Now What?

The other day, we were driving from our group retreat in the mountains of Spain to our apartment at the beach. It was a winding road on a sunny day, the kind where your body starts to relax and your mind begins to wander until suddenly, there was a dog on the road. A young black Labrador, running back and forth, looking both excited and terrified. He had a collar, looked well-fed. My guess: he hadn’t been out that long, and someone was surely looking for him.

Cars were swerving around him, going up and down the curve, and in a split second, I decided to stop and open the door. He jumped in without hesitation, full of trust, like we were old friends. We closed the door. Silence. Then my brother, sitting in the back, looked at the dog, looked at me, and said: “Now what?”

I love those moments. “Now what?” Reminds me of that scene in Finding Nemo, when the fish finally escape the tank and end up bobbing in the sea in separate little bags. They’ve made it. Freedom. And then one of them turns and says, “Now what?”

We make plans. We analyse. We prepare. But we can only do so to a certain extent. They say if you want to make god laugh, tell him your plans. In those moments when reality breaks through our cleverness, we’re invited to trust something else. Not the planning mind, but silent awareness through the sensing body, the full experience of the moment and through awakening our intuition.

Mindfulness, for me, is not about having the answers. It’s about relaxing into the not-knowing. Resting in uncertainty without tightening. Trusting. Letting the moment speak before I do. Letting the solution emerge from the same place the problem came from, seemingly out of nowhere.

So there we were, driving with a panting dog on a lap, tail tapping against the window. And sure enough, a few minutes later, we spotted a van parked along the road with its hazard lights flashing. A man stood next to it, arms crossed, scanning the road with worry. His face shifted the moment he saw the dog. A mix of relief, frustration, and something like love.

“Now what?” isn’t always a call to act. Sometimes it’s an invitation to simply be. Having confidence and trust in the next moment as it unfolds the answers by itself.

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Warmest greetings, wishing you a happy Easter Weekend!