Yelling at the rocks

This is a piece I wrote two years ago that I’ve been wanting to share…

I think that we, in our emotional lives and spiritual development, are like streams.  Streams have their own energy, their own flow.  Their direction is guided by what we want for ourselves in our lives.  And just like in every stream, there are spots where the water moves quickly and unimpeded.  It’s a beautiful thing to witness the rush of water as it flows from its source to its new destination.  Then there are parts of the stream where there are rocks or stones and it’s harder for the water to pass through.  These rocks are like the negative judgments we have about ourselves, the feelings that make our bodies tense and tight, the limiting beliefs we hold onto.  In my experience, my approach to “bad” feelings is generally to want them to go away.  This approach would be like standing at the side of the stream and yelling at the rocks to move.  That would be pretty funny and kind of sweet, and the rocks would still be there.  In fact, in the emotional realm, “yelling at the rocks” actually makes it harder for them to move.  Whenever we have judgment about ourselves or about how we’re feeling, it’s much harder to change–it’s like adding more rocks.  It’s like throwing rocks at the first rocks to get them to move, and instead you’ve just got an even more crowded stream bed of rocks and even less movement of water–meaning even less flow in that area of your life, and a feeling of “stuckness” in whatever emotion or situation you’re unhappy about.  Instead, you need to make actual contact with the rock you want to move.  Not only do you need to make contact with the rock, (that is, the feeling you want to change) but you have to refrain from throwing other rocks at it–rocks that look like self-judgment, or thinking you’re bad to have that feeling or be in that situation, ideas about how you should feel or be, or just desperately wanting the feeling to go away.  If you can approach that rock with love and tenderness (and here the analogy breaks down a bit), the rock moves that much more easily and quickly.  As annoying as that rock (or feelings of anxiety, fear, anger, hopelessness) might be, that rock WILL move and the water WILL flow, it’s just that most of us don’t know a lot about tending streams.  There’s nothing wrong with having rocks in streams–every stream has them at some points–it’s about knowing how to approach them so that the stream can flow the way you want it to–the way that brings you the most joy.