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I want to know what is coming next. I want to feel prepared.
So when my plans for buying a house fell apart, it affected me a lot!
Thank goodness I had my meditation practice to help me get through all the uncertainty that ensued.
Our house was up for sale and I drove an hour and a half to a couple of interviews right before Christmas in the new city.
First, there was the uncertainty of getting a job offer in a tight job market. At this point, I had been out of work for 3 months and starting to run out of savings. Only one company had shown any interest in my skills and after the first interview said a second interview was required. Would I get the job?
Then, there was the uncertainty of selling our house in a buyer’s market. We had watched the house down the street sit for sale for 7 months before someone bought it. They had brought their price down at least 2 times. Our house had been on the market for 4 weeks and only 1 couple had come by only to say it was their second favorite.
Thoughts about what’s in store for us kept coming up throughout the day. It’s very natural to want to know, will I get the job? Will we sell the house?
When we worry about what’s going to happen, we are trying to know the future. The higher the level of uncertainty, the more we want to plan and be prepared.
We imagine different outcomes and if you’re like me, most of the outcomes you imagine are negative. So, there we are living out imaginary futures in our minds.
Luckily my meditation practice brings me back to the present moment. And at that present moment in December, I still had savings. The bank was not foreclosing on our house. I had hope for a very good job in a city I really liked. This meditation grounded me in the present so I could stop worrying and enjoy Christmas.
Then it started up again, the uncertainty of my situation continued on through New Year’s Eve. I pulled some of my 401k to fund our cost of living through February and fears about going bankrupt set in.
We were already practicing frugality but now buying groceries or getting gas for my car brought up fears about running out of money. Fears about spending my 401k. How will I ever retire?
Writing this down, I realize how crazy those fears sound. But they were very real to me at the time and my meditation practice helped me get past the fears. This meditation helps me see what is imaginary and only exists in my mind. These fears were not reality. I wasn’t bankrupt and I still had resources.
Meditation helped me change my fear of spending all of my retirement savings into gratitude. I was grateful to have a 401k as a resource in this time of need. So many people don’t have this luxury.
Two weeks into January I accepted a job offer and started driving the hour and a half to work every day because my house was still for sale.
I felt a new urgency to sell the house as I was now feeling the pain of living far away from my job. I wondered how many weeks will I need to keep doing this? Only 2 couples had come to see the house and they said it was nice but not their first choice. The uncertainty of “will my house sell?” made me feel unfortunate and I went around feeling sorry for myself that first week at work.
What meditation teaches us is acceptance of what is, rather than to be upset or frustrated about things not being as we think they should be. If you really look at it, with acceptance of reality we can always be happy but wanting things to go our way will leave us unhappy most of the time.
I was able to change how I saw my situation and feel gratitude for the new job and that I had a nice house to come home to. I learned to enjoy the long drives and use the time to listen to podcasts and music.
I started to feel fortunate and even considered keeping the house and committing to the long drives for a year or so.
On the second week at work, we got an offer on the house. The closing date was set so we had 4 weeks to find another house closer to work.
After one week of house hunting, we found the perfect house! We put in our offer and everything seemed to be so certain once again. We could plan again! Having things go as planned makes us feel safe. A plan gives us certainty and we draw confidence from feeling safe and certain.
Our realtor and lender said we could close on the sale of our house and the purchase of the new house on the same day. Easy transition.
To my surprise the buyer backed out and the seller of the house we thought would be so easy to buy did not accept our offer. The double disappointment was very hard to accept and felt down right discouraging.
My meditation practice did not allow me to lose my courage.I was able to see that even though the loss of the deals was a very emotional event, nothing was really lost. I still lived in my house and I had learned how to enjoy the commute to work. And there were many other houses for sale in our price range. We would just keep looking.
My meditation practice did not allow me to lose my courage.I was able to see that even though the loss of the deals was a very emotional event, nothing was really lost. I still lived in my house and I had learned how to enjoy the commute to work. And there were many other houses for sale in our price range. We would just keep looking.
When we don’t know what is coming, we often imagine the worst things are coming. In this case, a better offer was coming.
A week went by and we got another offer on the house. $5000 more than the previous offer. Wow. With a new closing date on the sale of our house, the race was on to find a new house. We looked at 8 to 10 houses in our price range every weekend and kept coming back to that one perfect house with the unwilling seller. Uncertainty started to creep in again. How long is it going to take before we find a house? I felt a little lost.
We had gone back to the seller with our offer and each time they asked us to make one more change. They asked for more earnest money, a different title company, a different closing date and even things like presenting the dollar amounts as percentages in the contract. This back-and-forth dragged out for five weeks.
We closed on the sale of our house and took shelter at an Airbnb that was willing to allow pets.
Negotiations with the seller continued. The seller continued to ask for changes in our offer and drag out the process.
We couldn’t plan. We rented the Airbnb tentatively a week at a time not knowing how long we could continue to live there. Not to mention how expensive it was becoming.
The uncertainty of our situation made me feel like a victim. I was angry and frustrated. I found myself thinking of the sellers as enemies who were just making my life difficult.
We tend to create imaginary situations full of drama in our minds. We get all caught up in our imaginary situations, it is difficult to see the truth. But this meditation helps us step outside our mind and see it.
I was a resourceful person who found temporary housing, close to work, cheaper than a hotel and that would accept my pets.
I was a smart person who could have considered houses in higher price ranges, and perhaps avoided this unpleasant situation but understood what I could comfortably afford.
The seller was not an enemy. They were simply looking to make a deal that they were comfortable with.
It was finally in March that we were able to buy the house and move out of the Airbnb. I am grateful to once again live in a nice house and have a nice job and a nice short commute. Most of all, I am grateful for this meditation practice that constantly brought me out of my anticipation and worry and back to reality, and reality was pretty good after all.
Looking back on this journey, I’ve discovered that uncertainty, while uncomfortable, can sometimes lead to better outcomes than we initially imagine. The practice of returning to the present moment helped me see my situation clearly, without the distortion of fear. When we can separate our imagined fears from our current reality, we often find that we have the resources and resilience to handle whatever comes our way.
The next time you face uncertainty in your life, remember that the present moment is where your power lies. The future, with all its possibilities, hasn’t happened yet—and our imaginings about it are often far worse than reality.
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