Week 116: Shifting with the Flow

Recently, I spent time with a healer who has become a teacher for me. I was lamenting how busy life had become, and the loss of the kind of time I used to have to do things like sitting and listening to the trees in Central Park for however long I wanted. As we talked, he talked about the metaphor of a river as the flow of each of our individual lives. He asked me how I would feel when the river flowed along lazily and I had plenty of time to enjoy the vista all around me. Then, he asked me how I would feel as the river naturally began to move along move rapidly and to imagine the surrounding countryside at that speed. Finally, he asked how it would be if I were to enter a part of the river where it flowed along quite rapidly, so that the scenes around me became secondary, where my experience was focused on sensations of the rapid movement itself.

Immediately, I relaxed into the experience of being with what is – that the river of my life happens to be moving along quite rapidly these days. This got me to thinking how many of us feel rushed and living lives that feel increasingly harried or pushed along and I got to wondering how this is for you. I also got to wondering how you are handling any shifts and changes in the rhythm of your life that may emerge as you go from one phase of activity and development to another. And, there may be those of you for whom life has suddenly slowed down, due to losing a job, illness, injury, or some other life event. For you, how is it to suddenly be in a part of the river that moves at a leisurely pace when you might prefer to be more active?

And so, for this week’s experiment, I invite you to notice where there may have been changes in the level of your daily activity, in the quality of demands on you and in the general experience of your life. When you think of these as changes in the flow of the river that is your unfolding life experience – as being just what comes next – how does that feel for you? When the rhythm of your life changes, how is it for you to accept that you’re in a quicker or slower flow of your life in this moment?

As you explore your responses to the place in the river your life has brought you, notice what you experience in your body – where you may tighten around or relax into the “what is” of the present time in your life. Also notice the tone of your thinking, how you talk to yourself about what’s happening in your life right now. Does your internal conversation add to your resilience in the face of “what is” and make you feel more resourceful? Or, does it contribute to a sense of struggle and lament, as I was doing when I came into the conversation about the river?

Allow this week’s experiment to nourish your capacity to be aware, remembering that awareness is the key to choice. Once we recognize we may be struggling with what is, we have an opportunity to shift into resilience and see what we want to do about it.

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