go with the flow

My daughter has been saying all summer that she is just "going with the flow."  She is 16 and a rather dramatic, live-with flair, intense, ambitious teenager so this is a departure from the norm for her.  She decided that after a year of stress in her life and being very demanding of herself that she would loosen up, be more relaxed, and simply go with the flow.  She recommended it to me.  She thought her much older, type A, driven, must-be-busy mom needed to stop taking life so seriously.

It is true.  I wake up every day thinking of what I need to do.  My entire morning routine is over-shadowed by my thoughts of what must be accomplished.  But lately I have been trying something new.  I spend at least 10-15 minutes of my morning quietly reflecting while I sip my coffee.  When my thoughts try to race towards creating a checklist for the day, I refrain.  I sit very still and simply enjoy the quietness of my house and the solitude.  I think of all the things I am grateful for in my life especially the blessings of love and friendship.  I practice listening inwardly.  It is my coffee meditation time.  My listen to God time.  My "go with the flow" time, as my daughter says.  For instead of pushing ahead into my day I am taking time to reconnect with the flow of life that runs peacefully within all of us.  We simply need to look within to find it, waiting there for us in the hushed silence of our spiritual being.

If my daughter read this she would be telling me by now that I have taken this "go with the flow" thing too far.  I would have gone a little too "Oprah" for her.  I can hear her say, "There's mom, off on her personal 'Eat, Pray, Love' experience again!  And that may be true.  I am a middle-aged woman seeking her true meaning of life, with enough life-lessons to know that I will never find myself out there in the world.  Been there, done that.  Nope, I am doing the inside job now.  It took me 48 years to figure that out, but by golly I have arrived.  Whatever happens in the second half of my life will be created from the inside out.  I realize this is not a revelation.  Lots of people know this.  I have been reading books for years that teach this very message.  It's just that I am finally doing it.  I am finally taking the time for reflection, meditation and silence.  It is my version of going with the flow.

All things in life require the thinking first and then the doing.  And it is in the doing that we discover that the answers we were seeking were within us all along.