2002

Processes & Nature
The Case of the Missing Checkbook

One beautiful Sunday morning in April, my husband got up early to get some desk work out of the way before the day started. I know he likes to hole himself up in total peace and quiet to concentrate on paperwork and bills, so I spent the time in my art studio in the back of the house. An hour and a half later he came to me and said, "I can't find my checkbook. This whole time I've been looking for it." He looked grey and tired, and then he went to lie down, which is totally unlike him. He's very organized, and losing things is also unlike him. I told him I'd look for the checkbook, and I was confident because I've always been pretty good at finding things. (I know how to lose things, too, but I can also find them.) My husband thought the checkbook was in his office, and when I went into his office I, too, had a feeling it was somewhere in there. I looked in likely and unlikely places, but no checkbook surfaced.

No problem, I decided: I'll divide the room into a grid and kinesiology test for the checkbook, thereby narrowing my search to a small area, and then I will easily divide that small area and find the checkbook using kinesiology! This would probably be fairly easy and even fun! I'd be the hero of checkbook-finding, bringing a delightful prize to my beloved. ("Ha-ho," the universe laughed.) Then my kinesiology went wonky. I kept getting conflicting answers and no answers that had that "true" feeling. I drank water. I relaxed. I focused. I tried again. I drew the grid on paper. I re-drew the grid a different way. I couldn't get a straight answer no matter what I did! Frustrated, irritated and annoyed, sarcasm sneaking into my voice, I tested the following question loud and clear: "Does the checkbook WANT to be found?" and shocked myself when I got a strong "NO!" Okay, this is too weird. Checkbooks don't ordinarily have opinions about getting found. What could be going on?

Taking a larger view, I realized that the room itself is probably holding my husband's frantic and frustrated emotions. He looked beaten down after an hour and a half of unsuccessful checkbook-hunting, and his state had to be reflected in that room. (Additionally, the room was probably holding his dissatisfied feelings from recent weeks when he had let things slide in order to devote all his spare time to computer work. Every time he had walked into that room he must have felt miserable until a few days ago when he cleaned it up.)

I opened a coning for our property and wrote out a Co-Creative Troubleshooting Process Chart for the missing checkbook problem. I tested that only one process, the Battle Energy Release, needed to be done. While the battle energy was releasing, I had a drop-in thought (you know the kind I mean, the kind of thought that seems to come from nowhere) that it would be really nice for my husband to actually find the checkbook himself. I didn't know how it could happen, but it was a nice thought. I looked around the room again, focusing on a bookcase, but I was tired of looking so I stopped and I just sat and waited for the Battle Energy Release to conclude.

As the process was coming to an end my husband walked in, and he looked better. I told him I had two things to tell him. First, just so he'd know, I'd gotten tired of looking and therefore did not finish re-checking that last bookcase with its large manila envelopes on the bottom shelf. Second, I was finishing up a Battle Energy Release Process and I didn't know what would come of it, but we should give it some time. I needed to balance and stabilize the Battle Energy Release, and we could talk more when I'm done.

I balanced and stabilized, and turned around to see my husband sitting on the floor, going through one of the large manila envelopes and PULLING THE CHECKBOOK OUT OF THE ENVELOPE! What a sweet moment of success, and he got to be the one who found it! Plus, my self-image as someone who can find things remains intact. He found it, I sort of found it, and we did it together. We all got the prize, we were all given the prize and the office battle energies were released. (I guess the checkbook WANTED to be found in that clear-feeling room!) Thank you, nature, Machaelle, and the energy processes!

S.S., California