Yesterday I solved Wordle in two tries. It's not because I'm smart or gifted in word games. But I do have a strategy that has everything to do with energy (and nothing to do with brains). In Wordle you must enter any five-letter word to start and then figure out the mystery word based on the correct and incorrect letters in your guesses. I find that if my first guess is the first word that randomly pops into my head out of nowhere, I often do much better at the game than if I sit there and think long and hard about the intellectually and strategically "best" first-word guess.
The foolproof key for me is blatant not thinking. When, after a random word pops into my head, I happen to question it and judge it, I override my brain and play it anyway. I end up going with the feeling of “It just feels right but I don’t know why.” Which is exactly where the magic is.
One night a while back when I was getting ready to go to bed, I had an urge to check where my two cats were. I never, ever do that before going to bed and didn’t know why I suddenly had to that night. I found Faro in the living room, but couldn’t find Calla anywhere. Typically I would then go into a panic, creating scenarios in my head thinking she’d slipped out when we took out the trash (even though she’s never done that in her life), but this time I stayed calm—I felt I needed to look for her and that she was ok.
I told my boyfriend that I had no idea where Calla was and then watched as Faro instantly got up, walked to one of our closets and stared intently at the door. Even though I had shut that door ten minutes earlier after checking for any cats within, I knew he was telling me she was inside. I opened the door to find her lounging on a stack of towels, safe and content.
The other night I had a dream about my friend Diana on the other side, who I miss intensely. I know a lot happened in the dream—we went places and talked, but everything is blurry except for the moment we hugged. That felt super physically real, and I remember it like it actually happened. I woke up that morning still feeling the hug, but found myself desperately searching my brain for what she said to me, the details of where we were, and what it all meant, to no avail.
Diana was a master of a lot of things, one of which was dream interpretation. I’d relay weird dreams to her often, and she’d effortlessly tell me what each component meant and how they related to my life. She was brilliant at it.
The conversation usually went like this:
Diana: What did that part of the dream feel like?
Me: Um, I think I was in a car going to school.
Diana: No, what did it feel like?
After a while of wracking my brain for dream details the other day, I remembered that question she asked so often. I know what the hug felt like: Comfort, love, I miss you, I’m here. That was the information I had been desperately searching for. That was what Diana wanted me to know.
When we go through life asking ourselves “how does it feel?”, it pulls us out of our heads, out of all those made-up scenarios and what-ifs that are intended to keep us “safe.” When we sink into the awareness of how it feels, we go to our hearts, our authentic selves, where all the answers are…It’s where we find cats on towels, word-game solutions, and the loving connections we need most. And nothing feels more amazing than that. 💜