Trust the Universe: Why It’s Usually Best to Choose Hope

Recently, my yoga teacher gave me a book titled The Universe Has Your Back. It came at a particularly interesting time—a time when I felt the Universe might be conspiring to make me miserable. I wanted to trust the Universe, but sometimes it’s just so difficult!

A few days before I received the book, which appeared mysteriously beside my yoga mat at the end of class one day (my dear teacher placed it there while I was putting my props away), I’d learned I was going to be moving soon. I did not want to move.

The backstory is this: Earlier in the year, my husband and I decided it to try to sell our home and downsize. We had more space than we needed and the idea of simplifying seemed…well, simple. But the reality is, selling and buying homes is anything but simple. And we loved our home. So, after a couple of stressful months, we decided to stay put.

Relieved, I settled back into my home and neighborhood. Summer turned to fall, and we started looking forward to the holidays.

Then one day, a family that had seen our home when it was on the market called our realtor and asked if we’d still like to sell.

Sometimes the Universe Has Other Plans

My first thought when my husband called to tell me this was, no. But while my heart said no, my logical brain prompted my mouth to say we should probably consider it. But only, I said, if we could have enough time to find a place we were excited about moving to.

It took about two days for me to realize why I didn’t want to move the first time. When your heart’s not in it, it’s hard to follow through, and it’s doubly hard to trust the Universe. Still, we began looking around for a new home immediately.

Three days later, a sign from the universe seemed to appear. We found exactly what we’d hoped for, and it was right around the corner! Could it be this easy?

It’s Often Hard to Trust the Universe

We had no reason to doubt we could get this home (we just needed to trust the Universe—and our realtor), so we agreed to sell the one we were living in. But, as fate or luck or the mean Universe would have it, we did not get it. The house went to a first-time home buyer with nothing to sell. Devastated, we vowed we’d find another home in our neighborhood or stay put. The pressure was on to find something else.

I won’t go into the details of what followed, but things got out of control quickly. Long story short, within three weeks, plans were in motion for us to move to a house I didn’t want to move to in a town I didn’t want to live in. I cried for days and got very little sleep.

I had to face that I was not able to choose what I wanted in this situation. There was no way off this ride I didn’t want to be on—at least no way that wouldn’t cause even more pain.

Then the book appeared next to my yoga mat. I paused and wondered if it could be true. Did the Universe really have my back?

People told me how lucky we were to have found a home in this new town. Others congratulated me and expressed their excitement for us. But I was not excited. I was overwhelmed, and it kept getting worse.

The paperwork, distractions, anxiety, inspection issues to iron out, and contract negotiations on both ends went on and on. The sadness would not go away. Selling a home is stressful. Buying a home is stressful. Selling and buying simultaneously—especially when you don’t want to—is overwhelming!

But Everything Happens for a Reason, Doesn’t It?

Now you’re probably expecting to hear how I totally shifted my attitude and everything worked out wonderfully in the end. You want to know about the lesson I learned—the one that suggests it’s a good thing when life doesn’t go as planned because something better ends up happening.

Sorry, I don’t have that story to tell you yet. But I remain hopeful that eventually, I will. Maybe hope is the message here. I know that worse things than this can happen unexpectedly. I have no choice but to trust the Universe and remember the words of the Serenity Prayer.

It’s not always easy to determine what we have control over. Sometimes we can influence fate and get what we want. Sometimes we must accept disappointment, and other times we do end up with unexpected blessings that at first seemed to be a curse. There’s no simple path, and I, at least, haven’t found a way to predict how something will turn out. I can only hope.

I may end up happy in my new home and neighborhood, or I may never get over the disappointment of leaving a place I loved. More likely, the outcome will be somewhere in between. Doors will close, others will open. I’ll miss some things and gain others. I’ll look for support from the Universe and find a way to make it okay.

What I know for sure is it’s another opportunity to choose—not to choose an outcome, but to choose how to react to a situation. I choose hope. I’ll trust the Universe.

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