A Funny Thing Happens on the Way to Zenquility

There’s this thing that’s been happening ever since Zenquility moved into our current building: New customers have trouble finding us.

It’s not everyone, but at least once a week the phone rings and I see from the caller ID that it’s someone we’re expecting in 5 minutes or so for an appointment or meetup, and I immediately know what they’re going to say:

“I’m almost there, but I’m having trouble finding you. My GPS says I’m here, but I don’t see you. I’m sitting in a shopping center with a Pizza Hut…”

(The Pizza Hut is almost always the landmark they name.)

When this first started happening three years ago, I admit that I let it get under my skin. It was hard not to, because more than one person actually got angry with me for the trouble they had getting here. I can still clearly remember one exchange where a woman angrily insisted that I should do more to help people find our office. Her face is etched in my mind, and it’s probably not coincidence that I haven’t seen her back here since.

At the time I responded to this angry woman as I did with everyone back then – bit my tongue and nodded, so that I wouldn’t spit out the logical but not-very-love-and-light thoughts in my mind: “Why is that my job? I’ve provided the address, the number is clearly on the building and the entrances to the parking lot, our name is listed on the directory sign out front, and everyone has access to GPS or a map. What more am I supposed to do?”

But now I don’t get angry, first of all because it has happened so often over 3+ years of being in this building that I’ve had to find a sense of humor about it. My emotional shift from anger to amusement has helped me see the situation more objectively – as a perfect metaphor for how assumptions and expectations keep us from seeing what’s really true in life.

(If you’ve known me for any length of time, then you know I can find a metaphor in almost anything. Because how a person does one thing is how she/he does anything – meaning, the same pattern manifests in multiple ways in one person’s life. It’s a key way that I help people understand the personal challenges they’ve hired me to help them transcend.)

It turns out, as I learned by eventually asking some questions, that the people who have trouble finding our office have a specific expectation (conscious or unconscious) of what it will look like. Typically that it will be a storefront in a shopping center with a big sign above it.

But that’s not where Zenquility is right now. We’re in an office building that, other than us, houses conventional businesses like lawyers, insurance companies, and a family medical practice. We don’t have a sign on the building – although it’s in the works now -but even so, a person would have to drive this far to see our sign on our building.

The Pizza Hut, meanwhile, is in a shopping center two properties before our building. So when the GPS says “You have arrived at your destination” (which always happens 1-2 properties before you arrive at any destination) and the new customers see the shopping center, they automatically yield to their expectation and assume that’s where we are.

Then when it turns out that we’re not in the shopping center, they get confused. Because (this is where the metaphor kicks in) confusion will always be the result when your expectations don’t match reality. You’ll feel stuck in your tracks, not knowing where to go next. You might keep going around in circles, the way that people will drive around that shopping center multiple times as if we might suddenly appear. You might even look for reasons why it’s someone else’s fault, if fear of being wrong is one of the triggers in your unconscious mind.

There’s only one thing that will ever get you unstuck: moving beyond your expectations. Most often that happens with a question, such as “What if the thing I’m seeking doesn’t look the way I expected?” – or the most meaningful of all questions, “Will you help me?”

Our answer is Yes, of course we will help you. All of us at Zenquility are here to always be of service – to help you find whatever you’re looking for, whether it’s our office, the right crystal for your intentions, or something within yourself. We can help you look beyond the limiting beliefs that shape your expectations of how things should be, and you might discover that what you’ve been looking for has been right in front of you all along, but looking a little different than you expected.

Meanwhile, if the first time you come to Zenquility you find yourself in a shopping center with a Pizza Hut, know that what you’re looking for is almost within your reach – just .2 miles away. Remember that like many things in life, it doesn’t look the way that you were expecting, and we will happily, without judgement, help you find it.

But first, could you get me a personal pan pizza with pepperoni?