Four weekends of my year-long medical intuitive training are used for in-class sessions in Vancouver. It is a time to reconnect with my intimate group of classmates and teachers for a sharing of successes and challenges, learning of new concepts and skills, business planning, and maybe most importantly, reaffirming our sense of solidarity as we embark on this unconventional path together. We talk about spirit guides, after lives, angels, signs from the universe, energetic congestion, past lives, chakras, healing through the power of the mind, manifestation...

I eat it all UP.

It's my kind of talk. They are my kind of people. Oh the relief!

Finally I don’t need to sensor myself like I normally do in mainstream conversation, afraid to look too “air fairy woo woo” in front of my more rationally thinking lawyer, doctor, and accountant friends.

I can happily be that air fairy woo woo person that I am at my core, and I love it.

I always walk away from my weekends on a bit of a spiritual high that comes from a deep sense that I’m exactly where I need to be, even despite the knowing that I am paying a lot of money to be learning a totally alternative modality and have absolutely no guarantee that anyone will actually want to pay me for my services when I’m finished. Major fingers crossed!

During my third and latest in-class session, we were introduced to an assignment called “Pay it Forward.” We were told we had to do three random acts of kindness to absolute strangers and then write a reflection paper about the experience. My teacher gave the example of buying a coffee for the person behind you in line. I thought to myself that in my 28 years of living no one has ever done that to me. Wouldn’t it be nice!

Well the weekend came to a close, and despite driving much faster to the ferry than my Mom would have liked (sorry Mom), I missed it by just a few cars. This meant that I had over two hours to kill. Ugh, Island life.

What did I almost instantly decide to do? March determinedly inside for ice cream, naturally.

I stood staring at the sprawling case of enticing flavours, instantly overwhelmed by my impending choice. The other patron nearby, a middle-aged man, must have sensed my predicament and sympathized. He said genuinely, “Pretty hard to choose, eh? I mean, do you go fruity or chocolaty?”

The man is a mind reader! I thought to myself. And then something else occurred to me: Here was a prime moment to do my first random act of kindness! But wait. Were we supposed to do it during a specific week? I may have been slightly distracted by my 5 pm grumbling stomach to fully listen to the instructions. Nah, I guess I shouldn’t do it now.

Well one second later the man approached my side and said warmly, “Miss, your cone is on me. Have a great rest of your day!” He smiled, clearly pleased with his gesture, and almost before I could thank him profusely he was off.

IN MY 28 YEARS OF LIVING NO ONE HAS EVER DONE THAT TO ME! And yet there I was, a mere two hours after discussing the assignment and reflecting on the fact that I’d never received that sort of sweet gift, and then me actually thinking about doing it to him but froze, and it happens!

I walked out into the sunshine beaming with cone in hand (for the record, I got raspberry white chocolate, a fruit/chocolate compromise), totally in awe of the moment. I was stuck with the realization that that was no random happening. To me, it was the universe smacking me on the head and saying, “Get it?! We did that! It wasn’t random! We can actually do lots of other things that aren’t as random as you or anyone else thinks! We’re up here playing around, working our magic, so pay attention! Look out for signs and ‘coincidences,’ because hunny, they are PLENTIFUL!”

OK I get it! Loud and clear. I see you!

I still actually get goosebumps thinking about the experience. It could not have been orchestrated more perfectly, which is exactly the description you hear time and time again from people who have miracles or crazy cool things happen to them.

These sorts of coincidences happen constantly if we just open our eyes to seeing them. I have come to believe that magic is everywhere, and as a result I now see magic everywhere. Everywhere! It's a choice. But a choice that can drastically increase not only the fun you have in life, but also the feeling that there are powers greater than us at work on this beautiful planet, and that life is more perfectly orchestrated than it appears at times. This, I find, more reassuring and exciting than perhaps anything else.

Are you ready to adopt your own mindset of magic?