Hello All,

Last week, I shared a story saying that life will work out HOW to make things happen if we clarify WHAT we want to happen, and remain in a state of sufficient harmony to allow us to pick up the guidance. I thought that you might like some examples of this, so I'm here to provide a couple.

 

Here's last week's story. Hit the back arrow to return here. 

 

 

In the not too distant past, I struggled with uterine fibroids. 

 

For years, I prayed for a hysterectomy that I couldn’t see how to make happen: I was either uninsured or couldn’t afford weeks off from work to recover without pay.

 

I’d also been praying to catch a glimpse of soul-satisfying work I could make for myself, and to find a nice job to do in tandem. But nothing was clicking.

 

My sister urged me to come stay with her in Chicago to take some financial pressure off myself, but I kept struggling in Atlanta until I’d had enough. 

 

Though I wanted to stay with my boyfriend, who didn't want to move, I knew that leaving town was for the best—I went to Chicago and chose to be my father’s full-time caregiver.

 

None of that felt great, but it all felt right. 

 

And in time, I saw why. 

 

Thanks to unpaid caregiving, I could get on Illinois Medicaid and had a “free” hysterectomy by an uber-accomplished and personable surgeon. 

 

(My niece stood in for me while I recovered.)

 

And the longer I took care of my father, the more I could imagine my now village work and see complimentary jobs I could get while I worked to get it off the ground.

 

HOW accomplished. 

 

 

I wanted a simple v-necked shirt—a notch up from a t-shirt but a notch down from a blouse—that I was having the darndest time trying to find. And to make my search that much harder, I wanted it made in the U.S. 

 

Eventually, I decided to have it made as the core product of a micro-manufacturing fashion company and a conversation starter:

 

Americans spend hundreds of billions on apparel, but less than 3% of it is made in the USA. And the clothes we buy too often come from retailers doing bad business, like endangering offshore garment workers.

 

But HOW the heck was I going to get started in fashion manufacturing?

 

Before my WHAT had fully crystalized, I consulted folks in the fashion biz, wasting time, money and effort in the process. 

 

Eventually, I put my idea on the back burner for years, but it reignited.

 

Not log after, I went for a haircut.

 

I blab with the barber and mention my fashion dream.

 

He perks up: He loves fashion and had designed a dress once.

 

What perfection: Life had led me to a barber who led me to a pattern maker.

 

Within 48 hours, she was writing me an estimate to make a sample shirt.

 

The shirt is on the back burner again, but I have a few hanging in my closet and look forward to growing a small village of sewers to attract some of the billions Americans spend on clothes to my 'hood!