Jasmin Lee Cori, M.S. - Author, Mind, Body & Spirit

“Go with the flow” often sounds like good advice. It reminds us to relax and stop struggling so hard. We can let go because, as the phrase implies, there is a natural unfoldment of events, a natural flow that we can harmonize with.

Yet unless we have a clear understanding of how to recognize this inherent unfoldment, what we think is going with the flow can lead us in some wrong directions. Examining some common distortions can help. Each of these misconceptions carries a part of the truth as well, so it is worth looking at them.

The first misconception is the idea that going with the flow is just going along with how things are (the status quo). Not true. Maybe the “flow” means letting a relationship end. Maybe the flow is recognizing that a particular kind of work isn’t satisfying any more. You might be two years from retirement, yet the flow for you could be to make a dramatic change, following an energy that is swelling up inside of you. 

Going with the flow doesn’t mean you do whatever people around you want you to do, or that you never rock the boat. Many times, it would be easier to swallow a feeling of anger or dissatisfaction rather than speak it, yet sometimes going with the flow means honoring your recognition that something needs to be said. 

Going with the flow is also not simply following our impulses. That is being slave to every momentary feeling that passes through and every biochemical quirk of your body.

If going with the flow is not maintaining the status quo, accommodating others, or thoughtlessly following your own urges, what is it? That’s the sixty-four-million-dollar question. To understand it, you need to see the way that each of these misconceptions carries part of the truth.

The truth in seeing the flow as the status quo lies in the importance of harmonizing with the way things are. The flow does not ignore reality. It takes into account current structures but also their underlying instability and the endless process of change. We need to harmonize with the way things are and also the way things are changing.

What is true about going with the flow as accommodating? You don’t need to continually be compromising or sacrificing for others, but you do need to take others into consideration. You don’t live in the world alone. Your flow is not separate from the larger current you are part of.

What about following your impulses? Isn’t this living in the flow? It is true that you can’t live in the flow without following your impulses. The question is, which impulses? We’re not talking about the flow of stray thoughts or momentary feelings. The flow we are feeling for is the current of the unfolding truth, the current of the Tao.

“Whoa! That’s pretty big. How do I feel that?” you ask. It’s not as hard as it may seem. The flow is present here and now. We feel it in our bodies, perhaps each in our own way. When the impulse to act comes out of contact with a larger truth, it is harmonious with that truth and carries a sense of naturalness. It feels “right” and would feel incomplete if you didn’t follow it. You might say that the action is what “wants to happen.” It is a natural consequence, a natural unfoldment, and so it flows.

Maybe you’re getting a sense for what it takes to live in the flow. It takes both a capacity to discern what “wants to happen” and to surrender into that. That requires letting go of some things.

For starters, we have to let go of the way we want things to be. We have to give up our agendas, our timetables, our preferences. This is difficult. We’re very attached to these things. What helps us let go of these is the deep humility of knowing that there’s a larger order that we can’t always see. This larger ordering or unfoldment is guided by something much wiser than our limited minds. Slowly, we learn to trust that.