Almost Everything I Need To Know I Learned On A River

Almost Everything I Need To Know I Learned On A River

In my 20s I had a great fear of swift moving water.  I was both drawn to it and terrified of it at the same time.  My spirit could not abide by this psychic split. I loved rivers.  I fully intended to spend more time on rivers.  I did not want to be held hostage by this unwarranted fear so I enrolled in a nine-day white water kayak course on the Rogue River in Southern Oregon. 

Passing Kayaking Course 101, meant I needed to learn how to get out of my kayak if I flipped and couldn’t right myself.  Bailing is the last resort. When one is first learning, it is the first resort and inevitable.  Fortunately bailing out of one’s boat gets old really quickly.  There is nothing like trying to drag a water-logged boat to shore while holding on to your paddle and navigating fast moving water while your booties are filing up with water.  If you are lucky, you haven’t lost your boat to the current and some poor bloke is chasing it down the river for you.  Bail avoidance is clear motivation for learning the basics of Kayaking 101.

In Kayaking Course 201 I learned how to right myself in the event I flipped.  It required a solid roll, meaning lots and lots of practice. To accomplish this I had to continually submerge myself upside down in cold water for substantial periods of time in a parallel reality that required me to do things upside down in the parallel reality.  Hence, weird dreams for nights. Even then, mastering the roll was not a guarantee that I would be able to right myself during the real thing. That kind of confidence would grow with time and more experience. I only had nine days. I wasn’t quite there.

In Kayaking Course 301 I learned to read the river so that I would avoid becoming embroiled in a potentially life threatening hole.  A hole is a scary hydraulic that one does not want to engage with if at all possible.  A hole is created when a large amount of water tumbles over rock into a trough that forces the water down and back upon itself.  It is a water loop that can be difficult to escape from depending on the volume, speed and depth of the water. Small holes will flush one through, all be it a little sticky.  Medium holes may keep one temporarily but just long enough to give one a kiss and a hug. Large holes will eat you!!  It is like being stuck in the wash cycle in a washing machine, you go down, pop up and are pushed down again.  It is disorienting and difficult to know where up is let alone how to escape from it once you are in it.  I watched a very large raft full of people on the Zambezi River get seriously stuck in a hole for about 5 minutes.  They circled, bobbed, tossed and turned as if they were glued to the saddle of the bucking bronco from hell. Fortunately the boat did not flip and no one fell out as there were eager crocodiles downstream who would have loved an afternoon snack.  Needless to say, one does not want to end up in a hole unless you are a boater with super powers.

I was scared of holes just like I was scared of fast-moving water. Despite my effort to avoid holes like an Ebola outbreak, I found myself regularly careening towards my hole destiny.  Fortunately, the holes were not of huge consequence on this particular stretch of river.  I would get stuck a little and eventually either push through it with vigorous paddling or flip, get flushed through the hole, bail from my boat (too gripped to execute my practiced roll) and ultimately lick my wounds, dripping wet on the side of the river all the while dumping copious amounts of water out of my boat.

After this happened several times, my instructor pulled me aside and said “Minny.  If you focus on the hole, that is where you are going to go.  Focus on where you want to go.”  His logic was simple and obvious.  I had focused on my fear, therefore I created my fear scenario repeatedly. His words poured over me like a bucket of warm clear water – calming, soothing, truthful with a pinch of “Wake up!” After that, a peace came over me.  I did not have to go into the holes! Keep your eye on the river road as there is almost always a way around the ditch. I never went into another hole.

So here it goes – The Number One Rule of Consciousness: “You get what you concentrate on”. Period!  We create what we put our attention into. Our focus can create acts of love or acts of fear.  Free will means we get to choose.  Either way, we get really good at creating the world we focus on.  As a side note…. Why people develop diseases or are born into a disability is another subject for another day. For now let’s take on the idea that as creators of our worlds, where we put our focus molds the outcome.  The question then becomes “What do we want to focus on?”

This question poses a dilemma.  Why? Because we are continually fed plates of fear-based thoughts to chew on by people and organizations that thrive off of our fear.  Where has this gotten us? More fear based things to focus on. Let’s break this down.  Fear begets many things - indignation, outrage, hostility, one up man ship, anger, intense insecurity to name a few. Fear keeps us unstable, ungrounded, and searching for security.  Before we know it, our world is created around fear and we don’t even know it because it gets embedded in our subconscious mind. The question is “Is this really what we want? To be ruled by fear bots embedded in our subconscious?” My guess is “No!” Sadly, there are those out there that want us to live in fear. They benefit from our fear.  They do not want us to feel peaceful, happy, calm and at ease because they get something from it - your money for starters. We are bathed in a sea of fear based suggestive thoughts that we take on as “The Truth” and these thoughts keep us in chains.

