One of my favorite teaching metaphors when I do workshops or have individual sessions with people is to talk about water as a teacher. Having been a person who, in the past, had struggle as a familiar companion, learning to allow water to be my teacher was an important breakthrough in my own journey. My struggles generally had to do with feeling out of control, being anxious that something needed to happen now rather than later, and that kind of thing. As I learned to pay attention to water, and to discover the delight of letting go of struggle, my life became more and more fluid and filled with a surprising ease, even in the presence of the inevitable challenges of being on the planet.

I think I first ran into the idea of water as a teacher from the writings of Thich Nhat Hahn, the Buddhist monk who has contributed so much to teaching mindfulness practices to Westerners. He talks about being fully present while washing dishes and noticing the water run down the drain. When I imagine water running down the drain, I immediately move into an awareness of the flow of water. Wherever it finds itself, whatever the terrain or circumstance, water keeps finding a way to flow. If it trickles down a mountain and runs into rocks or plants, it finds a way around, under, or over whatever it encounters. Through it’s steady flow, it created one of the world’s wonders – the Grand Canyon. If it gets held in a pond or a reservoir, it takes the time to evaporate and then comes down somewhere else as precipitation, and can again flow. It moves down deep into the earth and joins with underground lakes and rivers that flow in places we don’t see.

Water as a teacher allows us to experiment with letting go in a positive, mindful way. It offers us an opportunity to imagine finding a way around obstacles, and prompts us to look for options when we feel stuck, all without struggle. Water doesn’t struggle to create canyons and erode cliffs. It just keeps doing what it does with the steady rhythm of waves crashing onshore. There’s no hurry, no wasted effort. There might be the strength of waves in a storm, but the same principle applies: they move with the winds and keep flowing.

Water reminds us also that, when we can’t move in any direction, we can wait and see what happens and then move as circumstances change. If we feel stuck, as if we were water trapped in a puddle, pond, lake, or reservoir, we can become quiet and notice that we are quiet. Without struggle, we can recognize that this is a time to be where we are with complete confidence that things will change, just as water will eventually evaporate and become rain, snow, or fog and move on its way.

For this week’s experiment, I invite you to allow water to be your teacher. Give yourself an opportunity to notice what happens for you when you release struggle and allow yourself to flow around and through difficulties or challenges with the confidence that there will be a way, even if the forward movement of your solution is temporarily blocked.

As you allow water to be your teacher, notice what state of mind and feelings emerges in your experience. Notice your physical sensations when you allow yourself to encounter, and then flow through experience, the way water encounters a rock or pile of dirt it needs to go around. Notice how the water may pool up for a moment but then begins to flow again, as it finds the opening, finds its way. If you have times of quiet, when there’s no place to go, nothing to do, recall the water in a lake, still, reflecting the sky above. There are times when the quiet of a still lake is exactly what is needed and appropriate, and it can be deeply nourishing to tap into the beauty of those moments.

Give yourself permission to discover things about water you hadn’t noticed before, and how these new discoveries can teach you about “no struggle” and about the flow of your life. As always, there’s no right way to do the experiment. With curiosity as your constant companion, it’s an opportunity to surprise yourself with new understandings and skills.

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