Free

Have you ever stood in an angry ocean and fought to keep your balance?

Have you ever been out walking in a gale and desperately tried to continue walking in a straight line?

Have you ever mowed the lawn and realised the hills in the backyard were absolutely not made for lawn mowers (more specifically, humans with little patience, with lawn mowers.)

Opposition everywhere. Challenges of control, everywhere.

Why did you fight what was, do you think, rather than going in the direction the opposing force was taking you?

How did it feel when you were fighting?

There was resistance in the body and the mind, wasn’t there. Your muscles were tensing, and your mind was fighting the natural way of things because your mind told you that the ‘right’ way was for ‘you’ to remain in control.

Your mind told you that you were the centre of the universe, in those moments, didn’t it. That if the force wasn’t with you, it was against you, and omg how dare it be against you. (cue anger, frustration, pain, and probably all the f*#@s.)

We’ve all been surviving for so very long in a way that goes against the natural way of things. Who could blame us for fighting, though, when we haven’t even been aware of the whole earth/universe/human connection thing.

We say things like ‘go with the flow’ because we hear that sort of thing in childhood, but no one really explained what it meant, because no one really thought about it for too long. Go with the flow? But what does that even mean?

No one knew. Until they finally did.

Until they had no choice but to surrender to the ocean that was. Until they’d stood against the windy backdrop of life, been knocked off their feet, and realised, finally, that there was no point in fighting for control of the ocean, the sky, the sun, the rain.

Or, you know, the back lawn.

Over the past twenty four hours, the universe has taught me a lesson that’s been in the making for a lifetime (I’m 37, lol, how dramatic am I?) and even though I’ll go back to being the forgetful muffin I was yesterday, today I see the lesson and I know the truth of it down to my bones.

It feels much nicer to become the wind that blows you, rather than to resist the flow of what just is. However frustrating the wind, the sea, the back lawn. It just is. And if it was going to be any other way…it would be.

Today, I saw the ocean I’ve been battling, the one that’s tossed me around for so, so, so long. My first instinct was to fight it. Instead, I became aware of the wave, and then I became it. I let go of what if, and I surrendered to what is.

And though it meant that ‘I’ wouldn’t be getting ‘my’ way…I somehow knew there was no point in fighting the natural way of things.

So I just didn’t.