Mary Obana 0:05
I'm Mary Obana. Welcome to Shine. I’m all about friendly, soul-nourishing, spiritually-inspired conversations that expand perspectives and offer practical guidance so you can live joyfully and shine brightly.
I believe:
Everyone has something special within them, a unique gift—a light you are to find and share with the world. You are meant to shine.
I believe:
You have a deep knowing; guidance that is ready to serve you. It is always available if you listen.
I believe:
You are meant to live with complete joy and peace—nothing less. It’s just awaiting your allowing.
Ready to get to it? Here we go!
Mary Obana 00:54
Hello there! So let me ask you some questions.
Have you ever wondered whether you are doing “enough” with your life? Whether you are making a difference?
How do you explain when you have your heart set on something that doesn’t turn out the way you hoped?
Have you been at a busy time in your life when suddenly something happened that stopped everything?
What do all of these situations have in common?
THERE IS SO MUCH GOING ON THAT YOU CAN NOT SEE.
Today, we will cover what we ALL need to know. You may never look at your life and experiences the same way again. I’m so glad you are here.
There are points in our lives when we feel frustration, disappointment, or impatience. Or our minds tell us that we aren’t doing enough or aren’t enough. We’ve all been there.
That question in particular – am I doing enough with my life? I can relate to that big time! I have had this thought more times than I can remember. I know this very thought became a catalyst for where I am today—my book, this podcast, my workshops, helping people to receive the messages they are meant to hear. But, honestly, it still pops up. And I know exactly where it comes from: the Ego. Our sneaky over-active Ego creates judgments of not being enough, not doing enough. We compare ourselves to some standard of our own making and evaluate ourselves against it.
Just the other day, I was looking at some analytics for this podcast, and I thought, “I need to reach more people.” And with that, a whole slew of thoughts immediately popped into my mind, “I need to do more. I need to help more.”
Then, I headed into meditation… and listened. And I was reminded of this truth: “There is so much you cannot see.”
Mary Obana 3:01
Having an impact on the world is easier to consider if you know you’re Mother Teresa, building schools in third-world countries, or operating whatever you are doing on a massive scale.
But when you’re a “regular” person, you think your impact or sphere of influence is limited.
If this is you, consider this:
It is said that the average person interacts with upwards of 80,000 people in a lifetime. That assumes you come in direct contact with about three people on an average day. Think about the cashiers, people you encounter making appointments, those you pass on the street, or going in and out of places.
That’s a lot of people!
So let’s start there.
If someone approaches us smiling, we naturally tend to smile back. If they approach us with a frown, the tendency is to frown too. A study published in 2016 explored this very phenomenon. It found that mimicking smiles, frowns, or other emotional expressions happen within milliseconds and without our being fully conscious of it. We actually tap into one another’s feelings and emotions instantly and then physically experience them within ourselves. This, in turn, makes us behave accordingly. This is called Emotional Contagion. In my terminology, it’s an energy exchange. And it happens instantly. And it is contagious!
Think about that! 80,000 people. What emotions are we contributing – or spreading – to the world just at this surface level? Your impact is more significant than you think.
So there’s that. But let’s dive deeper.
What about our more engaged interactions? What about the people we are with every day? The conversations we have? What about the work we do? It’s logical to think that our impact ends with the people we engage with directly.
It’s easy to miss what you cannot see. The numbers you CAN NOT see. The people you CAN NOT see. The souls you affect but CAN NOT see.
Everyone affects everyone in seen and countless unseen ways. The ripple effects each of us create are more extensive than we can imagine. EVERY ACTION AND EVERY ONE HAS SIGNIFICANCE.
There’s a man named David Flood. His son Justin has special needs. Justin attended the public school in their town and when David asked Justin who he ate lunch with, he would admit, “I ate by myself.” So heartbreaking. This boy with a big heart was so lonely. He wasn’t alone, he had people all around him. He was lonely.
