Trusting the Flow of Life

As you are reading this blog, take a moment and bring your attention to your breath. Notice that it is flowing through you, each in-breath turning into an out-breath and then merging into an in-breath again. Your breath is a part of the river of life that has been flowing since the beginning of time and this moment is a part of that flow. In this flow, moments become the river of a day, which flows into night and then back again, each one seamlessly merging into the other. And days and nights become seasons, an unbroken river of life through the eons.

You were intimate with this river of life when you were very young. There were no thoughts in your head when you first arrived, so you had no concept of time. There was only this moment. Growing up seems to be a process of forgetting the flow and getting caught in our heads – becoming human ‘doings’ instead of human ‘beings’. Rather than allowing thoughts, feelings and experiences to simply flow through us, we get lost in grasping at what we like and resisting what we don’t like.  And this gives us the illusion of being separate from the flow.

The truth is you never left the flow; you just think you have. Awakening is about relearning how to relax into life – being life rather than trying to make it a particular way.  It is rediscovering how to open to life, where our minds are curious rather than controlling and our hearts are inclusive rather than judgmental. It is possible to be consciously open to the great flow of life and know the joy, creativity and love that come from trusting life again.

Being in the flow is not about doing nothing. It is about being fully engaged with the creativity of life as it is appearing right now.  A good example is my book, The Magical Forest of Aliveness.  Back in 2009, I was sitting down to meditate, and a story started showing up in my head.  I let it go, but it wouldn’t let me go, so I wrote down the bare bones of this little tale of awakening. In those moments, I was listening to the flow of life.  I was being life rather than doing life.  I was responding to life rather than trying to control it. I never had even one thought about writing an awakening tale, and yet here it was, arising out of the great mystery of life.

As the story filled out over the next few months, I realized that this story is our story.  We were all born into the magical forest of aliveness where we were truly connected to ourselves and connected to life. Then slowly, as we grew up and thoughts began to fill up our heads, we all got caught behind the walls of the village called Mind, just like Rose, the little girl who is the main character in the book.  But through the challenges of her life, she finds her way to the tower of awareness in the center of the village where, for the first time since she was very little, she recognizes the magical forest of aliveness beyond the walls of the village of mind.

We can all discover exactly what Rose did. When we visit the ‘tower’ of awareness inside of us, we are curious about what is unfolding in our lives, both inside of ourselves and out.  As we learn how to listen, we realize that life is always speaking to us and showing us how to come back into the trust and aliveness that is our birthright.

Rose eventually makes her way back into the magical forest, where she remembers the deep trust of herself and of life, which she knew so well when she was little. On her journey of exploration, she comes across a lion, a tiger and a bear. As she meets each of these creatures, which she had been taught to fear, they reveal to her secrets of staying connected to herself and to the flow of life.  When she returns to the village, she discovers that the mighty walls around the village, which had formerly kept her separate from life, are now no higher than a garden wall.  And she knows that she will never loose connection with the trust, aliveness and joy that is her true self – and yours.

To recognize and discover how to relax into the flow, it is very helpful to befriend the river of breath, which is moving through you every moment of your life.  Take a moment and bring your attention to your breath, rising and falling, rising and falling. Let go enough to move beyond the idea that you are breathing and open into the truth that life is breathing you. To connect with your breath in this way is to reconnect with life again. Be willing to cultivate moments where you pause and allow life to breathe you and know, that even if your attention goes right back up into your thoughts, moments such as these matters.