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At the risk of sounding dramatic, things in my life sort of fell apart earlier this year. That just happens sometimes. Life is fine and then suddenly it isn’t. I’m a fairly optimistic person, generally so full of hope it can be nauseating at times. I’m the girl constantly seeking out silver linings and presenting devastation in a way that makes it sparkle. “This is good because…” But this time, things were different.
Hope slipped from my grasp, and I was stuck in negativity. I started complaining to anyone who would listen. And everywhere I turned, there was another disaster compounding the issue. There’s a physical feeling that comes with this state of mind. It’s hard to describe, but if you’ve ever been stuck on a negative loop, you know exactly what I’m talking about. And what’s worse is that pulling yourself from that kind of state of mind feels nearly impossible. Stopping a ball in motion requires force and energy–but negativity drains you, leaving you with next to nothing to work with.
I KEPT SEEING ALL THAT WAS GOING WRONG BECAUSE I WAS LOOKING FOR ALL THAT WAS GOING WRONG.
Like a radio dial tuned into a certain frequency, I nestled into the things are horrible and nothing is going right station. And because the universe loves to deliver proof, all I kept seeing was the validation of that one fact. Until one morning, on my hands and knees, I begged for a sign. A beacon of hope. Something anything to indicate that the ship would eventually right itself and we’d find smooth waters ahead.
Now, if you’re new here, you might not know the significance the number 12 holds for me. But for the sake of making a very long story short, just know that 12s often show up as little God winks in my life. Anything good is often accompanied by a number 12, usually in the oddest way possible. And while this has always been true for me, it was compounded during a particularly dark season in 2015 when I was served up a bible verse that spoke directly to the season I was in only to discover it was Romans 12:12. Okay, God. I hear you.
Little did I know that by simply making that request, I changed the station. I tuned into a different frequency. I started looking to the universe to offer proof of hope. And because I started looking for hope, I started to find it. Everywhere. But predominantly in one very strange way.
Nearly every time I picked up my phone, the time was in an increment of 12. The first time it happened, I noticed and simply had a wave of comfort wash over me. The second time I thought hey, that’s cool. But then I noticed how frequently it was happening, and it started to kind of freak me out.
Then I noticed 12s showing up in other places. Like the ETA on nerve-wracking road trips or when I’d screenshot a powerful daily horoscope (don’t judge) only to notice the time. These things just kept happening. 12s were everywhere. So much so, that I started to simply expect them.
With each appearance, my hope for the future grew more confident. God was sending little reminders that He had not, in fact, forgotten about us. The universe was proving what I was putting out into the world: that there was indeed hope.
I soon realized that I was simply finding what I looked for, and that was a powerful enough epiphany to inspire a shift in perspective. If I believed things were crap, and that things were going to crap, crap is what I was going to find. Let’s play a little game, shall we?
I’m going to count to five, and I want you to look around you. Take notice of all the things that surround you that are blue. Ready? 1…2…3…4…5…
Okay, now tell me about all the things in the room that are white. There are probably a number of white things in the room, but you weren’t looking for those. No, you were looking for blue, so you only focused in on the things that were blue.
Your mind works much the same way. If you look for hope, it is hope that you will find. If you look for darkness, darkness is all you will see.
If things are going sideways for you right now, and you feel like the universe is just dumping on you, I’d like to encourage you to change your frequency. You might not feel it from within initially, and that’s okay. So make it more like a challenge. At the end of each day, jot down 5 things that are good and/or that you are thankful for. Slowly, over time, things will shift into place. And trust me, it feels a whole lot better to be in a positive gear.
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