31 Jan 2026
PREVIEW your path to happy
Get inspired and empowered as "Anne-with-a-Plan" shares the surprising twists -- and choices -- on the road to happy with Sufi wisdom for modern times. Enjoy the Tale of the Sands to help you navigate your path, listen for guidance and choose wisely.
Listen to a "Once upon a time" tale, this is a delightful story of a confident stream who suddenly gets stuck in a desert.....and needs to find her way out so you too can learn how to:
Get Unstuck
Move beyond Fear
Find Deep Fulfillment
What's your "desert" right now? Sometimes the way out of "stuck" isn't "more the same" or fighting the obstacles in your path.
Instead it's listening deeply and finding your flow, choosing a different path on your road to happy. Listen and see.....
Subscribe
SIGN UP for the Finding Happy newsletter - FREE
Invite a friend
ooxx
Anne
THE TALE OF THE SANDS
Once upon a time, there was a beautiful stream making its way from its source in the tall misty mountains, traveling through green valleys, meadows, forests. The stream moved along without effort, splashing and frolicking day and night, making music as it flowed.
At last, the stream reached the sands of a big desert. Just as it had crossed every other barrier, the stream tried to cross the desert. But the stream found that as fast as it ran into the sands, its waters disappeared. The more the stream flowed, the more it disappeared.
The stream was convinced that its destiny was to cross the desert. It would be happy on the other side. And yet, there was no way to cross the sands.
Frustrated, annoyed, the stream heard a voice whispering....
"The wind crosses the desert, so can you!"
"But the wind can fly. I'm a stream. I can't fly," the stream grumbled at the sands.
"The wind can help you. Allow yourself to be absorbed by the wind, and it will carry you across in its arms."
The stream did not like that.
It was afraid that it would lose its individuality if it merged with the wind. What guarantee was there that would ever be regained?
The voice in the sand said, "You cannot in any case remain the same stream you are today. By hurtling at things in your usual energetic way, you're going to disappear into the desert, or you'll turn into a big, boggy quagmire. But if you allow the wind to take you, you're essential part will be carried away and you will form into a stream again."
Ignoring the voice of the sands, the stream kept trying to cross the desert all on its own, flinging itself angrily into the desert again and again and again.
The sands whispered: "Come, this is the way!"
When it heard this, certain echoes began to arise in the thoughts of the stream. Dimly, it remembered a state in which some part of it had been cradled in the arms of the wind.
The stream raised its vapor to the welcoming arms of the breeze, which carried it above the desert for many miles and released it as a soft rain on the roof of a mountain.
Because this stream had had its doubts, it was able to remember the details of the experience and reflected, "Yes! Now I have found my identity!"
The sands whispered, "We know ... because we see this happen every day and because, we the ands, we extend all the way from the desert to the mountains"
And, that, is the Sufi story of the Stream and the Whispering Sands.
Hope you enjoy,
Anne
Tags: happiness, personal growth, change, Sufi wisdom, metaphors, self-discovery, overcoming obstacles, emotional well-being, transformation.
