Caught up in a flow...

I don't think that a great outpouring of words can change anything but Everything.

People are moved by words, even more than they are by actions. Why? Because words lead the unguarded mind, they alter the leaning of the wavering heart. What we hear and are mentally invested in, what we focus on and listen to with our whole being... we start to become. Our being begins to attune itself to that sound, to those tones, to the vibration... not only in sound but in spirit, we blend into what is being transmitted. You could say we get caught in the flow.

Only a grounded, conscious mind, centered in its own understanding and rationale can withstand the pull of a powerful stream of reasoning, no matter its content. Our own tune must be well understood, well known to us to still be able to hear its unique melody in the river of sound, the bombardment of some other strength.

The point is that if we are not steady in our own energy, our own path, we risk getting pulled off of it by any random flow that crosses it and is stronger than ours. I'm told that I think too much. But I don't. I'm just a lot more conscious of what I think and feel and why, so that I am not influenced by those transient moments of familiarity created when I attune myself to anothers song.

See, I make it a habit of altering my tones to hear and feel who and what another is. It's part of how I understand and accept people, see from their angle and perceive their perceptions. I've done this since I was young and just went with the flow to fit in and be a part. I became very good at stepping into a group and instantly falling into step with its rhythm, becoming a part of its beat. But as I grew up and needed to grow to have an identity of my own, this habit, this skill was now a hindrance. It was a pitfall because I wasn't consciously controlling when I used it. I just blended in and out of groups, songs, streams... From one to the next as I moved through my days, never addressing my own personal tune in between. Never thinking I might have one at all. Of course, I didn't understand all of this then...

The problem with not developing your own identity AS you grow up is that you grow up and don't really realize that you have none. Worse, you do what I did and think that you are defined as and by those flows you have been a 'part' of for as long as you can remember. You think you know those songs... but one day the song changes and leaves you out and you realized that you really aren't singing the lines that they are singing after all, because you just moved with your heart (taking a step on your own path) and they moved in another direction. But how could a step that feels this right be wrong and out of step with the others...? Why does this clear whisper of the heart lead me astray?

This dissension is felt first by you, then more deeply recognized and analyzed until your presence in the group becomes a dissonance. The flow here has made you strong enough to take a few steps on faith and you've landed at the start of your own journey... as an individual. The rest of your party feels it, sees that its you and begins a whole other kind of further separation. But this process is a tangle of opportunities and choices for another time, I'll try to keep to my topic...

Most times it's when one has been rejected like this, or 'removed' from a flow that they are forced to look at themselves as an individual. Because, hey look: you're alone.

Still, this could be looked at as a positive. See, most of the time, when developing identity as a youth, one develops by way of parentage, fellow youths, teachers and environmental stimuli... Unconsciously. But I had the privilege of developing 'who' I was as a teenager who was more thoughtful and mature than most. I chose who I became by actually thinking about who I wanted to be. Of course I had all these crazy ideas about who I was, but as these illusions faded and I realized they had no real hold on me, that I was in fact holding onto them... I basically looked at myself and saw a clean slate. A blank log. A fresh page in an empty book.

I could go on. What I mean is that I had never made a choice for myself. I'd let those other guides, streams and songs lead me on their paths. I'd never taken a single step on mine.

I had the opportunity to begin a story from scratch, one that I'd never tried to write a word of before... and I was doing it consciously. Now, does that mean that I didn't lay a brick I later had to rip up? No. I built walls and tore them down, made roads I had to stop traveling by, took turns to dead ends and came back the way I'd come just like anyone else. What matters is that I did those things, knowing I was doing them. If you think about it, most people stumble through life, knowing only today and possibly yesterday. Or barely today and trying to see the future while stuck somewhere in the past. They just move wherever the flow takes them, switch flows when they don't belong anymore and basically do anything but look with more than their own five senses at their reflection.

They aren't even looking at themselves. So how could they choose to be who they want most to be I they don't even choose to see what they are? Ehem, this is where I hear Neo's famous, life-altering words from The Matrix Reloaded...

"The problem is choice."

God, I love that man.

It takes an adult (in spirit and soul) to stop. To look hard at what 'who I am' actually means, apply that vision to oneself and actually honestly admit to what you can see. That's four steps that most people spend their whole lives getting through, forget actually doing something with this information, they might spend this life just being able to stand the sight of themselves. A shame, but it's true. And that's ok. That may be all the journey they are ready for in this life, I don't judge that. They'll get so many more chances... But, that's just the way I see it. That's just my own personal flow coming out.

Most of the time, I keep my path to myself, but that's also another topic, so where was I...?

Oh yeah, choice. I think the most important thing in the world is to acknowledge that everything in your life is a result of choice. Your choice. And that includes every time you 'didn't' choose. Baby, that's a choice, too. ;)

Because being caught up in anothers flow is a choice. Whether you did it consciously or unconsciously, you made the decision to either Make it happen... or Let it happen. I'm not saying that being caught up is bad, or that a truly centered person is part of no ones flow but their own, FAR from it. What I'm trying to point out is the fact that you have control over who you are and where you go. And I might be wrong, but I think that, all things considered, it is better to make things the way they are than to let them make you. Even if you make them wrong once in a while.

That's the difference between having your own path and just being lost in someone elses. You have a foundation, stability, roots... and you can choose to be a part of any flow you want for as long as you'd like. Trust me, with grounding, you can be a harmony to anyones song and make both better. But it takes consciousness, and strength of identity to do so.