Be Fluid – How to Go with Your Own Flow

“Be fluid” the osteopath said to me. Of course she was referring predominantly to my physiology, but I couldn’t help see the parallels across all levels of my being, and how that shows up in everyday life.

Unbeknown to me until recently, osteopaths are very concerned with how fluids flow throughout our bodies; through channels, across membranes and within open spaces. Should the flow of fluids stagnate our wellbeing diminishes.

As I was lying on the table during the consult, she asked me to take a minute and focus my thoughts elsewhere so I could get out of the way of my body. Often, as a patient lies on the osteopathic table and is trying to guess what the osteopath is doing (or is about to do), these very thoughts are inhibiting the flow of fluids that the osteopath is trying to assess.

I took the welcome respite from having to focus my attention on what another was saying and started to notice the noises in the room. It was a warm day and the windows were slightly open. I could hear the traffic going past on the road outside. Then I could hear the birds twittering away, seemingly oblivious to the encroachment of man’s modern world.

It made me think about the same sounds I’ve been hearing in my back garden while meditating recently. It’s late spring here in the southern hemisphere and nature has come alive all around. The birds and their melody will soon be surpassed by the pulsating symphony of cicadas as the weather gets warmer, but for now it’s the bird’s chips and chirrups that reach my ears all day long – should I wish to tune in.

Another thing the osteopath said that captured my interest was how attentive I was with my daughter (who she had also treated recently). Having just spent another 4-day weekend with the kids due to a teacher development day and a strike, and having had visitors over that time, I was feeling rather depleted and in need of alone time.

I mulled over this word attentive, rolling it around in my mind, in a similar way to sucking on a delicious candy. Contemplation is one of my favourite pastimes; I love going down the rabbit hole with just one or two words that pique my interest.

So I thought about this word attentive. It indicates presence, which I have been deliberately focused on these last few years. In fact, I should probably take a moment to just absorb the fact that I am less prone these days to fretting over the past or future, the thoughts in my head often relate to the present moment, which is a good thing.

That said, I am not exempt from cogitating the burgeoning to-do list in my head in any given moment; especially when I am at home with the kids. The process of running a household, supporting a business and looking after two young children is often a juggling act of crazy proportions. However, I know I am not alone  in that, we each generally have responsibilities that require our attention many times in each day.

So as I circled back to this issue of being fluid, I wondered, how can I go with my own flow when I’m feeling pulled this way and that so often? I thought about what being fluid really means, and – given these apparently encroaching responsibilities I have chosen – how do I define flow?

There is a verse in the Teo Te Ching, ascribed to Lao Tzu, which resonates “Nothing in the world is as soft and yielding as water. Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible, nothing can surpass it. The soft overcomes the hard, the gentle overcomes the rigid.”

It brings to mind a picture of flowing around obstacles rather than pushing against them.

For example, yesterday I had an opportunity to go with the flow or push against it. I went to pick up the kids from school. Generally I park at one end, walk to the other to pick up my youngest first, then collect my other daughter on the way back down to the car. As a rule, I usually like to get home as soon as possible; it’s the time of day the kids need to unwind, and I need to make dinner and such forth.

So when I had walked from one end to the other and back again, my eldest daughter asked if we could walk back up to the other end of school to collect “something I left there earlier”.

I groaned inwardly, my flow was taking me to the car, now I could see an obstacle. It quickly became apparent that her desire to go get this valuable item (that she described as “a yellowish-green thing that sparkles”) was higher than my desire to rush home. To make her go home without collecting this item would have created a virtual dam in the flow, especially since her sister also seemed quite intent on the idea.

So off we went, picking our way up through the school grounds again until we came to the forest where she retrieved her treasure (a dislodged bamboo shoot). It was actually quite a pleasant walk once I’d surrendered to the diverted flow. The weather was beautiful, the kids enjoyed reconnecting and sharing the various things they’d discovered that day, and I enjoyed watching them and being with them.

We got home a half hour later than usual, but there was nothing else pressing, and we managed our after-school routine quite well.

This is not me saying we should do whatever our kids want for an easy life. As an adult, we have a greater perspective than they do. They see only their path on the river, their singular desires and focus, whereas we are able to take in a wider view and assess where these paths may converge.

It also means there is no need to do whatever my partner, parents, peers, or anyone else, wants me to do if it goes against my own flow of wellbeing. I now look for the win-win answers in each seeming obstacle, seeking the path that allows me to remain fluid. Sometimes that may mean I need to body swerve a path that seems easier to take in the short run, in order to stay on the better path for me in the long run.

For example, this last weekend was the school’s annual fair. Rather than be herded into the path that involved the onerous task of organizing the fair, along with most of the other parents in my eldest daughter’s class, I quite deliberately opted to take another path. I knew the first would be my undoing, so I put my own welfare above the pull to fit in and seem helpful.

We contributed to the school’s fair in other ways; my partner made more than 70 bars of his famous fudge and he and his mum both helped to run the coffee and cake stall for a good chunk of the morning while I looked after the kids among the thronging masses who had descended upon the school grounds.

This pales into comparison to what some of the other parent’s contributed, but to do more would have been inauthentic for me. My energy fills up from inward reflection and contemplation, or meaningful one on one time with people, rather than broader social contact. On balance, I’d rather teach my kids by my own example to be who they are than to sacrifice in order to fit with the herd.

As I was listening to the birdsong the other evening after dinner, I was struck again by how completely oblivious the birds seem to our human din. My youngest daughter, who is rather vocal, was upset with her sister. The cacophony that ensued made not the slightest difference to the bird song; they just kept right on tweeting and chirping to one another.

It reminded me of a story I’d recently heard about the fighting in the fields of France back in the Great War. With death and destruction all around, in the midst of mayhem, a soldier became transfixed by a butterfly that fluttered above where he was lying in the field; struck by the beauty and carefree oddity amid his own personal hell.

Nature pays little heed to us; it goes with the flow quite nicely, tuned to its own wellbeing. In contrast, I still spend far too much time tuned into other people, or the thoughts in my head that are regurgitating the past or anticipating the future.

Casting the shroud of who I should be versus who I am is a process. I can’t suddenly be okay with different ways of being in the world without recalling the old beliefs and judgments I had about them. But the more I learn how to go with my own flow, the less resistance I feel in my path.

In addition to taking 15 minutes in each day to do nothing other than observe my thoughts and let them go (meditation), I now stop as often as I remember to just tune into the natural sounds around me. This allows me to tune into the flow of life that is always there, the wellbeing, and reminds me to be fluid.

If you enjoyed reading this you may enjoy Win-Win-Win Giving, Do What Fuels You – And Dump the Rest or Meditation – the Cornerstone to Your Success.

​If you’d like a fresh perspective (and only that, it’s not advice you have to take or act upon) on a situation in your own life, feel free to contact me or click here for further information. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.
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