need to take some time to put on the thinking cap.

In the last few weeks (months, actually), many of the people I know have had significant challenges.
Several have had financial or health reverses, including the place where I had previously practiced, The Healing Loft. The suddenness of the closing took me by surprise, but in the context of the things I have seen since approximately mid August, abrupt changes like this make sense. More than one friend of mine has described sudden relationship problems, sudden financial problems, and unexpected health problems, many of these in combination to create a 'perfect storm' of challenge. And all seem to have the same major theme - the events were largely unexpected.

So where is this going? I'm still not sure. For myself and for many others, it looks like there are more paths and more doors. Some of the doors seem to be open. Do they actually lead to new paths? Or like so many around me in the past few weeks, do we find that the doors and paths lead smack into an unexpected wall?