“You are never alone or helpless. The force that guides the the stars guides you too.”  –Shrii Shrii Anandamurt, quoted in You Are a Badass by Jen Sincero

I had a small epiphany recently. For months, my son had been saying something that sounded like “dapadee.” I had no idea what it meant. I felt certain he wasn’t just babbling nonsense syllables, though, because he would say it over and over again. Dapadee! Dapadee! Dapadee dapadeeeeee… What the heck is dapadee? I thought. My husband speculated that maybe he was trying to say “patootie,” which we sometimes call him. We went with that theory for a while because we had no other ideas. For probably three months or so, along with the many other words he was learning, he kept repeating, Dapadee!

And then one day, a week or so ago, it clicked. He was on the changing table, and I said something like, “Time for a diaper change!” Looking at me with this innocent smile, he said, “Dapadee?” Diaper change! “Dapadee?” I repeated. “Diaper change?” “Dapadee, dapadee!” he said. I finally got it. It made perfect sense. Why on earth had it taken me so long to figure out that he was trying to say diaper change?

I’m not a religious person, but I’m starting to believe that the world around us — call it God, the Universe, Source Energy, Collective Consciousness, Life Force, or whatever you prefer — has a way of sending us messages. We aren’t always able to understand them, though. Sometimes it takes the right messenger and the right confluence of events for us to really get the message. I had heard my son say “dapadee” over and over again and not understood it at all. It wasn’t until I was in the right set of circumstances and the right frame of mind that I was finally able to understand what he was telling me. Similarly, we can hear messages over and over again from various speakers, gurus, friends and family, but if we aren’t ready to hear them, they won’t mean much to us.

For me, the whole notion of the Universe sending me messages is something I frankly thought was nonsense until fairly recently, despite how many people around me believe in it and talk about it. I suppose various factors had led my mind to open a bit to the spiritual in recent years, but I didn’t really begin to come around to this notion until I read the work of Jen Sincero. I guess she was the messenger I needed, and perhaps life had just brought me to a point where I was ready to believe in some sort of organizing force. I don’t identify with all of Jen’s beliefs, but but many of her teachings have really helped to transform the way I see things.

Don’t get me wrong: I’m still not religious, and I don’t believe that everything that happens is predestined or determined by an all-powerful metaphysical being. But it’s nice to think that we aren’t just living in chaos, that some spirit out there wants me to succeed, that Universal Intelligence is rooting for me and guiding me along my path. Maybe all those strange coincidences I’ve witnessed throughout my life aren’t just coincidence. Now that I’ve awakened to this idea, it seems that the same messages, the same themes, are popping up left and right for me.

One big message I’ve been encountering over and over again in recent months to live beyond fear. It’s amazing how many of our decisions can be controlled by fear if we aren’t careful. But to really have the life I want, to do great things and be the best I can be, I have to push beyond fear — fear of failure, fear of insufficiency, fear of insecurity. Left and right, I’m reminded of this through various channels: a podcast, an Instagram post, a comment from a stranger, an inspirational poster, a book, a perfectly timed essay. Logically, I know that we see in life what we want to see, consciously or subconsciously, so perhaps my own mindset is calling these messages to my attention. Whatever the source, it feels as though the universe is reminding me of exactly what I need to hear when I need to hear it. (Yes, my skeptical friends, I know what some of you think of referring to “the universe” in this way, but just roll with me here and consider it an imperfect word choice for a hard-to-describe concept.)

Another message that’s popping up a lot for me lately is the idea of abundance: that the world is an abundant place, full of possibilities, brimming with unrecognized potential, and full of intangible resources waiting to be tapped. I’ve realized over the past year or two that I have a tendency to fall into the trap of operating from a sense of scarcity, where I feel like there isn’t enough of whatever I need — time, money, energy, attention. But thinking of these things as finite and scarce, of life as a zero-sum game, often leads me to feel either lack or guilt. Believing that there is plenty and that I will always have what I need may seem Pollyanna-ish, but it is freeing and heart-opening.

Earlier this year, a therapist I was seeing commented that when we are holding on tightly to what we have, our hands aren’t open to accept what is given to us. She was suggesting that letting go and giving freely can open us up to receive incredible gifts to which we would otherwise be closed off. Just like the call to live beyond fear, this message of abundance has presented itself to me repeatedly over the past several months. Old patterns of thinking and behaving are hard to break, so I’m grateful for this repetition and confirmation. To change our way of thinking, sometimes we need to be confronted with the same message repeatedly until it really sinks in.

As you move through the coming days, I encourage you to listen careful to what the world around you, and your intuition, is telling you. What messages have you been receiving again and again? If you have no idea, try getting quiet — reading, meditating, going for walks, and practicing yoga tend to help me to tune into the messages I need to hear.

Thanks, as always, for reading. If you enjoyed this post, please comment and share.