Trust The Universe

For those who know me, you know I am "woo woo", I am 100% that girl. I believe in crystals for healing and bringing energy to specific things. I pull tarot cards and angel cards in the morning. I burn sage in my office. I have crystals on the dashboard of my car. I am THAT person. It shouldn't be a surprise that a few of my clients are crystal stores or that I did the styling on the Energy Muse girls first book Crystal Muse.  I wholeheartedly believe that the universe puts things in your pathway in order for you to see if you will go around something or face it directly. So, when last week's filming came to a crashing halt, I should have known. You see, we were filming during mercury retrograde. 

What does that mean? 

Mercury retrograde is an optical illusion which means it looks as if the planet is moving backwards from our view here on earth. Astrologers believe that during this perceived backwards motion, technology and communication could get disrupted, putting a damper on anyone's summer mood. 

NOTE: technology and communication. 

Two things we are attempting to do and the universe was definitely sending a message.

I am in the early stages of building a subscription based platform teaching retailers how to do displays and merchandise. There are a few people doing this, but the difference is, they are teaching it with the perfect amount of merchandise, the perfect architecture and not in a retail setting. I am teaching these classes in a retail store, with real levels of inventory and real life scenarios, for example, "what do I do with the last few pieces of this?" or "none of this makes sense, how do I create a display around it?" In order to do this, I am re-merchandising my client’s floors at the same time we are filming it and am explaining it all as we go. We will be filming content for over a year & covering each holiday. I will be teaching retailers everything I have learned for the past 40+ years. Window displays, tabletops, display cases, cross merchandising, apparel etc. You name it. I will be covering it. 

Day one of filming: I can see our photographer is not in a good place. He is anxious and upset about something but says he will be fine. His anxiety is feeding my anxiety but the show must go on so we start to film. My husband is also here, working with us,  filming on a second camera and covering different angles that camera #1 does not see. 
A few hours into filming, I can see our photographer is not going to be ok, so I suggest he just head home.  At this point, it's actually better for me if he heads home, as I am already nervous and somewhat stressed and he is making it 10x worse. We can do it with one camera, it's not the best scenario but we are not filming a major motion picture here...so we press on.   

Five minutes into filming, battery number one dies. Not a problem, we have a second one, it's been charging and it's at 85%, great, let’s go. Not 20 minutes into filming, battery number 2 it is about to die.  

WTF?  

I am literally half crying and half laughing. I text Elisa, our digital marketing manager, and tell her what is happening. She reminds me that mercury is in retrograde and sends me info that it's all about communication. OMG! How did I not even think of that? I am the ‘woo woo’ girl, I should have known why this is what was happening. Meanwhile, I have 2 large areas of my client's store that I need to put back together and hopefully capture some of it on film but I am seriously starting to doubt it is going to happen.  

While the batteries are charging we switch to the iPhone, not my number one choice but it's our only option at this point. We have something called a gimbal, it's a handheld device that you put your camera or in this case, your phone into and it will create smooth photography. When you see people’s videos and it's moving all over and you feel sea sick, the gimbal fixes that. However, the gimbal needs to be calibrated and guess what, it's having none of it. 

At this point, I am feeling defeated, tired and frustrated. So much goes into trying to pull something like this off. I am only in this store 4x a year. It's the perfect scenario because the store is closed so we can take our time and do it right without having to worry about customers being in the store. We officially just lost the only day we had to film. There are things like air travel (the store is in Morgan Hill), sleeping arrangements, food, time and all of it equals money. I am no longer laughing. I am flat out crying.

I put the store back together and we wrap it up. Elisa's message to me at the end of the day was, " I think the universe is telling you to relax and spend time with your hubs and enjoy the moment". She was right, I knew she was right. The following day we were supposed to film in someone's store for my podcast, I half way had a feeling it wasn't going to happen due to circumstances beyond the owners control. So it wasn't a surprise when it didn't happen. But guess what... It was ok. I submitted to the fact that this trip was a wash, we were only 30 minutes from San Francisco, it was a beautiful rare warm day and we were going to take advantage of it! San Francisco for an appetizer and a glass of wine. We sat on the waterfront, faces in the sun and soaked up every minute of it.

I don't know if I will ever have the opportunity to go to SF just for a glass of wine and an appetizer with my husband again. It was a rare gift, the gift of time, the gift of being in the right place at the right time, the gift of living in moment and the biggest gift, to not worry about what the fuck just happened over the last few days.    

Trust the universe.

Cheers

Michelle

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