Some people are dams. Jealously hoarding their gifts and talents. Making sure every precious drop is accounted for. They work to accumulate. Carefully watching each day to see the levels rise.
Others are rivers. They allow their craft to flow through them. When they are blessed with showers of new skills and knowledge, they absorb the information in tiny pools and eddies. And let the current carry the rest on to the next person, the next stopping place.
These people never grow stagnant, their skills never dull or become tasteless and brackish. Instead, the current brings freshness and life to them and all around them.
Are you a dam or a river? Are you willing to let things pass through you, or do you jealously guard them, fearful that they will escape?
That fear is understandable because there needs to be trust when you release things. You trust that they will no longer be needed.
But with that open-handed gesture of release, there is also freedom. An unclenching of the fist. A softening of the jaw. A relaxing of the shoulders. A releasing of that breath you didn’t realise you were holding.
What are you clenching in your hand right now? Gripping it so hard that your knuckles hurt?
You know the moment to release it is here.
But you are afraid.
Trust and open.
Turn your palms out, unclench those fingers and graciously let it go.
Let the river catch it and take it to the next person.
Feel it slip away, quietly.
And then turn your attention to what the current is bringing next for you.
Jo