Life moves with you, when you go with the flow.
Who wouldn’t want alignment and synergy with the flow of life? Suddenly, life seems to be so easy and not so hard. Doors open automatically for you and you just walk right in. It’s like cutting butter with a hot thin knife. No resistance. Yet, when we resist where life is taking us, we create stress and angst and things seem to thwart us at every turn. Suddenly, you feel like you are beating your head against a brick wall over and over. The fact is, you actually are. Life has put up that brick wall for a reason. You’re not supposed to go there, be there, or get involved.
The thing is, when we force something we exert a huge amount of energy and all our efforts goes into channeling against the flow. Even if we win by sheer force of determination, what we often find in the end is disappointment in the path we so forced upon ourselves. This is because that path was never really quite right for you.
I often find this situation happening to myself at work. For whatever reason I decide I should be on a certain project, or that my career should progress in a certain direction in a certain way. Then, I go about trying to force this outcome. I insert myself onto projects where people resent my intrusion, or I am pushy about something with my manager that turns her off from wanting to support me. Or, I inadvertently stomp over my colleagues and their aspirations in my blind ambition, which ruins work colleague friendships and support.
See, going against the flow is like actually going against your own self. It works counter to what you actually want. When we instead seek to find the flow and then converge with it, life opens up. When I seek opportunities to allow my colleagues to invite me into a project, or allow my manager to discuss my career aspirations I get much better results. I find better opportunities open up and getting on projects I hadn’t thought about that were actually a better fit. Notice the focus on the word allow. When we flow, we give permission to let things happen and unfold naturally, as they are meant to be. And, we get much better outcomes this way.
How to go with the Flow
Going with the flow is about developing certain habits and ways of thinking that open us up to the expansion of “allowing” in our life.
· Seek to find the “groove” of a situation or event and follow it
· Don’t get attached to outcomes
· Be willing to be an observer of your life versus trying to direct it
· Express gratitude for where life takes you. When we appreciate what life is doing for us and express gratitude for the direction it takes us, we begin to become more in tune with it.
Lastly, find ways to learn to embrace the flow as a mutual partnership. See it as something that has your best interest at heart, like a trusted friend, or a close family member. It is not your enemy but your confidant, your trusted advisor, your steady rock. It is something you can always count on to guide you in the right direction. Simply, you must have faith in this. Find ways to synergize and fuse with the energy of flow.
It’s About Timing and Dancing
Know that just because you want something in life doesn’t mean you won’t get it if it isn’t flowing easily to you. Sometimes it is about timing. For instance, I lived in Seattle for many years. The last several years of that time, I was desperate to get back to the sunny weather of my native state of California. But, the timing wasn’t right. It wasn’t good timing for my kids, for my job situation, and I didn’t have clarity on exactly where I wanted to move. I thought about trying to force the situation – like force my kids to move, pick any city I could get a job in, take whatever job I could get. But, I’m quite sure in retrospect that would’ve put me not where I wanted to be.
So, instead I decided to allow it to flow in its own due time. It took a few years, but things did eventually flow there. One day, my little sister moved from the East Coast to San Diego, CA. Suddenly, I had family located in a beautiful location. Then, my consulting contract gig ended and I had nothing else in the pipeline. My rental lease was ending. My children were no longer living at home. And, suddenly all things were converging at a singular point where the path to California had become clear. Suddenly, life was flowing me there!
Consider how a school of fish operates in the water. When one moves the rest moves in unison. It is a synchronized dance. What would happen if you were one of those fish and you refused to go with the flow? You could find yourself in open water without the protection of the school of fish because you decided to go your own way. Life is like this.
When we go with the flow, it protects us, it guides us, it channels the way forward for us. We dance with it. When we go against the flow, we find ourselves left to our own devices in open and potentially dangerous waters. Find partnership with and embrace the flow of life – then things come to you. It’s a lot less stressful this way and it actually works better!
#flow #gowithflow #lifeflow #flowithlife #goingwiththeflow