By Dr. Sandy Islands for Conch Color
My husband had minor knee surgery scheduled for the following day in Miami. I'd booked a hotel online. The advertisement said it had a "European flare." For season, it was reasonably priced and close to the hospital. At check in they confirmed our "smoking" room. I corrected them politely that we'd reserved "nonsmoking." We arrived at our room with two double beds. I kindly called and reminded them that we'd reserved a king. We settled into our room and my husband noticed that the remote control was missing. We called and the woman at the front desk said that she'd have one sent right up. We turned on the TV and were happy that they had in-room movies but they wouldn't work without the remote. We relaxed changing channels using the button on the TV, as we'd done most of our childhoods. Yes, I'm that old. After a half hour, I called again and offered to come and retrieve the remote or go to our previous room and get that one. The clerk refused my offer until I showed up at the front desk two hours later and insisted that she allow me to help. With remote in hand, I felt sure we'd accomplished our mission until we tried it and the in-room movies wouldn't load up. She assured me that our lines were open, that it had to do with Lodge Net, the movie provider, who she said she'd called and reported the problem.
We wanted to remain calm and accepting the night before my husband's surgery, but my frustration mounted and I even called another hotel close by that was much more expensive and didn't have availability. We decided to let it go, have dinner, and hope that the movies would work by the time we returned. They didn't for the rest of our stay. We arrived at the hospital the next day at our designated time. My husband's surgery was scheduled for 12:30 and they didn't wheel him back until 2:30 which was uncomfortable since he couldn't eat or drink anything. I had to ask myself what lessons could be learned? In the midst of frustration, the best distraction is gratitude. It's impossible to focus on gratitude and on how things aren't working out the way we want or expect them to at the same time. Usually, when we're frustrated and ungrateful, we attract more of the same experiences. When we're ungrateful we can literally block the good that is coming to us.
If we want a new car but are ungrateful for the car we have, we'll send out that frequency and we won't attract anything better. If we feel grateful for the car we have, we'll energetically send out a powerful summons for the better car that we want. In the midst of the hotel and hospital experiences, I felt grateful that we had a clean, nice hotel to stay in with an unexpected continental breakfast included. I felt grateful that the same doctor, who'd successfully performed my knee replacement in December, managed his time with his patient's well being in mind and, like with any job, sometimes had unplanned schedule changes. I felt extremely grateful when my husband emerged from surgery awake, alert and walked out of the hospital a half hour later.
We experience life negatively because we turn our backs on the good that's there. Let's decide to practice feeling grateful for the things we want to come to us before they appear- like the perfect relationship, dream job, absolute health, and total abundance. In this way we're sending out the frequency to the Universe that we already have these things. The law of attraction doesn't know if we're imagining something or if it's real, so by giving heartfelt thanks now, we'll attract exactly what we want. Don't believe it? What have we got to lose? Let's give grateful thinking a try!
Please write to Dr. Sandy Islands at sandyislands@hawaii.rr.com and feel free to browse previous articles at www.sandyislands.com.