One year, Justin learned how to skate and joined the town’s hockey team. In the last game of the season, his team was losing 8-3. David was in the bleachers. There were about 3 minutes left in the game when his teammate passed the puck to Justin. He took a soft shot. The puck bounced off the goalie’s pad, then Justin pushed the puck into the goal. The kids went crazy. David was crying in the bleachers. Justin was beaming, with a huge grin from ear to ear. Then after the game, David approached the opposing team’s bench and reached out his hand to thank the coach because he knew what he had done. The coach looked right at him and said, “Don’t thank me. Thank the boys.” Those boys were 10 and 11 years old. They decided to do something kind. One gesture. They didn’t know and may never know how that gesture—that decision to let Justin score that goal—would affect Justin’s father that day. The experience so touched David that he would go on to tell that story to over 400,000 students as an inspirational youth speaker. And you can only imagine how the telling of that story affected those students. And what about the people that those students then impacted? One moment. One gesture. Ripple effect.
Our lives—our gestures and our actions—touch, impact, and influence others far beyond what we can see.
Our decision to smile at someone or when we notice another can use a pick-me-up to say a kind word. We all know what that looks like, and we all know what it feels like to receive that kindness when we need it. We never know what the impact might be. And we never know how the one we engaged with impacted others afterward. But they do.
This is why every interaction is so important. Every interaction is with a soul who has an interaction with another, and so on. We underestimate the value and impact of our gestures of kindness, love, and understanding. The Ego makes you see only that which you see. It feels less significant if you aren't doing anything on a grand scale. You wonder how you can help, how you can impact the world. But every soul touches other souls. And each of those souls touch other souls; the ripple effect cannot always be appreciated. This is what you cannot see, but that IS.
But that which you cannot see is still TRUTH. It’s REAL. What you cannot see is as real as what you CAN see. There is an acceptance that is necessary to understand this truth or to accept it. This is why every soul is so important; every interaction is so important. Every soul touches another. And every other soul touches others.
This is how we are all connected—one to another, another to another, and so on. Your impact is far more significant than you can ever know. If you’ve ever wondered whether you are doing enough or making a difference, let me say this: there is so much you cannot see. You MATTER more than you’ll ever know.
Mary Obana 9:26
Ok, so what about when you hope for something that does not come? How does this message of trusting what you cannot see apply to our lives when we face disappointment?
When something you had your heart set on doesn’t come through, maybe it’s a job you were hoping for, admission to a program you applied to, the house you bid on, or a relationship that didn’t develop.
When something you desire does not come, trust that it’s because there is a bigger plan you cannot see.
Do not allow feelings of frustration or disappointment to spiral into thoughts of unworthiness or self-doubt. This just creates resistance, making it harder for what you cannot see to make its way to you. Anytime you feel negative emotion, you are out of sync with the whole of you, and when this happens, you have put resistance on your path. Negative thoughts stand in the way of everything you desire. It’s as if we are placing speed bumps or roadblocks on our path. It slows everything down or stops them altogether. The closer you are aligned with your soul's pure positive energy, the easier it will be to receive and experience everything you desire.
We know that life isn’t always smooth sailing. It ebbs and it flows. There are times when we feel things are going our way, and then there are times when things are not. If you were to look at your life – zooming out of the specific moments to broaden your perspective, you would see this ebbing and flowing. You would also see that the significant moments of your life when things were really flowing– when you met the love of your life, when you landed that amazing opportunity, when you found your dream home, when you finally got pregnant—were likely preceded by times of “ebbing.” We forget about this when we are flowing. And we forget about this when we are “ebbing” too. Do you know what else we would notice when we look at our lives? If not for the job that fell through, the house we didn’t get, or the relationship that never materialized, we would not have been in a place to receive those big moments, right?
When things aren’t going the way you think you want, trust in all that you cannot see. There is something truly meant for you that is on its way. You just can’t see it yet. Though you may not realize it, you are being nudged in the “right” direction. Trust through the ebbing. There is so much you cannot see.
Mary Obana 12:09
Have you experienced a time when you felt your life was at a standstill—like nothing was “happening”? Something ended; maybe it was a job, a relationship… and some time passes. And there you are. You might feel stuck, not sure where things will go from here. Your life was in motion before, and now, it feels like it’s not. As the days go by, you feel a growing sense of anxiousness and impatience. You are eager to get on with whatever is next, but you’re not sure what that is. What does this have to do with what we’re discussing?
