I used to live for survival. To scrape by. To make it.

I never realized what I was doing until a friend pointed it out. Good friends do that for you, they point out the thing you don’t want to see the most, in a gentle way, when it’s the right time.

I had gotten a Christmas bonus, not a large bonus, but an unexpected one.
I was telling my friend how excited I was and how I had not expected a bonus. My friend says “What are you going to do for yourself with it?”
“Pay some bills!” I say. I love getting things accomplished, paying things off, even though that might mean I have to charge them right back up.
She turned her head away from me, pausing. “What is it? Out with it.” I said

She says “I asked what you are going to do for yourself and you didn’t think about yourself first, you thought about money.”

Boom. Head-exploding advice right in the moment.

Have I been doing this? Surviving? Not taking care of myself first? Thinking of money instead of what’s right for me? Some might say the opposite of SURVIVAL is DEATH. It isn’t. In my case, it’s abundance. Survival is one step away from death in my book, not at the opposite end of the world. Survival is a hard habit to break, but an easy pattern to keep recreating in my life. Over and over.

She then said “I want you to leave here and head to Twist (one of my favorite jewelry stores) and buy yourself something. Right now.” Good friends do that too, they gently nudge or SHOVE you in the right direction when the time is right.

Could I? Should I? Shouldn’t I? Why shouldn’t I?

I walked into Twist and headed directly to a jewelry case that I know has the work of Jeanine Payer in it.  Classic, simple jewelry with poetry inscribed on it in the tiniest letters, so small that they are sometimes hard to read, but you always know it’s there.

The first necklace I ask to see, has a slim curved silver pendant, about a half-an-inch long and a red jewel stone hanging next to it. It’s delicate. I hold it up in the light to read it. On one side it says, “I call for your abundance” on the other “like an armor of ships.” ~ Leonore Wilson.

Boom. Again. A message from the universe.

Be on the lookout. The words always come, right when you need them, but you have to be listening.

*disclaimer – the photo of the necklace here is similar to mine, but the one in the photo has a diamond, not a red jewel.