Ten years ago, my husband and I had an offer to buy our company for millions of euros. That was our plan when we created the company a few years before. Create value and sell. That was the only goal.
We also were starting a family. We had our first child and second was on the way. We had purchased a wild large home in the French countryside. Everything was going as planned.
This was in worldly terms the moment we arrived. I should have been happy. We made the money we made the babies. We were running a successful company with 100 employees.
Now, ten years later, I look back on this time as the most difficult of my life. At that time I was having daily panic attacks leading to agoraphobia making it difficult to leave my house. I was afraid to be alone. My husband was busy/never home. He was managing the company and meeting with the buyers in the evenings. Also having an affair with one of our employees.
I was home with a newborn and a three year old. I didn’t care about the company anymore. I didn’t want to work. I wanted to “keep my husband” but I was fat, scared and depressed. I wanted to be a good mom but was scared to be alone with them not knowing when a panic attack would come. I wanted to die. I wanted to give up.
I had no spiritual practice at the time. I had only a year or so before discovered Eckhart Tolle. I had at that time a week of bliss showing me there is more to life than what we see and touch. After a week of bliss one thought brought me back: ” If you follow this you can not stay in this marriage.” I knew he would not understand, I could not talk to him about this, he did not want this. At that moment, I decided, I chose the marriage. And yet within a year the marriage fell apart.
There was a moment when sitting in our living room with our crying 6 month old in my lap. A voice in my mind said, “divorce.” Another inner voice said, “No!” But my mouth said it, “I want a divorce.” I didn’t but there it was. I said it.
It took about a year of back and forth from that moment but he moved out that night.
I was technically a millionaire at that point, and the most miserable I have ever been.
I used the money. I bought a house, I started a wellness center and an Eckhart Tolle group. I ran this wellness center on my own and slowly over five years faced and ended the panic attacks. I discovered A Course in Miracles, Mooji, non-dual teachings. I met hundreds of wellness professionals. Healers, therapists, coaches, yoga instructors. I went to an Eckhart Tolle retreat in Italy. I spent every last penny.
Now, ten years later, the wellness center is closed, the house is sold and I have bought a smaller home in the countryside. I am broke. I don’t have enough for food or bills. The end of each month is a struggle searching through sofa cushions for coins to buy some pasta. This should be the worst time of my life.
My mother has terminal cancer. I fly to visit her when I can. My son is ill. He has not been to school for 3 months. My house is not finished as I ran out of funds during the renovation. I walk on bare cement floors, my bed is in the living room with no wall or door built. This should be the worst time of my life.
I thought I need more money, I will do house cleaning and listent to A Course in Miracles talks while I clean. But, Spirit had a different idea. I was at Mcdonalds one day, watching the workers as we waited for our order. I found myself wondering, do they smell like fries and grease when they get home each night? Are they fat from eating too much Mcdo? Is that beeping noise driving them crazy?
Within a month, I started my new job as a Mcdonalds employee. My friends think I am crazy. My family worries about me. How can you go from running a wellness center to serving greasy burgers in a hair net? I must be so unhappy.
But why am I not miserable? Why do I feel a baseline of peace? Why do I not care that I am in debt and unable to even feed my children and my dog? The car breakdowns, the trips for mom’s chemo, the vet bill for hundreds and the prognosis she too is going to die, the neighbors complaining, my doubts about God…. I should be suicidal now! But, I am not. For some reason I am happy with my life.
My ACIM Journal 