Flowing with the River

Are you going with the flow of life or trying to swim against it?

Going with the flow means letting go of how we think life around us should be and instead letting life unfold. Yet letting go is particularly difficult when we’re faced with upheaval, like the Covid-19 pandemic we’re living in right now. Just turn on the news, and you get a strong blast of fear, death, and the unknown. Many people have never had to face such uncertainty. At such times, letting go and going with the flow of life takes strength and courage.

It’s helpful to have a daily plan for living in quarantine. It’s also helpful to not get too attached to that plan, but be willing to let go of it when needed. Steer yourself within life’s current when you can, and when it’s too strong, let the power of the water, of life, carry you. And trust.

Going with the flow also means turning in to the life force within us. When we’re not fighting, pushing, and getting caught up in our busy, worrying minds, this life force—a presence, an unnamable energy—surfaces and enlarges. It is always carrying us, leading us, and guiding us.

My mother-in-law taught me what flowing with the river of our life force looks like. During the year she was navigating a grave illness, I accompanied her on a visit with a shaman. He said to her, “Are you going with the river or trying to go upstream?”

Karen said, “I am going with the river.”

Her words touched my soul. She was accepting, allowing, and not fighting the current of her inner essence, her soul. Every day Karen chose what gave her life. And, with her choices, there was an ease and fluidity that moved through her. A brightness arose from within her. Her sense of being alive was palpable and almost electric. Three days before she died, she said to me, sitting up in bed, “I am ready and I am not afraid.”

When we go with the flow, we stop fighting the currents, both inner and outer. We stop pushing and start allowing. And when we do an awareness of the beauty that is all around us, surfaces. We begin to understand that there is more to this big life than meets the eye.

We can just be. Be and be.

Instead of trying to control the river, be like the river – flowing, fluid, rippling. Go with the flow. There may be a wave that arises. Ride the waves. Know that you can navigate choppy waters one wave at a time.

And know that you will be given strength every step of your path.