This Spiritual Crap Really Works

Written on March 6, 2008 by Tom Stine

Today I signed a contract to sell my house. I told a friend how it finally sold, and his response was, “Wow, this spiritual crap really works.” Yes, indeed, it really works. Let me share the tale with you:

I’ve been wanting to sell my house for over a year, but for various reasons I didn’t get it on the market until last October. In the distant past I had a brief “career” as a real estate agent (the horror!), so I thought I would sell it myself. Given the disastrous state of the real estate market, I had virtually no success selling my home. It sat empty and lonely for over 3 months with virtually no interest.

So in January I listed it with a high volume agent who insisted that I had to lower the price if I wished to sell it. I was resistant, but she won the argument because I pay careful attention to economic matters and knew that the housing market was in bad shape and getting worse. So, I cut the price to the bone, way below the last appraisal, in hopes it would sell. But for the first month, again, no one had any interest in the house. Even an open house on a sunny day with lots of visitors yielded nothing. Earlier this week, I began to feel a bit of concern as to whether I could even sell the house at the drastically reduced price.

credit: KUNTA.TOKYO

I woke-up yesterday morning, and since I had the morning open, I lounged in bed doing a bit of spiritual inquiry and in general allowing everything to simply be as it is (this is a powerful “practice” that I learned from Adyashanti). My mind wandered a bit, and I soon found that I was thinking about my house. I allowed my feelings about it to rise to the surface, then suddenly in a burst of understanding, I became quite clear as to what was keeping the house from selling. Suddenly, it was so obvious. My history with the house, my story, was the problem.

credit: schizoform

My ex and I had bought the house in 2000, an old house that needed some work. What started as a basic remodel of a 100 year old house became a full blown restoration complete with an addition. We hired what turned out to be a horrible contractor who, we later learned, was cheating his business partner out of his share of the profits and, most likely, was overcharging us on the renovation. I’d like to claim that I was too smart to be ripped off by a scoundrel, but, in this case, I was almost surely the proverbial sucker born every minute. Needless to say, we spent a fortune on the house, more than we ever would hope to get from selling the house unless we lived there for 30 years.

What I realized in that flash of understanding yesterday morning was that I had been walking around for 7 years feeling like a victim, angry at the contractor for his part in the debacle, but more angry at myself for letting it all happen. I felt not only like a victim, but I felt like a fool, which is a hard thing to admit to yourself when for most of your life you have prided yourself on your intelligence. But a fool is what I felt like, even if I had repressed that feeling most of the time.

But yesterday morning I allowed myself to really feel foolish. Moreover, as the feelings washed over me, I realized that this story I had been telling myself was, in fact, just a story, a tale about the events that occurred. The story had drama, had strong emotions, had a certain Shakespearean flare, at least in version I repeated. I had told myself this story so many times that I had become identified with the main character, Tom, the guy who foolishly wasted his money. I was attached to the story because it was the story of me, because it set me apart and formed a part of my identity.

As you can guess, my emotional and mental investment in the story and this poor house made it almost impossible for me to part with it, both consciously and subconsciously. My overt intention was to sell the house, but underneath that was a tremendous attachment to it. Who would I be without the house? What would become of my story if the house were no longer mine? You can almost feel the weight that the house had in my subconscious. Again, how could I really part with it?

But as the feelings washed over me, as the impact of the attachment came to full light, I knew that I could easily let go of all of it. I could simply drop it. I wasn’t being cheated out of my money. I wasn’t a victim. I hadn’t been a fool. I had spent money. The house was worth less than I had spent. The house was simply a house, a place to live, not my identity. I wasn’t defined by a house. I am what I am, consciousness, awareness, Self, not a house nor a guy named Tom who used to have this story about a house and a contractor.

And as everything shifted, as the attachment lifted, as my awareness shifted to the light of my being, I had the vaguest sense that maybe I would work on this some more when I had some time, but that for the most part, the situation had changed. I had no thoughts that the house would now sell, but I did feel that I had gotten to the bottom of the issue. I felt lighter, freer, and very much at ease about the house. And as I got up out of bed and went about my morning, these thoughts faded from my mind.

Well, later that day, my real estate agent emailed me to say that someone had contacted her earlier that day about my house, and that her assistant had shown it. The prospect was interested and might want to see it again. And today, as you can guess, my agent called to say that the prospect had written an offer, just shy of full list price, cash, to close in 45 days with no contingencies. Yes, I signed it, no counter offers or questions asked.

While I cannot say for certain that my realization yesterday morning directly caused the sale of the house, I know for certain that it opened me more fully to letting the house sell. I have experienced many, many instances of having a shift in consciousness being followed by what seem to be obvious changes in the outer world. These experiences certainly would lead one to believe that shifts in consciousness can cause change in the world. I don’t know if that is really true, but I know for certain that the peace that comes from the shift is worth it, no matter what happens in the world. So, I will keep doing what I’m doing, as you can guess.

Moreover, I find that no matter how little or great our experience of consciousness, awareness, presence, or God is, whether we are “grasshopper” or the master, tales similar to the selling of my house are a frequent experience for those on this journey. Opening to awareness, letting go of beliefs, feelings and thoughts, experiencing awakening, however you choose to describe it, is a never ending source of joy and surprise and delight.

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