Recently,
I stood by a river.
A strong current moved the water in one direction.
Forty mile an hour wind gusts pushed it in another.
Steady flow and restless agitation battled right in front of me,
Making it look as if the river were at war with herself.
Have you ever experienced opposing energies like that?
You are exhausted and restless.
Agitated and dull.
One thing might be pushing you in one direction and another might be trying to force you somewhere else.
When that happens,
It can be easy to feel whipped up.
And how in the hell do we stay grounded and flow all at the same time?
As I stood by the river,
I was witnessing two kinds of energy.
Wind and water.
When you work with the energy of the wind,
It's easy.
It's easy to glide and fly as long as you can stay balanced.
If you are facing a strong headwind,
Your energy gets sucked right out of you.
You can make progress,
But at what cost?
Water energy,
On the other hand,
Can be like a wave.
There's a rhythm to it,
A constant dance of rise and fall,
Crest and crash.
Water energy can also be a current,
Running in a particular direction,
Playing with its boundaries,
And those boundaries can be liminal and soft like mud,
Or literally set in stone.
But that's one of the fascinating things about this kind of energy.
It can run deep with this steady,
Insistent power.
And with time,
It can wear away even the greatest mountains in the world.
Water energy can move and dwell,
Hold steady and flow.
And of course,
When there is too much water,
It can flood and drown.
Neither kind of energy is right or wrong,
Nor are these the only kinds of energy in the world.
So,
Why should we care about any of this?
Because the older I get,
The more I understand energy affects every moment of our lives.
That makes this one more opportunity to get curious,
To pay attention,
To be intentional about the choices we are making by asking,
Am I constantly battling conflicting currents?
Why is that?
Or how do my life choices affect my energy?
And are they the effects that I want?
How you feel day in and day out is how you feel day in and day out.
So do you feel blocked?
Is there flow?
Is there flooding?
Is there drought?
Is there a headwind,
A tailwind?
So the question is,
What is the energy and what is the energy you want to feel today,
Tomorrow for the rest of your life?
Take a moment.
Check in.
What brings you energy?
What's an energy vampire?
How do you want to feel and how best can you get there?
Breathe.
Center.
Know that you have this beautiful energy inside.
And when you nourish it,
When you trust it and listen to it,
That's when you can fly and flow and live light.
