Hi guys! Welcome to Episode 501 of the Wildly Successful Lifestyle podcast! Episode 501 you are just as important and monumental in my book as Episode 500. Honestly though, I have an unbelievable story for you guys that played out like a real live horror movie happened for me and my husband, Eric this past weekend as we had our glamping adventure in the smoking mountains. It was crazy but first… I hope you guys are all feeling amazing and optimistic about the opportunities that are coming your way. Remember you get what you’re looking for, and you may not realize this but you may not be aware of what you’re looking for because it might be subtle. It’s really all about what you’re focused on, because what you’re focused on the most is what you’re looking for. If you think you’re a victim, you are. If you think the world is your oyster, it is. So what do you see when you go out is the world against you or is it collaborating so that things line up to always work in your favor? Either is true, depending on your world view. This is truer than you can ever imagine.
Ok, I talked a few episodes ago about how my nail guy inspired us to take a few more weekend trips and so we booked a long weekend of camping in the smokey mountains. Now, Eric says we have moved past the whole setting up our own tent and using a shared public bathroom kind of camping but I also love tent camping so he found a happy medium. It’s called glamping. It’s basically tents that are already set up and have a king size bed a bathroom and a wood burning stove for warmth. So this glamping company in the smokies has about 40 tents set up in a bowl in the smoky mountains, there’s a main tent with breakfast and dinner to order and campfires every night with gourmet smores set up for all their guests. It is very cool and very quaint. The best (and also the worst, you’ll come to see) is the fact that there is absolutely zero cell phone coverage so you have no cell service whatsoever and no wifi. Which means no X, no texts and no phone calls in or out. A true timeline cleanse which we desperately needed. So, We got there on Wednesday night late and were staying through Sunday. Eric and I were in heaven, We hiked during the day and then relaxed in the evening and night. He had our fire going in our tent keeping us warm, it was 37 degrees at night and we had cozy dinners in the main tent and then smores by the campfire with other campers mulling about as well. Everything we thought it would be. Saturday night started out as all the other nights…a quiet evening with smores by the fire, we made new friends because noone had phones so of course we had to do it the old way and talk to the people around us…we met this darling young couple and learned all kinds of things about them and them us. As the evening progressed, they went into the tent to listen to live music and Eric and I decided to go on to our tent and get ready for bed…we were snuggled in cozy and warm and sound asleep by 9:30. All was well with the world, until 11:30 almost on the dot when we heard some scream. It woke us both up and then we heard another scream loud scream…which was followed by the most blood curdling scream I had ever heard and someone creaming “help me.” Now, by this time everyone in the camp was already in bed for the most part. And remember, we have no cell phone coverage so there’s no calling 911. By this time Eric has jumped out of bed and has unzipped the front of our tent and is standing there. When the last scream came, I said “Eric” and he said “I know, I know Im going to see whats going on.” I know him and I know he will run towards if he thinks he can help so I get to the front of the tent just in time to see him sprinting across the landscape cutting these two people off who were running as fast as they could away from the screams, he isn’t sure if they are involved so he cuts them off and yells whats going on!?!?! He quickly sees they are a young couple who are terrified and had obviously been asleep as well. They tell him they don’t know what happened but they were running to try to get help. By now there are 6 other people running towards the main tent as well. Two girls staying in the tent close by also came running. A story was starting to form. A couple had been arguing and they heard what they thought was the man beating her up. Eric looks at me and I can tell he’s going to go to that tent. I begged him to stay with us because we don’t know if the guy has lost his mind or has a gun. The screaming had stopped and I was sure she was not alive at this point. We finally reached the main community tent who had one young girl working as night manager and she was able to use the land line to call the police. Fortunately, A female off duty out of jurisdiction law enforcement officer who happened to be a guest as well, had gone to the tent with another male guest to check on the woman. They were able to talk to the woman who had been screaming, she was unharmed and extremely argumentative and combative, she said do not the call police and he is not a danger to me . We still don’t have a clear picture of why all the screaming. In my mind this horrible man had tried to kill his wife. My husband always the logical one said we don’t know yet what happened so he was not rushing to judgement. We know now she is alive and the police are on the way, so all we could do was wait. About 15 minutes later here come the police, two sheriff cars show up and the night manager points them in the direction of the tent. They go and are there for about 20 minutes or so before turning around and just leaving. We have no idea what they did or what they were doing and they just left the premises without telling anyone including the crew. Did they just leave with the couple still in the tent? Would they do that? The people in the tents around them are now too scared to go back to their tent. As we are standing outside the main tent in disbelief that the police left without telling anyone anything, we see this figure walking down the dark gravel road. She isn’t hurt and she isn’t crying. She is ANGRY and she doesn’t care who knows it. As she walks up she is yelling “Thanks A LOT”. Thanks a lot!” She goes right up to the night manager and says “I specifically said not to call the police and you did”. Now go and get the kindling so I can start my fire. The night manager says nicely we have to ask you and your husband to leave you cant stay here tonight, you have to leave the premises. To this the lady says “They took him to jail!!” He’s gone they took him to jail now get me my fire starters and do not talk to me”. My husband looked at me like “we now see who was a big part of the problem” We were all relieved to know at least he was gone so the screaming and fighting should be done. By this time as we are walking back to our tent we see that just about every tent had their battery lights on, no-one was sleeping now. One young couple moved tents and the other slept with one eye open, the next morning, we run into our young friends from the bonfire and I ask them how they were doing, did they get any sleep because their tent was right beside the tent where the lady was screaming. They seemed awfully calm to me and we noticed they hadn’t come out last night when everyone else was panicking. When I asked if they were ok, she said oh yeah we are fine. We watched the whole thing from beginning to end. We unzipped the canvas window and watched the whole thing from our bed. Yes, they were drunk and yes their was a scuffle. But the woman had started it by tackling him and then he hit her to get her away from him, but the crazy thing was that when she was screaming….Rape. And screaming help me….she was not in danger of being harmed at all, her husband was on the opposite side of the tent nowhere even near her. He was just calmly asking for his keys. He just kept saying give me my keys. To which she started screaming and actually punching the buttons to set off his car alarm. They had arrested the wrong person so it seemed. From all perspectives, it seemed like she was the one being abused…it turns out that was not the true story that night. As Eric and I were trying to get back to sleep, I said “Well, I guess we wont be doing this again”. And kind of laughed but the next day, Eric, always the voice of reason… said we have had such an amazing time, we cant let this 3 hour episode stain the whole 5 day experience. We were in a literal hurricane in Cabo for Mollys 30th and we still had a wonderful time. We can dramatize it and make it so that we never go hiking or camping again because that is sometimes what we do in our heads. Our brain is telling us this is unsafe because it would prefer if we shut ourselves in the house, not even leaving to buy groceries, which is actually a possibility now. But things like this can happen anywhere at any time.
As he said this, I thought you know what he’s right, as usual. I can’t wait to do this again, and we will, as soon as we can because thats what it means to live. . You don’t stop living because of a setback, you don’t stop living because things turned out differently than you expected and You don’t stop living because of one scary episode. You get back up, brush yourself off and you start again.
My challenge to you this week is to ask yourself are you living to the limits of your highest self or are you living to the limit of the thoughts that try to keep you safe but afraid? Share this with 3 people who deserve to live to the limits of their highest self! I love you guys! I’ll talk to you in a few days!
