Row, row, row your boat

Gently down the stream

Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily

Life is but a dream.

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Years ago, I heard Dr. Wayne Dyer dissect the significance of this little song and it has stayed with me ever since. As I work in the field of Eating Psychology as a coach and seminar leader, I find that it has even greater relevance as I watch my clients face their eating, body and weight challenges with honesty and courage.

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Let’s look at this simple song once again and hear it for the first time!

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Row, row, row your boat

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Rowing signifies movement, not punishing exercise mind you, but a gentle rowing, gliding, rhythmic movement. It’s so important to find enjoyable movement as we deal with our eating and body issues. And whose boat am I to be concerned with? Not yours, not my mother’s, my partner’s, my kid’s, my best friend’s boat – but my boat. That is the only boat I have been put here to be in charge of. The only boat I can row…

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Gently down the stream

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Gentleness is the hallmark of my work with clients. They have had years of judgment, self-criticism and never feeling good enough. Almost all of them are familiar with the harsh inner critic who never lets up. We work on finding and nurturing unconditional friendliness towards oneself – gentleness. And do we push against the tide – against the natural movement of the water? No, we row our boat with the gentle flow of the stream. We learn to “go with the flow” as they say instead of against the grain. Tight control (of our eating, our weight and our diets) tends to just invite a release of that pressure elsewhere – commonly in the form of bingeing or other “to hell with it” behaviors and choices.

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Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily

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Even in the midst of our pain and suffering we can find those little moments and mark them as joyful, merry, happy, pleasant. They do exist. But often go by without notice. Merrily going on our way invites an inner smile that in turn invites outer pleasantness.

 

Life is but a dream.

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So many wisdom traditions hint that perhaps at death we will wake to see that all this “reality” was just a brief dream. Who knows? But imagining that it might be allows us to lighten up, become more playful and even more spontaneous.

 

I invite you be move, be gentle and mark moments of pleasantness in your life. And see what a difference it makes.