Halfway through the process of writing this article, I experienced a pretty troubling situation. It seemed to put the idea of “Easy World” to the test for me in a powerful way.

One Saturday when we were still at our old apartment, there was some very loud music playing right outside our door. This was pretty much a daily occurrence at our old place, and it stressed me out particularly.

I work from home and need to be able to use my brain, not to mention having the added challenge of trying to hear and understand my two young kids talking over each other at me with loud music in the background.

Carlos has always discouraged me from going out and asking neighbors and construction workers to turn their music down. I think it’s a cultural “don’t-rock-the-boat” thing. So I put up with it for a while, but I was suffering.

Then I sat down and decided to choose Easy World.

I did the Easy World “incantation,” if you will, and the four actions, and just waited to see what would happen. I immediately received a very strong urge to go outside and ask the neighbor to turn his music down. So I went outside.

When Max saw me going outside, he wanted to follow. Carlos didn’t like me going out and bugging the neighbor, so he grumbled for me to take care of Max and he went inside.

As I reached up to help Max down the “shortcut” (low wall) at the side of our house, he steadied himself on a large flowerpot holding a potted aloe vera plant.

Almost in slow motion, the flowerpot wobbled and Max fell, pulling the large pot onto himself, into some soft dirt below the ledge I was lowering him from. He got several scratches on his leg from the aloe vera plant.

What happened next was probably the most stressful thing that can happen between Carlos and me. Max started crying and Carlos came out, swearing like a sailor, telling me it was all my fault for wanting to turn the music down. I had to carry Max down the block so that he could have some peace and quiet to cry and settle down and for me to get him cleaned up.

This isn’t the first time something like this has happened. Unfortunately, it has been a consistent pattern that has happened when one of our kids gets hurt, even a small scratch. I shudder to think of the added stress that will arise when (not if) one of the kids gets a more serious injury at some point in their life, as kids do.

After I cleaned Max up, I was so rattled by my own thoughts about this that I told Carlos to get out or that I would leave, and that we were done. I had been very clear that yelling, swearing, or blaming anyone was not okay while a child is crying. My pronouncement freaked Carlos out even more than the Max’s injury did, and things blew up. I had to leave the house and go for a walk to cool down.

Everything inside my brain was spinning in a loop, the same loop it always takes when this happens. But this time, I sat down on a curb in the shade, and, out of habit, chose Easy World.

I didn’t even know what to ask for but the words came unbidden: “I choose to live in Easy World, where everything is easy, even reconciling with my husband.”

I wasn’t even aware that this was what I wanted and, if I had been asked to think it through logically (which I was trying to do and failing), I would have said that I had some other goal in mind (force him to change, find a way to live without him, etc.)

I sat there, with my head in a mess, trying simply to do the four Easy World actions (breathe, relax, allow, and enjoy). I was so distracted/distraught that it took a while.

I thought back over my life and the last two years of trying to raise my kids without their dad. I thought of all the life and laughter he brings to every moment with them, all the tickle fights and spooky stories and big energy. I saw clearly that even if I could manage to raise my kids without him, endless slog that that is, I wouldn’t want to. Life just isn’t as fun without him, not for me and not for the kids.

So I saw that very clearly, and I knew that I had to stop using the “Okay I’m leaving” line when things got rough. It wasn’t fair and it’s not true. So I faced the fact that I need to resolve things when they get hard, not run away.

However, I had no solution to the things he does that I can’t accept, or that stress me out. Nada. No solution came to my mind. I finally gave up, as in gave it UP, to a higher power, to Spirit, to Easy World. I said, “You take it. I don’t have the solution. I pray for you to give me a solution. It’s out of my hands. I’m tired and I’m going home.”

I went home and told Carlos I was wrong to threaten to leave, or to try to kick him out, and that I had clarity on that. I also shared with him that I prayed for the Universe to help me find a solution to the rest of it. And he, in his turn, did something like commit to the Universe to stop using bad language and blaming me when a child gets hurt, which I think is a fine first step and I am happy for him to do it.

By the way, during this whole episode, I kept wondering, given that I had I invoked Easy World, why it had been so clear for me to go outside and ask the neighbor to turn his music down, when it so obviously led to the difficult and emotional rest of that day?

Nothing like this falling flower pot had ever happened at that apartment; even when it happened it seemed almost orchestrated.

My conclusion was that, as we were about to move to a new apartment and embark on another phase of our lives together, it was important for me to leave behind ideas of us splitting up when things got hard.

That seems to me a good enough reason to have gone through all that, and I’m grateful to Easy World for bringing it about.