I just returned from a weekend trip to Sedona, Arizona.

I went to celebrate my 50th birthday. It was a trip that was prompted by an inspired idea over a year ago. In the fall of 2010 my husband and I were on our way to Arizona for a conference when I realized my 50th birthday would fall on 11-11-11. Immediately I got the sense that I was supposed to spend that birthday in Sedona. I didn’t know why. We’d been there once before, 20 years ago, and it was a magical trip. It’s a very spiritual place and I certainly felt the spiritual significance of 11-11-11. Whatever the reasons, I just knew if I chose to honor the inspired idea, we would be spending my 50th birthday in Sedona.

Fast forward one year. So much has changed in my life.

I’m on a bit of a personal vision quest. I’m midway through writing a book that has caused me to explore myself, my life, and our world deeply. It is changing me inside. I have a very clear sense the second half of my life will be lived from a very different place than the first half.

I find it so interesting that a year prior on some level I knew (or perhaps it was simply that my higher power knew) where I needed to be on my 50th birthday. It was a truly transformational weekend. So many profound realizations. Validation of where I’m heading. Confirmation that I’m on the only path I can be on, even if it’s a bit scary not knowing exactly where it’s heading.

So often in life we are “on the clock.”

Things have to happen in certain timing or we get impatient. We’re always in a hurry to move along and make things fit our timetable.

This past weekend illustrated how irrelevant time can be. A year before I went to Sedona I got the inspiration to go. A full year went by. I wasn’t worrying about it. I wasn’t concerned that I needed to get certain things done in order to go. The time just passed. And, as it turned out, the exact amount of time passed and events occurred to deliver me to the mental, spiritual, emotional, and physical place I needed to be in to fully appreciate the trip.

There’s only one word I can use to describe how this feels: magical.

The next time you’re holding on too tightly to time, or feeling like things aren’t happening fast enough, I encourage you to let that go.

Trust that everything is unfolding in perfect timing. And know it’s just your distrust that is causing you to try to outsmart a force much greater than you.