Tent tragedy turned around

I’m regularly reminded of the importance of setting intentions and being mindful of my thoughts and how I perceive life events.

My son and I enjoyed working together to set up our tent despite the windy conditions. I had complete confidence that our name brand, tent “investment” would prove to withstand any weather conditions that we might experience.

We were all enjoying the festival when my son decided to return to the tent to get something. He came back to tell us that the wind had snapped the polls of the tent and it had collapsed like a pancake.

My initial reaction was one of disbelief. It was an expensive tent and I was pretty sure I was misunderstanding my son when he said it had broken. (This could also be called denial.) As logic set in, I knew my son had accurately detailed the situation. I dabbled with feelings of annoyance and frustration for a few moments.

I know in the past these feelings of frustration and anger would have lingered much longer for me. However, since I had done my meditations and we had set our intentions, I was able to handle the situation with grace and ease, just as we had planned.

I quickly began to problem solve. We needed a warm, dry, safe place to stay so I began calling local hotels.

A young man overheard our story and interrupted to let me know he actually had an extra tent we could use! We were thrilled to be able to stay on the festival grounds and camp like we had planned.

There was one small issue with the tent however—it did not have a rain fly. This is important especially since we were in windy and potentially rainy conditions. I then remembered I had listened to some last minute intuition and grabbed a tarp just prior to leaving home. We worked together with neighboring campers that we had just met to rig up the tarp. Our borrowed tent was now cozy and waterproof!

The whole weekend was full of minor occurrences that ended up flowing with grace and ease just as we had intended. My daughter lost her walkie-talkie and soon after a little girl found us among a sea of hundreds of tents to deliver it back to her. I also misplaced a large sum of cash, decided not to be concerned and soon after it was found.

It was a magical weekend for all of us as we were able to connect with others and see our intentions play out with grace and ease throughout the weekend. Had we not set clear intentions for our time at the festival, it’s possible we could have allowed these minor events to have ruined our time.

Because we were clear on how we wanted to think and feel throughout our trip, we were able to enjoy the entire weekend. What you focus on certainly does grow!