Sometimes Life Doesn’t Happen the Way We Want

Last year, I quit my full-time job, closed down my coaching practice, rented out my condo to incredible tenants and moved to Europe to explore my extreme dream of moving to Spain and Portugal. Life had taken an incredible turn for me when I designed this new path of deliberate creation and flow. It seemed nothing could go wrong.

I moved back to the States in the summer of 2007 not knowing what would be next for me. Would I start my coaching practice again or would I get a full-time job.?After sitting in the stillness for about one month, it seemed my answer found me instead of my searching for it. Former coaching clients began calling me up and I decided to explore full-time entrepreneurship: My other extreme dream.

The stars were in my eyes but there was no longer any money in the bank! I was living off the savings I stocked up prior to leaving the reputable government career behind, not-to-mention spending some good change to establish new websites and much more. Then, I got the call. “Hi Laurie, this is your tenant. I’ve been promoted and will be moving out in a three months.” I was devastated. My amazing, rockin’ renter was high-tailing it for greener pastures. As a coach, immediately I thought, “I need to move into action! Let’s start placing those ads now.”

And, so I did. Daily, new ads went up informing the crowd of potential renters that the most kick-butt condo was on the market for rent. But, after one month, nobody was biting. The second month came and went onto the third sending me into a panic.

The bottom-line, I was relying on this new tenant to pay my mortgage. I was having a bit of a freak-out as you can imagine!

Then the day came when a gal called me indicating she was highly interested in renting my condo. While some hesitation immediately entered my belly, I chose to listen to my desperation instead of my intuition. Desperate mistake number one.

I asked her to complete a rental application but some things just did not seem to check out. I called the prospective tenant and informed her I could not get her current landlord on the phone to which she replied she accidentally gave me the wrong number. I never received the “correct” number. Desperate mistake number two.

In the middle of January 2008, this new tenant moved in. And well, to put it lightly, it has not been a cake-walk. She has not paid the rent since March (and initially she bounced March’s rent check). And, well, she has been difficult to deal with (that is putting it lightly) but there has been a ton I’ve learned.

The reality of it is: Life delivers us some tough blows and we so we are forced to make choices. Thus, I ask: When you are knocked on your bum, what do you do?

-Do you turn your back on your dreams and passions when life creeps up on you?

-Do you blame others for mishaps, mistakes and difficult situations?

-Do you examine the role you’ve played in the tough situation or do you blame others?

-How do you know where to look to see where your responsibility was in the scenario?

-Do you play the martyr and/or victim?

-How do you play out the story? Do you rewrite it or do you always live it out the same way?

When I sat down with myself and witnessed what was going on, I realized the role I played in having this nightmare tenant situation come to fruition in my life. I have this saying that “desperation meets desperation,” meaning I was desperate to find a tenant and she was desperate to take advantage of somebody; therefore, we were a perfect match!

Through this very challenging time, this tenant has shown me the way to true stretching of self and personal evolution. Now, have I considered this to be the ideal way to learn? Admittedly, it’s been tough! I’ve had a lot of sleepless nights. But, as crazy as this sounds, I would ask that it be this way because sometimes “hard” experiences are the best teachers. We tend to have the deepest, most permanent learning as a result of life-altering lessons.

Today, I discovered that the tenant is contesting the eviction. At first blush, I was terribly disappointed and began to cry. Further, I was angry. I thought, “How dare she? Who does she think she is?” I had to ask those tough questions again of myself, including: What am I to learn here? What is the gift?

The answer: Sometimes life doesn’t happen the way we want and guess what? That is the way it is supposed to happen~