Looking out the window, Looking out the window, drinking CHOYA (my favorite Japanese plum wine) while writing this blog post (6:12 pm), I found myself slightly buzzed. As I closed my eyes and just let that tipsy feeling take me back to September 20th, 2013 as everything still feels almost surreal…
That sunny Friday noon, I got into the EUROSTAR train leaving Paris Gare Du Nord to London St. Pancras to visit my girlfriend from Brazil. I sat down with my coffee and croissant at the window seat, feeling elated to embark on the journey. There was a lady in her mid-60s, sitting right next to me so full of smile and I somehow felt drawn to her.
“It’s my first time visiting Paris with my mother, and we are enjoying the time together…,” she said. And I was wondering where her mother was seated in the carriage.
“Oh… She just passed away a month ago. My mother had always wanted to come to Paris. So, I brought her ashes with me this time from Australia. We went up the Eiffel Tower, took a walk along the La Seine river and even went shopping at Louis Vuitton yesterday…” she smiled with her teary eyes. I was so speechless in front this stranger, yet at the same time feeling so touched by what she was sharing about the mother-daughter relationship. Within the first 10minutes of the conversation, I already had a hard time controlling my tears from falling that I had to borrow tissues from her.
The lady worked as a spiritual medium. I didn’t ask her for a read because, during the journey of 2 hours, we simply had a fantastic time chatting like two long-lost friends. I was caught by surprise to find out that her first name, Pan is the same as my mom’s last name. Then, her son and I share the same birthday! What a coincidence! I had no idea what synchronicity means at the time.
Me: “I’m heading back home to Taiwan next month, and I don’t feel like going back to the IT industry that I’ve been working for the past decade, but have no idea what I am going to do… (with great puzzlement)”
Pan: “Are you interested in going into an area of helping others, such as coaching?”
Me: “Coaching? Do you mean working in the gym as a coach? I like to help others, but I don’t think I’m good at lifting weights.” (I can’t believe how naive I was, LOL!)
She laughed and told me to contact her via email, and she’d introduce her friends from the coaching field in Australia. As we arrived in London, Pan wrote down her email on a slip of paper and handed it to me; she said, “I’m looking forward to your email and let’s keep in touch!”
Mystical Moment arrived…
After returning to Lyon, France where I stayed for six months (to recuperate my hearing disability), I felt the need to send her an email with gratitude immediately.
The strangest thing happened when I pressed the SEND button; I got an email bounced back:
“Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently.”
I was shocked at first because we did confirm the email address at St. Pancras!
As the time passed by, I gave up and simply let my disappointment take over after trying dozen possible combinations of email addresses that all wound up invalid. What da heck?!
did I just happen to hallucinate my way out of it? Maybe I was having fun talking to an empty seat??!
In early 2014, I was busy taking care of my mother who was recovering from her lung cancer surgery that I had completely forgotten about the train incident. Being confused about what lay ahead of me, I chose to become a language teacher for the time being so to make a living while starting to serve others.
One day, I had a random chat with my TESOL trainer (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages), and somehow the conversation was steered towards the subject about COACHING. I had an instant light bulb moment since it wasn’t the first time that I heard of the word.
He encouraged me to look deeper into any coaching related academy in either the U.S. or Australia because I had a strong urge to focus on making a difference in people’s life. Eventually, the conversation prompted me to embark on my coaching journey to getting certified as a professional coach with an Australian coaching academy, which just made me realized that Pan was from Australia too.
One of my favorite quote from Steve Jobs:
“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.”
If it weren’t because of my near deaf experience (hitting rock bottom) years ago, I wouldn’t have gone to France and contemplated the meaning of life. If it weren’t because of the mystical encounter with the lady in the train, I wouldn’t have become enthusiastic about helping people through my coaching career now.
Switching from a corporate sales role to becoming a professional coach is a drastic change in my life for sure. As I continue to invest time and energy to work on myself throughout the years (mostly dealing with my freak’n head-talk), I learn to honor “every Me” (even up until today) that was trying her very best to participate in the unknown. Of course, the whole package of figuring myself out includes getting super lost, overwhelmed, frustrated and anxious.
I believe that each event happened in our timeline serves a divine purpose and it might not make any sense at that particular moment, but when looking backward and deeper, we are privileged to see things in a bird’s eye view. Yes, tomorrow is a mystery but having the inner trust to continue marching forward, we will be able to connect dots ahead with a whole new scenery.
Well, about the 2-hour train mystery, perhaps this is how the story supposed to end, and I’ll just leave it here. It’s as perfect as it is. So, there comes my spirituality lesson 101, trust the divine wisdom that you are being guided no matter wherever you are. Even if you can’t tell certain event serves any meaning in your life right now, just know that you are at the perfect place to experience everything that will make sense to you in the coming future. :))
Sending you lots of Love, Joy, Peace & Happiness.
xoxo,
Jen
