Through Me, Not By Me
Every day I go on this walk. And every time I start the walk, I say these words out loud: I am inviting life to flow through this body—unrestricted, unlimited, unattached, uninhibited, without pushing and without holding back.
One thing I'm learning about life is that it's always moving. Nothing that is alive isn't moving. And sometimes this is really frustrating. Like when I can't get my kids to sit still. Or my plans not to change. Or for people to act the way I expect. But if it's alive, it's moving. Whether I like it or not.
Another thing I'm finding is that I can become really afraid of all this movement. And there's a part of me that just wants to slow it all down. To hold it in place. To manage it. But I'm finding that managing life is about as effective as standing in the ocean and trying to manage the waves. They just go right by me. No matter how much effort I give it.
And at the end of a bout between me and the waves—between me and the movement of life—it always ends the same: I'm exhausted; the waves continue on.
The one thing, maybe the only thing, I do seem to have control over is the spending of so much effort. And while this constant spending of effort doesn't seem to lead to any change whatsoever to the waves, it does tend to create a lot of strain and pain within myself.
About 13 years ago, I lost my voice on stage. In a panic, I jumped into a field of research—and what has now become a daily practice. It started as a way to get to the bottom of the pain of using my voice but has now become the heart of my daily walk—where I am repairing a strained relationship I've had with life for over 40 years. A relationship where I try to control, life refuses to be controlled, and I'm left exhausted.
What I've learned over these 13 years of daily walks with life is that not only is life always moving no matter what, but it wants to move, not around me, not in spite of me, not by me, but through me.
I am alive. And every time that I breathe in and breathe out I am reminded that life is flowing through this body. And while I can't control it, I'm learning that it's best I don't.
Life's movement does rhyme. It does reason. It's just not my rhyme or my reason. Thank goodness.
But the more practical learning for me has been that when I release my grip on the movement of life, it flows freely through me, no longer right by me.
And the pain of trying to control it transforms into rest. And as I rest, I find the thing I least expected to find on the other side of letting go:
I find strength. Power. Resilience, hope, love, generosity, creativity—all the things, and more, I'd hoped to find by controlling life, flow effortlessly through my body... the moment I let it. I want to be clear that this is maybe the hardest thing I've ever tried to do. Trust, at least for me, is so much harder than the hardest work.
But life is relentless.
Relentless in its lessons and therefore relentless in its love and kindness toward me—it never stops moving in ways that remind me it's okay to let go. And to let life flow—unrestricted, unlimited, unattached, uninhibited—through me, not by me.