Last November, I was chatting with one of my most favorite people on the planet when she asked me if I had a theme or word for the upcoming year. I didn’t.
We continued the conversation and she asked me what I truly wanted to experience as the year was about to unfold. I told her flow.
Flow? she asked.
Yes. You know the feeling when you aren’t being run over by the tide and instead the waves of your life feel rhythmic, powerful and divinely timed without having to control, manipulate or force. Like the magic you feel when you are floating in the ocean– you feel the movements without resistance and you know you are being supported beyond the capacity of the mind to comprehend.
AH, yes, that flow.
I want that.
Suddenly it became clear that FLOW wanted me in 2018.
I was a bit naive in inviting her in.
Because I forgot for a moment that when we invite a powerful intention into our lives, we start with “what flow is not”.
For the first three months of the year, everything felt like the faucet had been turned off. Everything but flow.
My business got quiet. My personal life felt like the jolty start and stop of someone just learning how to drive a stick shift. Nothing felt like it was with ease.
I felt frustrated, angry, lost, lonely, confused, overwhelmed.
I realized that if I truly wanted the flow, I needed to surrender to all the ways that my thoughts, beliefs and habits may be blocking my own magical rhythms. Quite truthfully, there were days I really didn’t want to.
Some days, I could lay down in this ocean and surrender to the truth that I’m a co-creator in this magic (and not the ever present “do-er” that I had embodied).
And other days, I just wanted to lie down and cry and have a tantrum because there was so much there that I knew I needed to wade in before I could turn the knobs of my life’s faucet again.
I learned a lot about the “how” of surrender which had nothing to do with doing.
It has so much to do with being, accepting with my whole heart what is here and what is, and to being all in only in this present moment (without dragging the past or future along for the ride here).
I learned that feeling and processing and unpacking can uncover a lot of lies, pain and surprises and that’s okay. It will not break me.
I also learned that this whole-hearted invitation into my own self deeper and deeper will cultivate the flow my soul knew I longed for.
There is no destination here. No final “yes, I have the secret formula for flow and it will always be with ease“.
This is practice. This is life.
This is a whole lot of fun (even in the murky parts) because when I feel it, that powerful ocean movement in me, through me, around me— it is one of the best feelings on the planet. And I can rest right there in its presence without having to worry about what will happen next.
Of course, I’m curious. Did you pick a word this year? And if so, what has been your relationship with your word? Please tell (an email, text, message of any type)- I really would love to hear all of it.
With love,
Stacey