Newsletter #23

The stream, the desert, and the big shift you've been avoiding

Hi there,

Happy New Year.

I’ve not set myself any specific New Year resolutions this year. Not yet anyway. But January is always a good time to reflect on the year that’s past and think about what we might want to change in the 12 months ahead of us.

I must admit, when I think about changing anything I do get a little apprehensive. I’m really happy with the way things are at the moment so I’m inclined to bury my head in the sand when it comes to mixing things up.

But the truth is, we can’t avoid change. Life by its very nature is change. We are confronted by a changing world every second of every day whether we like it or not. The key is to embrace it. And that’s not always easy.

I came across a great story the other day that brings to life the nature of change and how we can resist it, even if we know deep down that change is good for us.

It’s an ancient Sufi story that goes like this;

A stream flows down from distant mountains, gathering strength as it moves. It crosses forests and valleys, navigates around rocks, finds its way through ravines. Every obstacle it meets, it overcomes. The stream is confident. Capable. It knows how to be a stream.

Then it reaches the desert.

The stream rushes forward with the same determination that's always worked before. But the stream’s water sinks into the sand as soon as it touches it. And it disappears. It is absorbed into nothing. The stream is gone.

So it tries again. Surely more force, more effort, more of what's always worked in the past. That should do it. But the sand just swallows everything.

The stream can feel itself diminishing, evaporating, losing strength with every attempt.

Yet something deep within keeps pushing it forward: crossing this desert is important. It feels like its destiny. This isn't optional. This is the path.

But crossing seems impossible.

Then comes a silent voice. The voice whispers: "Just as the wind crosses the desert, so can the stream."

The stream protests immediately. "That’s because the wind can fly. I cannot. I can only flow. When I flow over the desert I just disappear."

The voice continues "You must allow the wind to carry you. Let yourself be absorbed into it. The wind will carry you over the desert."

Now the stream becomes afraid. "But if I do that, I won't be myself anymore. I'll lose who I am. I'm a stream - that's my identity, my whole existence. How can I give that up?"

"Your essential nature will not be lost," the voice replies. "The wind will lift your vapour and carry you across. When you reach the mountains on the other side, you will fall as rain. You will become a stream again. You can cross this desert but you cannot make the crossing in your present form. Your current form cannot survive the desert. You must change. You must transform yourself."

The stream resists. Everything the voice suggests sounds like death, not transformation. To give up being what it knows itself to be? That sounds too hard to contemplate. Unthinkable.

But then - somewhere deep inside - the stream senses something. A memory, faint but real. An ancient recognition. It has been vapour before. Somewhere in its dim and distant past. It has been held by the wind. Long ago, long before it knew itself as a stream, this was its form and nature.

The knowing is there. Beneath the fear. Beneath the logic. Beneath the identity.

And so, trembling, trusting something it cannot prove or explain, the stream releases itself as vapour into the air. It surrenders its current form and identity to the wind.

The wind catches it, holds it, carries it gently across the impossible expanse.

On the far side, above distant mountains, the vapour cools and falls as rain. The stream reforms. Still water. Still itself. But different now. Changed. Transformed. Carrying within it the knowledge of both what it was and what it has now become. The wisdom of having surrendered.

The truth of having trusted what it knew beneath the knowing.

The big shift I avoided

This story brings back so many memories of my resistance to the 12 step programme of recovery back in 2016. I knew I had to give up drinking. I wanted to give up drinking. But the thought of throwing myself into a spiritual programme filled me with dread. I wasn’t a spiritual person. I was a business person. A party-goer. A DJ. A husband and father. Anything, anybody, but someone who believed in God.

Thankfully I was desperate enough to surrender. I was able to stop being the person I thought I was long enough to cross the desert into sobriety.

It wasn’t easy but it worked. The change happened.

Our culture in general is not good at change because we’re not good at surrendering. We've spent decades building up identities through effort and achievement. We think of ourselves as the capable one. The reliable professional. The person who figures things out. This identity works. It gets results. It helps us navigate life’s many rivers and mountains.

Then we hit our desert.

For me, it was rock bottom with alcohol. The thing I'd been so sure I could manage, control, think my way through. The sand just swallowed every attempt.

Every. Single. One.

For you, it might be burnout despite meaningful work. Success that feels hollow. Or that persistent whisper that there's another way to live, but you can't see it from here.

The desert is where logic runs out.

And that's terrifying for those of us who've made logic and effort our religion. We've dismissed intuition and surrender as wishful thinking. Reduced inner knowing and submission to "feelings" we can't trust. Built entire lives on provable, measurable, controllable outcomes.

The spiritual journey of transformation asks something different.

It asks for faith.

Not necessarily blind faith. And not manufactured belief either. But faith in that faint whisper we hear within, calling us forward. In that hidden recognition that we've been held by the wind before. That our essential nature won't be lost in the transformation. That water remains water, even as vapour.

This is the true nature of surrender: trusting what you know deep down to be true.

Your body knows things your mind can’t grasp. Your intuition points toward truths your intellect can't prove. That persistent pull toward something more authentic, more aligned, more you - that's the wind whispering.

But we've trained ourselves out of listening. Replaced inner knowing with external validation. Swapped gut feeling for data points. Chosen the anxiety of control over the uncertainty of trust.

Peace doesn't come from managing every variable. Freedom isn't achieved through perfect planning. Fulfilment isn't waiting at the end of your next strategic initiative.

They're on the other side of the desert.

And you can't cross as you are.

The stream must become vapour to reach the mountains beyond. It doesn’t die or disappear. It transforms.

The stream reforms. It becomes a stream again. It becomes itself again. But a different stream, a different self.

It’s the same with your own surrender and transformation. You become yourself again. But changed. Carrying the wisdom of having trusted the wind. Of having crossed the impossible. Of having discovered that your essential nature - that true self beneath the constructed identity - was never at risk.

It was never at risk.

The peace and life you're seeking lives in that trust. Your freedom comes from releasing the death grip on who you think you are and must continue to be. Your fulfilment emerges when you align with what you've always known, deep down, beneath the noise of should and must and data-driven logic.

Your desert is waiting.

So is the wind.

The question isn't whether you want to cross or not; it’s your destiny to do so. The question is whether you'll keep trying to do it as a stream, or will you finally trust yourself to surrender to the wind and rise.

Until next time,

Simon