“We can relax and float in the direction that the water flows, or we can swim hard against it. If we go with the river, the energy of a thousand mountain streams will be with us.” – Elizabeth Lesser
A stubborn streak a mile wide
I’m sure we’ve all had a time or two when life didn’t go the way we had planned for it to go, right? When we’d embarked on a plan, worked really really hard, made a bunch of progress and then – kablam – things went pear-shaped?
I was born with a stubborn streak a mile wide. This streak is perhaps genetic. I am the daughter of a strong-willed woman who had very specific ideas of how things should be and a relentless will to make it so. I am also the granddaughter of a fierce woman, who survived (she would say she thrived) the Great Depression thanks to her creativity and ruthless pursuit of anything she deemed good and right.
My stubborn streak has been an asset, of course. It has manifested as my work ethic all through my life – helping me to survive high school chemistry and grad school cumulative exams. It certainly played a major role in my determination to build my own business while raising three children. For sure, this same stubbornness can also be one of my more annoying traits. Just ask my husband and my kids, who have all, at one time or another, been caught in the cross-hairs of me stubbornly working to make things “right” while they were simply trying to live their lives in peace. For better or for worse, my stubborn streak has helped me to create my desired outcomes.
Learning to go with the flow surprised me
With all that, you can perhaps see why I am as surprised as anyone that the above line from Elizabeth Lesser’s excellent book, Broken Open, is one of my favorite quotes. I need to clarify that I do not believe that these words would have resonated with me at all had I read it one minute before I did, which was just after the first time that something in my life went irreversibly pear-shaped.
Until my brother died by suicide, everything challenging that had happened to me was something I believed I could make better. I could get through whatever it was by working hard. By the sheer force of will, I was certain I could keep things on track while navigating the issue at hand. And, until that moment, I had pretty much (stubbornly) prevailed.
I will remain forever grateful to have read this line exactly when I most needed its wisdom. When there was nothing that I could do to make things better. When no amount of hard work would make this hurt less for any of my loved ones. When I needed to acknowledge that my life had been knocked off track and the only thing I could do was “go with it.”
An injury allows a new exploration of going with the flow
It is not an overstatement to say that the idea that one could benefit from not being able to fix things totally transformed the way I experience my life when things go pear-shaped. Let me give you a minor example. I spent the past summer reinvigorating my physical yoga practice. I leaned on my stubborn streak (a.k.a. self-discipline) to show up on my mat daily. I relished how strong I was feeling again. I was surprised and thrilled to see challenging postures become staples in my practice once more.
Then, without a single warning sign, about six weeks ago I found myself flat on my belly rather than strongly hovering in a low plank. Kablam. My right shoulder had simply given out. I’d love to tell you that I handled this with grace. I did not. I panicked. I spent some time wailing and gnashing my teeth. But then I did something that Amy-of-old would not have done because she would have been very busy fixing it herself. Three days after it happened, I sought help.
I went to a shoulder doctor. I went to physical therapy. I reached out to a friend’s daughter, a personal trainer with a knack for rehabbing sore or injured joints. But that’s not what I’ve been most struck by. What surprises me most is what I’m seeking from these helping people. I have not asked them to help me “get back to normal.” I am looking to heal this injury and to move forward from it – in my practice and my life – in ways that sustain my body rather than put it through its paces. And (this is important) I don’t know what shape that will take.
My stubborn streak gives me an open-ended hope on this healing journey
My healing may deliver a newly strong and sturdy low-plank. It may not. I feel super free about that. In fact, it is my uncertainty about where my healing journey is leading that is the key. I’m not even pretending to be in charge. To return to Lesser’s wise words, I am willingly floating down this particular river and I feel hopeful about going wherever it’s taking me.
As an added bonus – kablam! – I haven’t had to jettison my stubborn streak to float in this river. In fact, it’s proving to be very useful. It is providing discipline so that I do my rehab exercises. It is motivating me to get to physical therapy. It is keeping me in this river that I didn’t choose and holding my natural resistance to the unknown firmly in check. It is allowing me to choose (and choose again) to be curious about where these waters are going. Mostly, though, my stubborn streak is helping to maintain my hope and trust that wherever “going with the flow” is taking me, it is someplace good.
One of the intentions of yoga is to help us stop resisting life. We humans (not just stubborn ones like me) have an innate desire for life to go the way we want it to go (you might explore some teaching on aparigraha and vairagya to learn more). We spend a lot of energy trying to control life and this causes us to suffer. There is freedom and spaciousness when we finally allow ourselves to go with the flow. This doesn’t mean there will not be work for us to do (see tapas and abhyasa). It means that our efforts will be in concert with “the energy of a thousand mountain streams” and therefore will be more likely to bear fruit.