lessons from water

revelation on the morning bus ride: rather than feeling as though i’m *in* water – i need to *be* water

drowning, submerged, in over my head – this is how i often feel as a union steward listening to the stories of aggrieved members. i am awash in their frustration, deluged by their heartbreak, carrying their load as if walking from a well with pails full. so much imagery of water as oppressor, as sorrow in the form of tears, as overwhelming in the injustice people face.

since i have returned to work, i have taken on two new stewarding cases – one which i have a great personal interest in (the other more procedural). after a meeting with the individual involved in the case i have the personal interest in, i found myself enveloped in a sadness i could not shake for the rest of the day – so diffiicult is it for me to accept that anyone should de demeaned or harassed in the working environment. this empathetic ability is simultaneously a strength and a limitation in my advocacy work – a strength because i am genuine with each person i represent and they feel listened to by me, but a limitation because i find it difficult to make a boundary between their emotions and mine – a river that runs from them into me, undammed.

because the metaphor of water came naturally when pondering this issue, i was reminded of something a fellow union activist offered in a leadership course over the past weekend – her background steeped in chinese taoism (she is originally from mainland china). when we were asked to identify strong leadership with an organic process or item (vegetable, mineral or animal) she offered to our class water as an essential symbol of this – yielding in that it takes any form necessary and can take on things otherwise hard and umovable.

this morning on my way to work, i found a moment to reflect on this, and in my exploration dug out some passages from the tao te-ching that discuss both the nature and paradoxical strength of water.

the following passage from chapter 8 reflects on the essential character of water and how it is close to being the very essence of the tao (roughly translated – “the way”) – we are to be:

the highest good is like water.
water gives life to the ten thousand things and does not strive.
it flows in places men reject and so is like the Tao.

but chapter 78 extends the dialogue about water even further, searching out its paradoxes. although i see over-empathizing as a limitation, this chapter proposes “he who takes upon himself the humiliation of the people is fit to rule them”.

under heaven nothing is more soft and yielding than water.
yet for attacking the solid and strong, nothing is better;
it has no equal.
the weak can overcome the strong;
the supple can overcome the stiff.
under heaven everyone knows this, yet no one puts it into practice.
therefore the sage says:
he who takes upon himself the humiliation of the people is fit to rule them.
he who takes upon himself the country’s disasters deserves to be king of the universe.
the truth often seems paradoxical.

and what is the paradox for me? that what i see as my limitation is also my strength and that the water i see as oppressive metaphorically is actually a way of being i might emulate.

all this leads me to believe that in observing water i may learn new characteristics about myself and where my inner strengths lie with relation to how i act as an advocate for others and as an organic leader in my community. regulating energy, allowing the issues of others to flow through me (rather than becoming filled up by them), gradually working away at the stone that appears at first to be a barrier – are all lessons that i need to remind myself of as i work to become self-posessed and not burdened by the roles i assume now and in the future.