Sailing on the Bosphorus, Sailing in Life

I was in Istanbul last weekend.  As I was looking out my window on Saturday, I started to see sailing boats with open blown sails on the Bosphorus.  This was not a common sight since sail boats can only travel with their engine on the Bosphorus. Normally. But sometimes there is a race and this special straight in Istanbul looks totally different.  No more tankers, no more big ships, but the Bosphorus is filled with racing sailboats big and small with their mostly white and colourful sails.  I felt calm and happy and lucky to have the chance to experience one of these special days on the Bosphorus.

I believe that there is always a purpose for the things that come into our lives.   This does not always mean that it is easy for me to accept what is happening.  This is a belief that there is a reason, a purpose for what is taking place.

I had trainings organised for the next six days in Istanbul and that is why I thought I was in the city.  Reiki courses, Bach Flower Remedy courses, coaching sessions.  I had thought I was in the city for work.  I had chosen the dates to be in through looking at the dates in the calendar and feelings which were the dates that felt good for me to be in Istanbul.  All of training and sessions appointments were taken afterwards.  Well, it seems that there was more reasons for me to be in Istanbul around that time.

It turns there was a big repair planned in my apartment building in Istanbul and my landlord needed to make changes and repairs in my apartment immediately.  I had not heard of the repairs since I had been away from Istanbul for two weeks and I learned this urgent news on my first morning in the city.  Since I had planned to be in the city for almost the week, this would not be a problem for me.  But if they had said this was to be done say next it would be a major problem because after that I needed to be in Izmir for four important meetings in three days. Yet, the bigger surprise for me is that I was asking landlord for the repairs in the windows, actually for her to change the old wooden style windows with single layer glasses on the back side of the apartment for almost seven years. The heat and sound insulation was quite bad and it was hard to repair the windowsill which were more than thirty years old.  I had lost hope and now it needs to be done for the other repairs in the apartment building to be done.  I am just grateful.

There are many reasons of why we need to be at a certain place at a certain time.  And there are many different ways that we decide to be at a certain place.  Sometimes it is just a feeling tells me to go to Fethiye on a certain date, without any apparent reasons.  Most of the time the reason appears on its own.  Feeling to go to different places at different times.  Like the feeling that tells us to do or not to do something, there is always a call to go or to stay as well.  The result of a meeting I had in the city of Elazığ about ten days ago explains the uneasiness that I felt in going.  The team told me that I should be there as their leader and as their boss; I had felt that with my presence we might be cornered into a decision that we were not ready for.

They insisted that I should be there.  I did not say no.  As it sometimes is, it was difficult to come with logical reasons to explain why I should not be there with my team of engineers.  With the almost twenty years of work that I had done as an engineer, I see their point.  However, with the new understanding I have as a Reiki Master, a complimentary healing therapist and coach, how I can I live ignoring my strong feelings?  The meeting in Elazığ was a quite technical meeting and my feelings had told me that I shouldn’t be there regardless of all the mental, organizational and technical reasons. 

Those of you who might have read “Missing Lady” last week might see a pattern.  Last residues of a pattern that I want to call attention to.  In the last five six years there are indeed very very few times that I do not listen to my feelings, that I do not listen to my heart anymore.  My decision to attend the meeting in Elazığ was almost simultaneous with my decision to confirm Lady’s operation that we lost her in.

If something is not calm in your heart when you make a decision, it is a sign that definitely needs to be taken into account.  Do not decide, please do not decide before understanding what it is trying to tell you.  Maybe it is to say no, maybe it is to prepare better, but surely there is part of the puzzle that still needs to be discovered.  I had been grateful for this feelings that has made me happy and that protected me I must say that kept be alive a few times. As I find myself writing about a similar approach to life again, I realize that it is not enough to be grateful anymore.  It is important for me to say that the life I am grateful for was only possible with that compass of feelings.

I have two books published in English and they are the collections of the articles I have written in the Land of Light.  For over five years I wrote in almost every issue in our Land of Lights.  And then an offer came to publish those articles.  One thing led to another and I found myself receiving such interesting email from both Turks and foreigners who have read those two books “Is It Written in the Stars?” and “Imagine Being Lucky.”  In 2006 when I had started to write for our English newspaper, I surely did not imagine that I would have two books in English that were sold all around Turkey.  I had not imagined I would have six other books in Turkish either.  One thing led to another.  One feeling, one insight led to another. 

The late Steve Jobs of Apple had said this may be better than most in his commencement speech at Stanford University in June 2005: “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. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” May he rest in peace and may we find the strength and courage to listen to our heart.