Train cancelled. Replacement bus service.

This is what happened to my train to Glasgow on Saturday. We had a restaurant booking then a show we were going to see. As I took in the sign in the ticket office, I felt my heart sink and a feeling of annoyance take hold. This was the third time in the last week that my train had been cancelled or disrupted. We had a restaurant booking and then a show and I wasn’t sure we’d now make it to the restaurant in time for the booking.

And then I remembered, and I relaxed, and I smiled.

I took in my children’s excitement about getting on a bus AND a train (we were to get off the bus and on a train closer to Glasgow), and I was grateful to be present to share in their joy rather than caught up in my own stressful thinking. There was nothing else to do than respond to reality in the present moment, get on the bus, smile at the driver, and get to Glasgow whatever time we would get there.

Turned out that as a result of the replacement bus service, the different train we then got on was where I met a lovely coach who became a connection. Turned out that because we arrived in Glasgow about 30 minutes later than we would have, I bumped into a lovely connection I had made at a recent event and had a really useful conversation.

I’m grateful that I wasn’t caught up in a thought storm about how stressful and inconvenient it was and missed out on these opportunities. We even made it in time for the restaurant. But if we hadn't, that would have been ok too.

Here’s what this isn’t: It isn’t positive thinking. It isn’t “every cloud has a silver lining”. It isn’t “out of every negative comes a positive”. It isn’t “keep calm and get on the replacement bus”.

It’s simply the way I experienced what happened, having seen that my experience is an inside out job.

That’s what I did nearly two years ago and I’m ever so grateful I kept looking in that direction. Give me a shout if you'd like to know more - I love talking about this stuff!

#insideout #okwithallofthehumanexperience