Beyoncé, Blackouts and the Courage to Let Go

To know me is to know that I revel in spirituality, physics and all things ethereal — things delightful to explore and sometimes challenging to comprehend.

I’ve wanted to share this story for a while but didn’t quite have the framing until this week — a week of consistent meditation on detachment and surrender. For decades, detachment has been difficult for me to know. I believe there is a space of compassionate curiosity without attachment to outcomes. I know that existing in that space, even for brief moments, can be powerful, the resulting inner peace priceless. My detachment and surrender muscles (now there’s an oxymoron for ya) are growing, I hope.

On a few memorable occasions, I’ve stuck the landing on surrender. Those instances serve to remind me of the power letting go, particularly when combined with positive belief (a.k.a. faith), the most profound of which has to do with Queen B … or is it Bey?

Full disclosure: I’m not an official fan or member of the B-Hive (though the recent release of the queen’s hair care line, Cécred, just might turn me!) My outsider status makes this testimony about her influence all the more interesting.

Join me for a ride in the Wayback Machine. In July 2013, I was getting back on my feet post divorce — navigating a new consulting gig that was lucrative and keeping me quite busy. After years — and I do mean years — of significant shrinking and believing my mind's negative stories, I was beginning to feel a joie de vivre return. My two teenagers and I lived in a comfortable lakefront condo in Chicago. And little fun encounters and opportunities were showing up. I was loving myself more, and life was responding in kind.

A good friend invited me to join her for a last-minute VIP experience during the Mrs. Carter Show World Tour at the United Center. I said yes quickly and was quite excited about affording and attending my first grown-folks concert in over a decade.

My friend explained that there was a pre-party that I wouldn’t want to miss and that traffic would be bad, so I should allow plenty of time. So on July 17, 2013, I entered my client’s office earlier than usual and notified the marketing executive I supported that I’d be heading out by 3 p.m. to make it downtown for an event that evening. She responded to my notice: “No. You have to stay until at least 4:30 because flextime dictates that is the earliest you can leave.”

I was befuddled because I was a consultant racking billable hours, not face time. And the gap in question was 90 minutes on a Friday afternoon. “What if I don’t take lunch?” I asked.

“Lunch is only 45 minutes, and even if you choose not to take it, you still can’t leave before 4:30,” she curtly responded.

For an instant, I felt trapped. I needed the gig and somehow knew that leaving without permission would be perceived as disruptive and insubordinate within the fragile, rigid corporate culture.

I took a breath, went to my little cubicle of corporate hell and spent just a little time petitioning our Creator.

I mentioned that I really wanted to go to the VIP party and that I’d waited a long time to be able to do fun things like concerts. I shared surprise that the desire for me to leave early was not mutual: The funds had been provided; my children were cared for; my friends would be waiting. And it was Beyoncé, who everyone loved! I was referencing her in branding lectures, and I wanted a chance to see what all the hype was about — live. I acknowledged that I needed the gig and was grateful to have it. I shared earnestly that the environment was too restrictive in general. I poured out my frustration about how formerly oppressed employees had become oppressive leaders for employees — and argued that every child of God in that building deserved more liberty at work. In closing, I acknowledged that I was able to submit to whom authority had been given, so if the leader I reported to said stay, I’d stay.

Then I did a thing I’d like to do much more often: I let it go! I completely detached from the outcome. I felt sincere gratitude for whatever reason the Divine had for my not leaving early, if that was the way it was going to be. I imagined a handful of ways that I or someone else might have benefited from my staying until 4:30, then said out loud: “I want to leave early, and I trust You. Your will be done!”

I moved into the NOW and gave no more attention to the future, or past. I dove into the details of merchandizing mockups and product launch details and took my 45-minute lunch (a little early because I was hungry from having arrived super early). I forgot about how oppressive the organizational culture was.

I flowed into a state of acceptance. I was more attentive than usual, looking for the goodness of being present where I was at that moment.

Around 1 p.m., as I was sitting in my cubicle writing haircare product packaging copy, the building went completely dark. Pitch. Black. Can’t-see-your-hand-in-front-of-your-face dark. I immediately — perhaps arrogantly — giggled and thought, “Is this for me, God?”

An entire building of over 100 employees made their way out into the Friday sunshine in the parking lot and waited for news about what had happened. Management scrambled around and made calls. And just before 2 p.m., the leadership team announced by megaphone: “There is a grid outage. Everyone must leave the premises, and you will be paid for the full workday.”

Dayum!

I got in my car and sat there for a good while, astounded and feeling like a Moses protégée. I returned to my conversation with Spirit and expressed profound gratitude for the experience, for liberty and for everyone receiving full pay for a partial day’s work. I may have called a friend or two as witnesses. Before 3 p.m., I made it out of the parking lot.

Really! I enjoyed the VIP party and my first Beyoncé concert.

I return to this story again and again to remember the recipe for real magic: faith, hope, love and surrender. And a little Beyoncé never hurts.