I’ll never forget our first night in our travel van.

We were staying in an RV park near the dealer so if anything went wrong, we could call them and troubleshoot.

Great idea, right?

Except something went wrong at 3 a.m. which is, as it turns out, not the best time to call the dealer for a troubleshooting session.

It was extremely cold that night. In the twenties.

I know that, for some of you, twenty degrees is nothing. But for us? It was scary cold.

The scariest thing about it was that we didn’t want our pipes to freeze. We had pipe and tank warmers installed for just that reason, but we’d never used them before.

We purposely stayed at an RV park so that we could plug into shore power. That way, we’d make sure our pipe and tank warmers would have enough juice to make it through the night.

Which brings me back to 3 am.

That’s what time it was when we woke up to discover that we had no power. Our systems were beeping because of this loss of power. Then they shut down altogether. It was below freezing outside, and we had no way to warm our pipes.

We tried calling our contact at the dealer but, not surprisingly, he didn’t answer. Then we remembered we had Emergency Assistance service for the first year of owning our van.

We called them and someone answered!

Yay!!!!!!!

A very nice man in Oregon talked us through the problem. He had us try a bunch of things, none of which worked. Finally, after over an hour, he had us go out to the power pole and switch the breaker. (We now know that this is the number one culprit for power outages in RV parks, and it’s what we should have done first. Did we know that yet? No. No, we did not.)

We went outside, flipped the switch on the pole, and – lo and behold! – the power went back on.

At this point, it was after 4 a.m. and we weren’t sure we’d be able to go back to sleep, but we finally managed to do so.

We were awakened at 6 a.m. by a knock on our door. It was our contact at the dealer. He had received our desperate voice mail and came right over to make sure we were okay.

Fine. We were just fine.

This was, as it turns out, our first foray into what we now call: Owning an RV as a Spiritual Practice.

Especially in our first year, things went wrong all the time. All. The. Time.

Each time, we were presented with two choices:

I would love to pretend that I always chose choice two. But that would be a big fat lie.

Choice one was my go-to.

Oh no! We broke the van! Now we’re going to have to spend tons of money fixing it and it’s still not going to work right and we screwed everything up so bad!!!!!!!!!!!

I’ll admit, I was especially guilty of the above line of thinking. Melissa was a little more chill. Unless, of course, there was a problem that I was more chill about, in which case she took over the fretting.

Over time, here’s the line of thinking that helped me the most:

Spirit led us to get the van. Now that we have the van, we can see all the wonderful blessings that are coming with owning it.

We can go to more spiritual centers and share our music and message. We can travel to parts of the country we’ve never been to before. We can camp in nature and unwind on a deep level.

And, perhaps most importantly, we can learn to trust that because getting the van was Spirit’s idea, we don’t have to worry when something goes “wrong.”

Spirit’s got it!

Spirit had it in the past, Spirit has it in present, and Spirit’s always gonna have it!

And here’s another cool thing.

Having the van has given me many opportunities for my knickers to be in such a twist that hyperventilating is the only form of breathing available to me worry. As such, I have had many opportunities to ask for Help.

And help always comes!

Sometimes it’s in a call to the dealer. Or a visit to our travel van Facebook page. Or one of us remembers something the other forgot.

But the best help of all is when I know, really know, that Spirit’s in charge. All is well. All is always well. Even when my twisted knickers are threatening to make me pass out.

When we first picked up the van, the guy at the dealer was talking about all the little things that can go wrong in a travel vehicle. He joked that RV stands for Ruined Vacation.

Not one to let a negative idea like that stick, I immediately rebranded it.

RV?

It stands for Raised Vibration.

That’s been my experience.

I may have to pass through clenched knickers to get there, but I always get there!

What’s your experience with owning an RV as a spiritual practice? Share your comments below!

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