Can you go with the flow?

If grace is an ocean, I don't want to sink.

I want to flow with the tide. I want to catch the current. I want to float towards the sunset and be present as the sun rises again.

What I find happens for those of us who've spent any amount of time in fundamentalist and high-control religion is that we become so used to all-or-nothing thinking, the glorification of self-sacrifice, that death is the ultimate display of love and transcendence, that we forget about the fact that we are ALIVE, and that life is for living… we create beautiful metaphors - (if grace is an ocean) - and then we use them to degrade our sense of self - (we're all sinking). Perhaps you've experienced what I have: I found that I only knew how to live in extremes; everything was urgent, and everything needed a purpose and a reason. Everything needed to die in order to live. And it couldn't be about yourself; it had to be about glorifying God. And if you couldn't come up with a purpose or a reason? God's ways are higher, and who are we to question them? (FYI, that's gaslighting.)

Living in extremes, in an urgency culture, all or nothing mentality, taught to magnify every moment as being life-changing and altering, taking on the purpose of being a history maker and a world changer… It creates a sharp-edged life, staccato'd, you're either here or there, wrong or right, lost or saved, blessed or depressed, in or out… there was no flow to any of it.

There was no space to live in ambiguity, which is ironic when you consider that it's meant to be a spirituality of faith and trust, but I digress.

There was no room for things to settle and breathe and be normal or even empty.

In fact, I don't know about you, but I was taught to resist the flow, to go against it, to stand strong and static and immovable in the face of new information, hardships, cultural shifts, scientific advancement… dig those heels in, don't lose "faith."

But what is faith if it's not the ability to flow, as water does, through all the currents and seasons of our lives with an expectation of beauty, goodness, joy and hope? What is faith if it's not the ability to breathe like air does in all the environments we find ourselves in? What is faith if it's not like light that travels and illuminates and fills, even in darkness, all that it touches? What is faith if it's not the earth that cools and protects, that nurtures and grows, that looks still and silent but is alive and working with the elements around it to bring sustenance to all that care to receive it?

Lao Tzu said:

"Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don't resist them - that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like."

Maybe what we should be digging our heels into isn't the ground, isn't a static belief, but in a state of flow…

This week here in the App, we'll explore resistance, blockages to flow, and how to be in a flow state in places and spaces that feel the opposite. It took me a long time to allow myself my own softness, to settle my blood so it flowed instead of buzzed, to enter into every experience like I was swimming through grace, not sinking. I'm learning still, and ever so grateful to be doing so here with you.

LISTEN:

"Going with the flow is responding to cues from the universe. When you go with the flow, you're surfing life force. It's about wakeful trust and total collaboration with what's showing up for you." Danielle LaPorte.

Join me in the App, xo

Liz Milani
Instagram: @thepracticeco 

From this week’s series titled "Go With The Flow," with a subscription in the App. Hope to see you there.