The Lesson Hiding Inside the Lesson
Years ago, at the end of Oprah’s twenty-fifth and final season, I did something I’d never done before. I sat down and wrote her an email — just to say thank you. For the realness. For all those years of inviting us to become more of who we are.
I didn’t expect anything back.
But I got a reply. (Me and probably millions of others.) No fancy header, no buttons promoting anything, not even perfect punctuation — just a warm, sisterly note about life after Harpo.
And tucked inside it, this:
For years I’ve been a challenged swimmer, afraid of the water and fighting it. Today I learned to move with the flow.
She’d been taking swimming lessons. Just learning to move past the doggy paddle. And there it was — the lesson hiding inside the lesson:
Resist nothing. Let life carry you. Don’t try to carry it.
I’ve known this forever, and yet I still forget.
We brace against the hard thing.
We run it again at 3 a.m., as if this time we'll get it right.
We try to muscle our way to calm.
As if calm were something you could wrestle into being. As if the current needed our help.
There’s a beautiful Japanese saying I keep close for exactly these moments:
Let the past drift away in the water.
There is very little we hold onto that cannot soften, loosen, and eventually wash away.
What helped Oprah wasn’t a breakthrough or a retreat. It was a swim lesson. Something small and ordinary.
Which makes me wonder — how often is the lesson right there in our hands, running warm from the faucet, and we’re too busy gripping to feel it?
So here’s the whole practice, really: the next time you’re at the sink, slow down. Let the water remind you. Stop. Breathe. Let go.
What might soften if you stopped trying to carry the current — and let it carry you?
Ahhh 💦
Continue the Journey
There’s more inside this week — a one-minute practice that turns the most ordinary moment into a small act of release.
This reflection is part of Journey to a Lighter You, inspired by my book A Year to Clear.
New here? This week we're letting water — the stuff we touch all day without noticing — teach us how to stop gripping and start flowing.
Already walking this path with me? Below, we slow the whole thing down to a single minute at the sink — and find out what your hands have been trying to tell you.
What if releasing didn’t require effort?
What if it only asked you to stop holding on?
What if the water was ready, and so were you?
Join us.
