What Do I Do When Lightning Strikes Me…

The air seems different lately or maybe it’s the light. Something has changed. The ego senses it. But a deeper part of you has known all along and it waits patiently. It has always known what you needed. But you don’t know that…yet.


The ego, however, is busy connecting dots, sniffing out trails, dusting for prints.

Then…the lightening strikes.

Long phone calls. Text messages passed between them, sometimes late into the night.

There’s no mistaking…

…the ego has been betrayed.

It feels like a swift and penetrating prize fighter punch to the gut. The chest is crushed, the throat constricts as your breathing becomes rapid, it’s hard to talk and…

…what’s that ringing in the ears?

As the blackness descends, you can’t breathe and the mind is racing ever more rapidly…

…over the cliff.

You were expecting economic collapse, a Great Depression, WWIII, explosive packages, errant missiles, electromagnetic pulses, even asteroids. But now Armageddon has finally arrived…and it’s ALL for you and you alone.

Did you not see it coming? How could you have missed the signs?

That doesn’t matter now. Now, the ego demands its pound of flesh, because guilt has ALWAYS required punishment…and you ARE the executioner.

The attack is swift and chaotic. The ego thrashes about like a hot wire in a hurricane.

“You fucking bitch….who is he…did you fuck him….oh God….how could you do this to me…why!”

But deep down under all your desperate fear is the voice that softly whispers…..

…“you know why.” 

But you refuse to listen and instead, the ego loudly stakes its claim…”But I loved you!”

The next day, after almost no sleep, you’re numb and exhausted. You go to work and marvel at how you could have possibly made it through this day so well. But, the drive home is ALL ego and it calls upon the demons of hell to come to your aid in demanding she be nailed to the cross and then burned at the stake. You see images of your own personal apocalypse and in your rage, it seems you’re only just one thought away… from actual murder.

That night, in a darkened room, completely immersed in your suffering….your mind goes to an even darker place.

Make no mistake…you are in HELL.

What else could this place be?

However, gradually, after many hours, you begin to get quiet. Very… very quiet. Again, there’s that other voice in your head. But this voice ignores your suffering. This voice denies you your pain. It whispers something much different than the ego… completely opposite, in fact.

This voice says…”do you really think you known what love is?” 

And very slowly, painfully slow… it comes to you… that, no…you really don’t….and you never did.

…and maybe that's been the problem all along.

But the ego, ever quick to nurture condemnation, screams at you… “but how can you blame yourself, she’s the one that broke the rules…

…she cheated!”

Then that voice again, unperturbed and very quiet…

“love does not require rules…only you do.”

And when you finally realize you have no clue how to go about it, you then become willing to learn and invite instruction…

…from that which knows.

What have I got to do to make you love me
What have I got to do to make you care
What do I do when lightning strikes me
And I wake to find that you're not there

What do I do to make you want me
What have I got to do to be heard
What do I say when it's all over
And sorry seems to be the hardest word

It's sad, so sad
It's a sad, sad situation
And it's getting more and more absurd
It's sad, so sad
Why can't we talk it over
Oh it seems to me
That sorry seems to be the hardest word

What do I do to make you love me
What have I got to do to be heard
What do I do when lightning strikes me
What have I got to do
What have I got to do
When sorry seems to be the hardest word 

(Elton John)