I am a passionate tea drinker. And I’m very particular how I like it: Black tea, dunked ten times, not too strong, not too weak, with enough milk (not half and half) to make it blond. Every once in a while, my wishes are not fulfillable. Starbucks is changing vendors and is out of all teas except Green, Chamomile and Peppermint. Or, the coffee shop at the airport just doesn’t get it. Instead of telling me they don’t have any version of black tea, they give me green tea with milk. I am learning, since listening to the Surrender Experiment by Michael Singer to embrace all those occasions where I used to just get freaking annoyed, or worse.

Will walking around the terminal looking for the perfect cup of tea help me run into just the inspiring person I was meant to meet? Will it give me the exercise I really needed? Will it make me miss my flight and arrange some other detail of my life just perfectly?  Singer’s point is that every obstacle has a huge upside that he could never have predicted, or made him part of some divine plan to do something just perfectly in the universe. Michael Singer’s surrender to that is incredibly inspiring, and his life story of great success speaks to the power of letting go and just rolling with the way things unfold for us, even when our ego wishes it was exactly the opposite, or at least dramatically different.

I suffered greatly during my divorce, and literally hated every minute. I think my ex picks up on that sentiment, so even now, years later, the divorce isn’t over…

Yet, I am realizing my divorce is the greatest gift to me ever. It taught me to stand for myself, to really stand for myself. It taught me to survive, when everyone was intent on taking from me, what I had worked for, my parental rights, things that are so painful, unjust, and counter to every moral, ethical and fair principle I won’t even list them here because it defies believability. Now, I realize that time has given me great compassion, the ability to dust myself off from other setbacks that feel minor compared to the divorce. I have learned personal resilience I couldn’t have learned any other way.

How can you really look for the gift, for the divine, loving, abundance of the universe in everything? Remember a figure like that gym teacher in middle school who made you do more than you thought possible. Mine, I hated him, with a passion. Now, I remember him every time I do something physically challenging, and he reminds me I can.

What event that doesn’t match your initial expectations has a tremendous gift hidden inside it?