So, what is the solution? First off “Pay Attention!”.  We must scrupulously track our thoughts!  As an example, let’s say we listen to the news and find ourselves indignant at what we are hearing and seeing. We might start to notice an uncomfortable pressure in our heads and a heavy weight in our hearts. What has just happened is we have just created a concrete thought form replete with emotional and bodily reactions . What’s even worse is it’s contagious!! Indignation begets indignation in those around us.  Misery loves company.  Then comes the destructive body response caused by the stress of feeling indignation, which really is helplessness at its core. In conjunction, there is a fear that the world is not alright and a question - “What’s going to happen to us/me?..Will we/I be alright?  These little things add up!!  Before we know it, we are visiting our doctors to get prescriptions from the companies that benefit from our diseases!  So “Pay Attention!”. We must pay meticulous attention to our thoughts.  For our own sake and for the betterment of the world, we need to conjure up the Ninja within.  The Ninja pays attention! Its life depends upon it. It is not easy to break ingrained habits. Call on your inner Ninja. I am in this boat with you. I am writing this this just as much for myself as I am to you.  Hopefully enough of us are fed up.

This process of paying attention requires a chipping away of our thoughts and how they make us feel.  Do the thoughts enliven our hearts or make our hearts feel dense? So, here’s my nudge….  Just start to notice what you notice.  Notice how thoughts feel in your body and how they make you feel emotionally.  Really feel the hurt that happens emotionally and physically when you react negatively. Start noticing how you dis yourself.  This is the first step – to notice that those thoughts no longer have your best interest at heart.  Don’t be disgusted with them.  Love them. Believe it or not, these beliefs were put in place out of love and out of preservation of self in a perceived unsafe environment.  But now we must ask ourselves?  In this moment do those beliefs still serve us? A simple rule of thumb - if a thought makes you feel lighter, it is in alignment with the true you.  The true you is acutely aware of your connection with All That Is, God, The Creator, The Universe, whatever you want to call it..  All That Is exists in unity, unencumbered by an ego.  The natural state of the Universe is the exquisite loving presence of “being” that has no opposite.  Being does not judge, or view itself as superior or inferior to something else.  Only humans do that. We have to break ourselves of this egoic habit. It starts with you! If a thought makes you feel heavy, it is out of sync with the true nature of the Universe – Unconditional Love.

It’s time to take back our thoughts from the thought program that we have been spoon fed since we were babies by the conventional paradigm. At its core the conventional paradigm does not trust that the world is safe. We cannot control the thoughts of those around us, but the good news is we can control our own thoughts. For starters, limit how much news you ingest. Remember that we have been conditioned to be addicted to fear drama. We can feel good about ourselves because the horrible things just happened to someone else. Few! Dodged that bullet! Remember the saying “No new is good news.”? It is true. Good news does not catch people’s attention. The only news that catches people’s attention is news that feeds our addiction to fear. This does not mean sticking our heads in the sand as to what is going on around us. Just don’t overdose. A better world starts with us!  A better world means we start noticing what we react to and doing a redirect to the things that actually bring us joy. Remember. “Focus on where you want to go, not where you don’t want to go.  You get what you concentrate on”. Finding our joy is a good place to start.  

If taking back control of your thoughts seems like a hard concept to achieve consider this - You don’t die.  I am serious. If you are an atheist or agnostic reading this, I am not going to argue with you.  This is my belief and I am sticking with it!   If you knew that your soul was eternal would you become more fearless? Who wants to live in perpetual purgatory of fear based thoughts playing out life after life? Not me. Time to move on! We spend so much needless time trying to feel safe in our existence because we believe death to be final. Death is a transition. Wouldn’t it be more fun if we really understood that a body is a vehicle used in soul school (the school being this holographic dimension we call planet earth) to learn about love and returning to love. So, let’s try to love starting with ourselves.  Loving ourselves means chipping away at the beliefs and subsequent reactions that do us harm. Why wait? Your body, your fantastic vehicle, is telling you moment to moment whether your soul is in integrity with the true nature of the Universe -Pure love and compassion, or not. You know it. You feel it.  Don’t kid yourself or gloss it over. 

Secondly, spend more time in nature.  Nature is a role model for us. A tree does not judge itself. It just expresses itself in a way that is fitting to itself.  It does not second guess whether it is right or wrong, up or down. It does not fear its existence. So why do we?  Are we not part of nature? Learn from Nature.

Thirdly populate yourself with positive people and find practitioners that can help you address your fears and underlying beliefs. The subconscious is a hard nut to crack, but there are people out there who know how to help you reprogram yourself.

A final note - Take on the idea that we are in the realm of improvisational psychic theater. We are replete with props, roles and interesting story lines as a means to help our souls to learn and grow.  Consciously choose your part in the play.  What role do you want? The victim? Or The Sovereign who has full dominion over her/himself?  Just remember to have fun!  If we really get that we are fantastic creators witnessing our creations unfold, the sky is the limit!  And if you are in doubt about what I just said, the next time you are in a big city spend a little time in awe. Everything that you see before you, all the tall buildings, highways, houses and bridges started as an invisible concept birthed into existence through the love of a creative idea.  Creations can be birthed by fear as well so chose wisely. “You get what you concentrate on”.