Flow

One of the biggest contributors to anxiety is our inability to go with the flow.

Think of a dam in a river.  It stops the water flowing, and the pressure builds up.  Many forms of anxiety are no more than this, the building up of pressure behind a blockage.

The silly thing is, many of the blockages are self-made.  We require the world to conform to our wishes, and in doing so, we build dams in our minds.

AN EXERCISE

Today, watch yourself, and watch your flow.

See whether you manage to drift from experience to experience without resistance.

Perhaps there are things that catch you, obstacles that stop you moving forward.

Perhaps someone does something that irritates you, and you think ‘I can’t possibly carry on until I have corrected the annoyance, the irritation.’

Try to understand that the irritation may be in you.  That, at least, is where it is being experienced.  Instead of requiring the world to adapt to you, try becoming the kind of substance that can simply flow through dams.

Just for today, see if you can flow from thing to thing without resisting.