Getting out of your own way.
Advanced studies in charm.
We’ve been talking a lot about the finer points of following charm lately, in these letters and in our discussions at group meditations, and it seems like a topic most would like to know more about.
So this week, I’m going to recap for you a pretty interesting series of events that transpired over the last week of my own life and situations I found myself in as a result of unwaveringly following charm, even when it made no sense, and even when my intellect was screaming in protest.
This week, there was much fanfare about the sun and moon lining up for a few minutes.
I was there watching it with a bag of popcorn from an empty dock next to Lake Buchanan in the direct path of totality under the wide open sky in rural Texas, and it was actually electrifying to witness. My colleague Kim and I felt giddy like little kids during the few moments of totality; currents of bliss coursing through our bodies while we experienced something we had never seen nature do before.
But here’s the thing—nature is always doing things it’s never done before.
And if we dare to ever mentally settle down with a bag of popcorn and watch, we’d see that it’s constantly lining up for us.
Because nature doesn’t like the ever-repeating-known—nature likes a good story.
Let me explain via a very good story highlighting the 10 points of charm
Kim and I had been invited to a music, technology and consciousness festival outside of Austin that was happening for the eclipse to give a talk on behalf of The Baseline Happiness Project, an initiative we’re a part of with our good friends and colleagues Barron Hanson and Matt Handley, centered on teaching meditation within the music industry.
The festival was one of those where everyone camps on-site all weekend, like Burning Man. To be honest, our small self rational minds had very much not been looking forward to the idea of ‘roughing it’ and had been thinking up all kinds of ways things could go wrong.
It didn’t help that we received zero information in terms of accommodation information, ground transportation details, timing of our events, or anything else until about 48 hours before the festival, despite being booked since last November.
But on the level of Big Self, we knew that going was the right thing to do.
Case-in-point #1: Charm doesn’t always equate to comfort and familiarity. Oftentimes it’s the opposite.
When it came time to fly out, a system of storms threatened to delay or cancel my flight. I had already booked a non-refundable hotel room in Austin for that night, so missing my flight out due to weather delays would have meant forfeiting that money plus coming out of pocket for a new hotel room in Tampa.
My brain scanned through all of the available flight options, trying to analyze which ones had a higher likelihood of making it, but ultimately, sticking with my original itinerary felt the most frictionless.
My departing flight pushed back a few minutes after scheduled take-off, and the pilot announced that “we were the very last flight out before they closed the runway” with the other flights I had been looking at still grounded.
Because I had kept my original connection through Miami instead of Charlotte, my second leg took off without a hitch, being just out of reach of the band of storms sweeping the entire southeastern US, and I arrived in Austin on time for a nice snooze in a big comfy bed.
Case-in-point #2: Charm doesn’t always mean change. Sometimes staying the course and letting things unfold is the way.
Speaking of letting things unfold, once I met up with Kim in Austin, all sorts of illogical and inexplicable wonderment started to unfold, and the challenge was to let it continue and avoid getting in our own way.
Still not having any ground transportation organized, I continued to be easy about it, knowing something was likely being organized behind the scenes.
Surely enough, I got a text from an old friend from my touring days, who said he was running all artist transportation for the festival and would make sure I was taken care of.
We got picked up and taken to the artist check-in, where many people had been milling about waiting for their RV and tent accommodation assignments for hours.
After three hours of wait and see, we were told that our RV wasn’t ready yet, and that they’d have to bring us to a hotel for the night.
It was deflating at first, because our small self minds were very set on this idea that we had come all this way and finally arrived, and we wanted this RV, and we definitely didn’t want to leave again to drive an hour to a dinky little motel and have to do it all over again tomorrow.
But on a deeper level, we knew something better was being organized. Because nature always knows better than we do.
Case-in-point #3: You deserve the best. But you have to accept it. Only when you let go of rigid attachment to what you thought you wanted and open yourself to what life is trying to offer you can you expect to receive it.
We got in another van and were treated to an exquisitely beautiful drive through the winding hill country of Texas; as the midwestern sunset washed over sprawling farmland, our driver remarked that “this is the most beautiful drive I’ve ever experienced in my life.”
If we had been too busy grumbling about the lost RV and lack of organization, firing off emails and complaining to each other, we would have missed the whole spectacle.
But because we remained open, we got to experience the evening through the lens of adventure, not adversity.
When we arrived at the hotel, which was only 15 minutes away, it was far from a dinky motel and even more breathtaking than the scenic drive. A tranquil 900-acre ranch-style resort overlooking a lake, with well-appointed rooms, bike and kayak rentals, a pool and hot tub, and delicious meals served by friendly people waiting for us in the dining hall.
It turned out that PBS had booked the whole place to film a documentary about the eclipse months back, but canceled some of their rooms at the last minute, which had now been allocated to the handful of us, who we later found out were among the “0.01%” of speakers who had lucked out with such an upgrade.
After dinner, lying on a comfy mattress, I emailed the organizers and said “we’ll be just fine here for the rest of the weekend; you can give our RV to someone else.”
Case-in-point #4: Get out of your own way and don’t let great get eclipsed by good by undermining what nature is doing. If things are changing, it’s always for the better, even if you can’t see it yet.
Over the next few days, I delivered my scheduled talk at the festival, met some beautiful souls, reconnected with some old friends from my DJ days and stayed out until sunrise, but mostly played checkers, ate popcorn, and basked in nature at our hotel.
On the final day of the festival, the day of the actual eclipse, I was supposed to head over to site again to interview an artist called LP Giobbi about her strategies for soundness of mind in the music industry, but woke up to emails that the festival had been canceled due to weather.
I was blown away that they would cancel this event, which had been entirely conceived and constructed around the eclipse, just hours before said eclipse. Bummer?
