This week, I had a revelation. I truly felt like I reached a higher consciousness level while I was in my prayer/meditation time. To give some context to the situation, I am not really one to sit down and meditate or pray daily, even though I tell myself all the time that I need to. However, when I do take the time out to reflect and talk to God/the Universe quietly (or whatever you call your High Power), it’s because I feel like I am about to get to a point where my life and my emotions will soon start to overwhelm me. And once I get to a place of being overwhelmed, it takes a very long time for me to get my head back above water. So, I know that when I pray and meditate, I am helping myself remain balanced internally.
This past week, I felt myself getting anxious about a situation that was beyond my control. And if you’re a person like me, who experiences anxiety and depression, you know that it can quickly consume us if we don’t get on top of it and healthily process our emotions. As I have grown in my emotional maturity, I have realized that my mental health is entirely in my control. I control it by giving myself the time to ask myself questions and give myself time to listen.
I asked in my prayer, “Why am I having anxiety about this? I know that it’s out of my control, but I feel like I have anxiety building up within me.” And I kid you not, the moment I asked that, the answer came to me so fast that I barely had time to register it. The answer that came to me was, “The reason you feel like you have anxiety and the reason you feel like it’s building up inside of you is that you are trying to block the flow.” Cue the explosion in my mind.
I mean, we have all heard the phrase that goes something like “go with the flow,” or “just let things flow,” but no one talks about what happens when we don’t let things flow, and no one talks about what lettings things flow means or how to do it!
So, I am here to tell you why it’s essential to allow the flow to move through your life and why you shouldn’t do anything to block that flow from happening.
When it comes to “the flow,” allow it to happen effortlessly, meaning, allow things to come and go with ease. For me, I realized that it takes too much effort and honestly makes me miserable holding on to something that should be let go. Think of your emotions as a river or a stream. Rivers and streams are bodies of water that are in a constant state of motion. Comparatively, your emotions, thoughts, and things in your life are constantly moving as well. Things flow towards us and away from us all the time. When we allow the flow to happen continuously and rhythmically, we are most likely living very calm and peaceful lives.
I felt myself losing the peace and calm that I have over my life this past week, and that’s because I was causing a disruption (a blockage) in “the flow.” When “the flow” of the river/stream (your emotions, thoughts, things going on in your life) gets blocked, that means that soon a pressure will start to build up behind the blockade. What gets built up? Anxiety, loneliness, hurt, and depression, because those feelings have nowhere to go, so they stay with you and build up until the pressure of those feelings burst and destroy the blockade.
How does the blockade even get built in the first place?
Great question. Let me explain. The blockade gets built when we notice that something that flowed into our lives starts to flow its way out. When we notice that happening, we get scared because we liked what flowed in, and we want to keep it. Most times, unconsciously, we build the blockade that stops the flow because we want to make sure that we can continue to hold onto what we want to keep for longer than we are supposed to keep it. In a way, we do get to hold onto it a little longer, but because we have blocked the flow, nothing else can flow its way out—not the “good” thing that we like and want to keep and not the negative emotions that sometimes come up in life. As I stated before, because of the blockade, everything gets built up until the pressure is so great that it forces the blockade to be destroyed, and that’s when everything that was built up comes flooding out.
The rush of the flood of emotions can be so great that it can feel even more overwhelming than it did when you were trying to hold on to everything, but it must come out, and it will always come out. How it comes out might be a little ugly, though, and hard to process, but you will get through it and feel entirely better afterward once everything that was meant to be let go of before is finally gone. The storm always passes, and the water will always calm down and will go back into the rhythmic, continuous flow that it is supposed to.
I was trying to hold onto a situation as tight as possible, trying to flow its way out and make way for something better to come along. When we think about our life’s flow, we must think about something better than always comes along.
When you feel like your flow is about to be blocked, or you’re trying to break down the blockade that was already built up by you in an easier manner than having it explode, here are some tips that can help ease you back into a calm and “go with the flow,” state of mind.
1. Pray/Meditate
In this time, ask yourself and your Higher Power questions that you need answers to and then take the time actually to listen to answers for those questions.
2. Write it out
When you can write out the thoughts in your head, you stop the blockade from even forming because you are giving yourself an outlet to allow things to flow from within you.
3. Take a bath/hot shower
I don’t know about you, but taking a bath forces me to stop moving and go into a state of deep relaxation. When I am done with the bath, I like to envision all of the negative thoughts or things that I’m trying to hold on to going down the drain with the water.
4. Reminding yourself and knowing that what will be, will be.
And that’s on period.
The last thing that I want to say about “the flow” is that it is easy to have in your life. It’s not something that is supposed to be hard work to maintain. When we allow it, the flow will do all the work for us! We don’t have to lift a finger to keep it going because it just will all on its own. All we must do is continue through the motions of life, feel the things we are supposed to feel, and then let it go; allow the people who are supposed to come into our lives to come in, and when it’s their time to leave, then let them go. Easier said than done? Yeah. It doesn’t have to be, though. Most of the time, we don’t allow ourselves to let things be as easy as they should be because we are afraid to experience real peace—but that’s another article for another time.
So, just let it flow. I know that I am. You’ll thank yourself for doing it, I promise you.