Living in the flow of life means being OK with where you are right now. It doesn’t mean you’re not going anywhere, it is just a release from the anxiety that swells up when you believe you are not where you are supposed to be. And it feels really good.
When I was plagued by OCD, I thought that without my vigilance, the flow of life would wash by me instead of taking me with it. For example, if I had to go back in my apartment to fetch my phone, I would think that I was now several yards behind where I would have otherwise been, so I’d better jog a bit to catch up. If I delayed walking through a door and then someone *else* walked through it, well that would just throw me completely off — I walked through the door when that person was supposed to walk through it!
Of course, this is all irrational and would make no sense to someone who hasn’t experienced living in the uncompromising clutches of obsessive compulsive disorder.
If you are able to free yourself from the grip of this type of OCD, to become unstuck in time and space, you can be at peace with the knowledge that a complex myriad of events throughout time and space has placed you where you are right now; you are always in the exact right spot. Think about it: The Universe itself has put you on the isle of cereal in the grocery store at 3:00 am. I mean, first the Big Bang, then the galaxies, stars, the Earth… war, peace, murder, sex over generations created you at this time and a mind-boggling series of seemingly random events, each contingent on other events put you right here in the cereal aisle, or behind that desk at the office, or in line at that ice cream shop. You can’t have been anywhere else.
So, instead of thinking that you are late or early, behind or ahead, regardless of whether or not you have the added burden of OCD telling you to go back and touch that light post, look around and appreciate the miracle of where you are.
At this very moment, you might be in a terribly uncomfortable situation. Perhaps you’re incarcerated or in a crappy job or relationship — that’s about 95% of us at any given time. But you are a living manifestation of the Universe — a piece of cosmic dust — that finds itself exactly where it’s supposed to be. So, you might as well make the most of it.
If you’re late for work, you are meant to be late for work! Work will survive! Maybe you’ll get fired and end up in the next job you were meant to have. If you hurry to get where you think you should be, you’ll miss everything that makes life worthwhile. For God’s sake, stop to smell the roses. And if there are no roses in the county jail, breath in deeply and be thankful for experiencing this very strange and perfectly flawed life.
May you be one with the flow.