Instead, Kim and I watched the sun and moon line up from our dock, and as we bathed in the four minutes of complete totality, it felt like the entire course of events had “lined up” to provide us with this experience.
But how were we gonna get back to Austin?
With 32,000 people scrambling to evacuate the site after the eclipse before oncoming weather, surely the transportation infrastructure would be overwhelmed, and we were just lowly meditation teachers, not big-deal headliners with high-powered agents demanding their safe passage.
At 4:15pm, I got a message from my friend, the transportation czar, like Charlie from Charlie’s Angels, telling me there was a shuttle coming out way at 5pm and we’d better be on it, because there wouldn’t be any tomorrow.
We had a choice, to stay our final night at this beautiful resort that was already paid for by the festival, and attempt to Uber back the next day, or to hurry and pack our stuff, leave like the wind, and figure out somewhere to stay in Austin.
Case-in-point #5: The path of least friction is usually the best one.
We piled into the van with some dusty, tired and lovely folks from the festival.
Every part of my small self wanted to book the most reasonably priced hotel on HotelTonight immediately, knowing hotels would be difficult to come by, given the mass exodus from the festival and the eclipse itself.
But again something deeper said to wait.
Wait for what?
Don’t know.
At 8pm, as the van neared closer and closer to our drop-off point, Austin Bergstrom International Airport, we still didn’t have any accommodation set up.
Luckily for us, what transpired next was one of the strangest things any of us had ever experienced.
The driver attempted to enter the airport ride-share pickup area, but missed the turn and had to circle back again.
On his second attempt, he missed it again, and had to circle a third time.
On his third attempt, he entered it successfully, but accidentally took a wrong turn and found himself in the out-spout of the area, unable to turn around, and somehow, yet again choiceless but to exit the airport and loop around again.
The airport had spit us out like a wrinkled dollar bill in a vending machine three times.
Growing frustrated, this time, the driver asked for our drop-off address and said he might as well just take us directly there.
None of it made any sense.
Case-in-point #6: The way forward is not always immediately evident. You must get comfortable with brinkmanship.
The passenger behind me was talking about how his organization had put together a last-minute event that night in Austin in lieu of the festival.
For some reason, I found myself asking if he needed a DJ and offering the services of my good friend and well-known DJ Mija, who I had reconnected with over the weekend and knew was in Austin that night.
He was over the moon—“you mean like, Mija, Mija?!”
He invited us to their Airbnb to drop off our bags while we negotiated the booking of Mija for his event, then joined them at said event.
We had no idea why any of this was happening, but only that we were going with the flow.
After about two hours at the party, around 1am, we were craving some horizontal rest, and once again, the idea of booking a hotel was very appealing—except this time, since it was after midnight, booking online would mean booking for the next night. So we were choiceless but to remain.
Within 30 seconds of abandoning the hotel idea, two guys walked up to us.
One of them gave me a big hug and a warm greeting. I didn’t recognize him at first, but he used to be the A&R guy for the label I ran from 2019-2022.
After catching up, we shared our situation, to which they both replied “don’t worry.”
Turns out, both my former associate and his friend have some kind of special access with one of the major hotel chains.
They booked us a discounted room with all the bells and whistles and drove us there.
Case-in-point #7: Nature will always provide. What may feel like a ‘situation’ is simply an unfoldment.
Clearly, there was some reason we were meant to reconnect with my old friend.
The next day, he offered to set me up with my own hotel access, so that could be one reason.
Beyond hotels though, I have a feeling I was reconnected with my old friend for bigger reasons that are yet to be seen.
Again, I would have been happy to pay for that first hotel that night and to have been in bed by 10pm. But that would have been letting great get eclipsed by good.
Instead, by following nature, I wound up connecting with a good friend, staying in a nicer place for less, potentially having the ability to do so whenever I want moving forward, and who knows what more is to come.
Case-in-point #8: Don’t sacrifice what could be for what’s safe.
After two days in Austin, it made all the sense in the world for me to go straight to LA, where I could stay at my partner Matt’s house for the weekend and guide a student through Exploring The Veda 3 online. It was easier and cheaper.
But again, something deeper, against all rational logic, urged me to go to….Houston?!
My colleague Kim was going there to visit her mom, but I don’t know anybody in Houston or have any business in Houston.
Kim challenged me, “are you willing to go to Houston for simply no reason at all, knowing the reason will likely reveal itself later? When was the last time you went somewhere for no reason at all?”
At the level of charm, a no-reason-roadtrip to Houston sounded more fun than any other options.
Case-in-point #9: Charm often doesn’t make sense.
So we rented a convertible Mustang, cued up a 3-hour playlist of classic American rock, and cruised the open roads of heartland USA to the sounds of Fleetwood Mac, Steve Miller Band, Crosby Stills, Nash & Young and the Buffalo Springfield.
Honestly, just having that experience was a good enough reason to take the road less traveled. And the Peanut Butter Cookie Dough Blizzard seen here didn’t hurt either.
But as I sit here writing this from a Houston Airbnb, I have a feeling there’s lots more to unfold as a result.
Houston, we have no problems.
…Were you waiting for point #10? You must have missed points 1,3,4, and 9 ;)
Let’s discuss these and other ideas during Collective Effervescence, our online group meditation series, this Sunday April 14 at 12PM ET. Drop in for meditation only (first 30 min) or stay for discussion + Q&A on this and other life topics from the Vedic perspective. Join the WhatsApp group to receive reminders 24 hours before each session, or use the below links to have all upcoming dates automatically sync to your calendar.
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The best music always has Vedic themes. Don’t let your dreams be dreams.
Flow is such a powerful state. This story provided all the proof!
Now THAT’S a good story!