Be Like Water: Let it Flow
Most humans love to make attachments. We cling to goals and dreams, we cling to possessions, we cling to loved ones, we cling to the past. It’s so embedded that we do it without even thinking. We just don’t want to let go.
You may have heard me talk about being so overcome by the sadness on faces of all of those I witnessed around me. It seemed that everywhere I looked I saw this deep, pain and sadness behind the eyes. I now realize this is our Soul/Higher Self/True Self crying from being separated. And now I see that my work focuses on restoring that connection so we can live fully and as One, not separate parts of self.
My last blog I wrote about what it means to [be like water and practice wu wei](http://valerieherald.com/blog/be-like-water). I want to go more in depth now as I have been exploring the practice in everyday life.
One thing that’s been blazing like a warning light is how we get stuck on the details. When we are triggered in some way, we focus on what caused it, where it came from, etc. Our brain searches for a reference point of when we last felt like that and all of those similar experiences are brought to the surface. Meanwhile, we get so caught up in the story or what it means that we avoid the actual emotion, resisting it and pushing it into the background. Energetically, we’re storing this within us rather than feeling the emotion and allowing it to flow through. By focusing on the details, we are taken away from the present moment and what we are experiencing right now. Our “story” surfaces and while all the related pain we’d buried arises within us, we are intellectualizing and analyzing it. So, the new emotion gets buried with the old, adding even more weight to what we are carrying.
This also means that we are most often living from the past. When there is a situation we desire or something presents itself for us to choose, we make our choice based on what we’ve learned from the past. This is where all the talk about subconscious, wounds, energetic vibrations and that influence comes in. Rather than responding from where we are right now and what we want right now, we are basing our “data” from what has occurred in the past.
Does water behave this way? No. Water flows freely. It moves over whatever is in its path with ease. It can be guided and directed, but it doesn’t hesitate to make a new path if there is one of less resistance. It wears down rough edges over time. It only stops flowing when there is a block or dam, or no changes in elevation or volume to generate movement. Water does not get hung up on where it was, what rock it traveled over back there, because it is always moving forward.
When water slows and becomes still, it becomes stagnant, moldy and toxic. It becomes a breeding ground for mosquitoes. Metaphorically, I think this is the perfect image to hold within us as well. When we stop flowing and moving, we become toxic and life is sucked out of us.
We get stuck and stop flowing when we store the emotions within us and when we try to hang on to the past or keep wishing for the future. We drag ourselves down because we keep piling on more and more.
I’m sure you’re asking but how do we live now, how do we change when we’ve been wounded, how do we just let go. It’s not going to be easy. There’s a lot of releasing to be done. The best way is to deal with it when it rises. When you get triggered, this is when all the related blocked energy arises and says “Hey, here I am. Please release me. I’m ready to go.” Instead of trying to figure out where it is coming from, why and all that other “mind” stuff, just sit with it, feel it, give it a voice and let it go. Getting caught up in the mind distracts us from feeling and letting go. This is also a process of detaching from it. There are some hurts we’ve carried with us for many, many years and we’re attached to them. But the You today is desiring something different and that something different requires you to let it go and focus on right now.
Do you feel the tug for something different?