I call it the fertile void—that period when it feels like nothing is happening, but there is so much you cannot see.
I liken it to a bountiful crop you might see in the summer. You drive by it and see a big field full of growth and vitality. Then, the season ends, the crop is cut down, and all you see is a field of dirt—fallow ground.
But this is what you cannot see. Beneath that surface, the soil is busy regenerating and replenishing. This is an essential step to prepare for what is to come.
This is just like us. When one chapter ends and another has yet to begin, this time, “in-between” is essential. Though it may feel like a void, as if nothing is happening, you are in a period of regeneration, taking the necessary break, the rest, that is essential to prepare you fully for what is to come. Things are in motion. You just can’t see it. This is the fertile void. Do not wish it away. It will undermine the bounty of what is to come.
Trust that which you cannot see.
Mary Obana 13:59
Ok, so what about when you have a “forced stop” thrust upon you. Maybe you’ve been crazy busy working, then you throw your back out, or you are surprised with an illness or diagnosis. Perhaps you lost your job. Maybe a pandemic. Recently a client shared how she left her job then was just about to start golf lessons and exercise classes when a dog bit her hand. She couldn’t do any of it. What is going on here?
This is a pattern interruption—a stop that forces you off the habitrail of life. A time to stop the doing. To reflect. To look within yourself. To BE with yourself. There’s something that you are to learn, to discover about YOU.
I cannot tell you the number of times a forced stop has resulted in a personal epiphany of some kind for people. It always does. I’ve heard countless stories with the same theme. If not forced to stop, they would have continued doing what they had always done. Not because it was intentional, but because it was habitual. If not forced to stop, they would have never discovered what they were missing; they would have never learned what they needed to know. The Universe has a way of getting our attention when we’re missing the path we are meant to find.
There is so much you cannot see.
There is so much in existence that we cannot see. Because we cannot see it, does it mean it doesn’t exist? My son, Kai, was talking the other night about the marvel of the discovery of the Son Doong Cave located in Vietnam. This is the world’s largest cave which is estimated to be 3 million years old. This cave is more than three miles long, with its own rainforest and chambers large enough to hold an entire NYC block with 40-story skyscrapers inside it. It was first discovered in 1990. He kept saying, “Can you believe that was there the whole time, and no one knew it?” Yeah.
There is so much to our world and existence that we cannot see – in the physical and in the non-physical. Trust allows us to accept what we cannot see and know there is more.
Trust opens the door to believing that there is something at play more extensive than you can currently know.
Trust makes room for a different perspective; it opens possibilities.
Trust is a pathway to curiosity. What is it that I am not seeing? What is it that I am to learn, to understand?
Trust is the pathway to growth.
Trust is the pathway to peace.
Trust allows all that you cannot see to be SEEN. Knowing there is more. Trust makes way for all that is meant for you.
When you hope for something that doesn’t come, know that it’s because there is something else for you. Trust that which you cannot see.
When you feel your life is at a standstill, and you feel impatient and eager to get to where you are meant to be, embrace the time. This is a time of regeneration and preparation for what is to come. Trust that which you cannot see.
When you are forced to stop, know that there is something you are to discover within yourself. Trust that which you cannot see.
When you wonder whether you are enough, whether you are doing enough, during those moments of self-doubt, know that where you are has a purpose, value, and meaning, and you are impacting more people than you know. Trust that which you cannot see.
Know that your every interaction, every connection with another, whether it’s quickly in passing or a life-long engagement, has an impact far greater than you can see. This is why it is essential to be intentional.
Every interaction of love spreads more love. Every exchange of hate, frustration, judgment spreads more of that. What is the imprint you want to make on the world? What is it that YOU want to spread? You spread what you are and what you give through every interaction. With every interaction, your impact is not just on what you can see but on the world, you cannot. Focus your energy on LOVE. And YOU will create a world with more love. Trust that which you cannot see.
There are so many amazing things making their way to you if you allow it. Trust that which you cannot see.
I want you to think of one person you care about whom you want to hear this message, and before you do anything else, please share it with them so they can benefit from it too.
Thank you for being here with me. Until next time, take it easy.