“You cannot beat a river into submission. You have to surrender to its currents and use its power as your own.” says the ancient one to Doctor Strange.
This metaphor has been expressed in many ways. The way I interpret it is that the river is stronger than you alone, instead of trying to fight against it, you allow it to push you and you use the momentum to get you to where you want to go. Your perspective shifts and then you are able to find your power within the river. Instead of thinking that the river is trying to fight you, you start to see that the river is there to help you. Only if you allow it.
The river is life.
Sometimes we may feel that life pushes us around and we may feel powerless over the situations that are happening in our lives. We think that life happens TO us. But what if those situations are there because they are pushing you to become the greatest version of yourself. What if it’s exactly what you need. Life happens FOR us. Because if you had what you wanted you wouldn’t feel called to grow. But when life gives you what makes you feel uncomfortable, it is essentially stirring you up so that what emerges is the best version of you. The stronger, more resilient version of you. You see, every situation is happening FOR you. Life is happening FOR you. Life is not happening TO you.
Everything around you right now is there to serve you in your greatest unfoldment. You are in the river and it’s your choice whether to try and fight it and end up in the same place. Or surrender to it and allow for life to take you where you need to go, while finding your own way to navigate it.
Trust the flow and timing of your life. Sometimes we have a set picture and goal in our heads and all we want is that. We become so focused on it, unable to see that, yes maybe that is what we want, but it is not what we need. Life calls us to grow, it calls us forward, and sometimes it may present itself in ways that we were not expecting. As challenges in our life.
The goals we set for ourselves act as the drivers of our lives. An end goal is what we usually call following our hearts, they’re a feeling. Means goals on the other hand are often conforming to the rules society tries to put on us, these goals come from the mind. Means goals appear to give you what you want, but they never actually do.
Let’s use some examples, let’s say my goal is to graduate from Harvard university and become a well-respected lawyer. This is a means goal. A characteristic in means goals is that it usually is never the end. The goal just keeps on going. For example, I must work hard in high school so that I get good grades, so that I can get into a good college. Once I get into a good college, I must work even harder, so that I get the best job in my industry so that I can live in a beautiful house and start a family. And live in an amazing area so that my kids can go to the best school, and so on.
Meanwhile an end goal would be, I want to create an impact on the way systems are enforced, ensuring that the law system upholds all of people’s rights. Bringing the best version of myself to work, because I am there to serve people in a compassionate way.
Notice the difference. Ends goals are usually all about a feeling, they come from what you want deep down, not from what you think you want. Means goals are about chasing a feeling through an achievement that society has deemed special.
And means goals usually never end, because there will always be something else to chase. You don’t chase your end goals. You allow for yourself to be moved towards them. Knowing what you want and going for it, keeping an open mind as to how it appears in your life because what if it turns out way better than you could have ever imagined. End goals give space for the unknown to come in. We must not focus on the how when we set goals. We focus on the what and the why.
When we try to figure out the how it will not work because we are not meant to. Our perception limits us because we can only use reference points from what we know. But this goal is not anything we know. this goal is beyond your current self. This goal is calling you to expand, so you are not meant to know how it will come to be, you are just meant to put your best intentions behind it and trust that it is coming.
It takes understanding that trying to chase after our goals will not bring them to us. The more we want something, the farther away it is from us. The energy of wanting chases away the very thing you are trying to attract. Because what you’re essentially saying is that you are without it, that is why you want it. You can want something for your whole life and never attain it. But when we are in an energy of receiving, allowing, and attracting you allow everything that is in alignment with who you are to flow to you.
Rumi once said
“When I run after what I think I want, my days are a furnace of distress and anxiety; if I sit in my own place of patience, what I need flows to me, without pain. From this I understand that what I want also wants me, is looking for me and attracting me. There is a great secret here for anyone who can grasp it.”
Everyone will interpret this quote in their own way. My interpretation is that life is about the journey. When we work for the result, we may get very frustrated because the result doesn’t show up right away. It’s hard to work countless hours for something and feel like you haven’t moved any closer to your end result. But what we must remember is that every day counts, you hike a mountain one step at a time, you can’t expect to get up there without putting in those steps. But every step counts. Every step moves you closer, no matter how small. Every step is guiding you towards your goals. Life is about the steps, the small things that you to daily that will amount to achieving the goal.
When your life becomes about the journey, suddenly it’s less about the result you want, and more about who you become while reaching for it. And then a funny thing occurs. When you focus on the journey, on who it is calling out for you to become. Suddenly, the result comes to you. Then you realize that it was never about the result, it was about who you needed to become in order to get there. Because once you accomplish everything you want, what are you left with?
The journey is what shapes you, what gives your life meaning. The journey is your story.
Invest yourself in the process. The process of becoming who your goal is calling out for you to be. You see, the way I view it is that to reach something beyond ourselves we must become a version of ourselves who is capable of going further. We must expand. Attached to every goal there is an expanded personality to claim.
So, it is less about the goal and more about who you must become. We live in a vibrational world, just like a Wi-Fi signal we attract what we are vibrationally. What we send out into the world, we will receive. If we sit down and describe the version of ourselves who has already reached that goal, we are describing a new vibration that is in resonance with the goal. We attract what we are, not what we want. To step into that vibration, before the goal has been met would send a powerful signal of receiving.
The question is, can you step into the new way of living before the goal has manifested in your life? Can you live as though you already have everything you could ever dream of achieving.
From a place of knowing that we are the creators of our reality, we step into that future and magnetize it to us. By taking action that aligns with our vision, by feeling like you already have it, we then create it. The separation between you and your future only exists in your mind.
The only thing stopping you, is you.
Until next time friend,
Camila Tracanelli
