The Art of Not Taking the Bait

This time of year brings so much sweetness — and, sadly, old behavioral patterns we thought were resolved! Dang it!

We gather with people we love, but we also gather with everything they carry: their beliefs, their wounds, their quirks, their defenses. The holidays have a way of revealing what runs underneath the surface.

This is where the Water Element becomes a true ally.

Water teaches us how to stay rooted in Essence… even when someone else is speaking from fear, old hurt, or whatever story they’ve been rehearsing since 1997.

It reminds us that we don’t have to step into the arena. We don’t have to win. We don’t have to explain ourselves into exhaustion.

We can simply remain ourselves — which, honestly, is often the most refreshing thing in the room.

Mel Robbins calls this the “let them” principle: let them think what they think, say what they say, be who they are. Water says something similar: stay in the current of your own Essence, and let the river around you do what rivers do. Sometimes it meanders. Sometimes it splashes. Sometimes it floods the whole damn bank. You still don’t have to get swept in.

This isn’t passive.
It’s a steady, quiet form of strength.
It takes presence to stay centered when old dynamics flare.
It takes courage to let go of the urge to correct or prove.
It takes trust to choose peace when the room is inviting you into anything but.

One practice that helps me:
When someone is reactive, I imagine them at four years old — curious, bright, not yet wrapped in all the armor they’d later need.
Or I picture them before life delivered its hardest chapters: before the heartbreak, before the losses, before the years of not being met the way they deserved.

When I remember their Essence — that untouched center beneath the stories and the bracing — something softens. Their Mental, Emotional, and Physical advisors can shout, but I don’t feel the tug to join.

And in that space, things open:
I don’t have to argue.
I don’t have to shrink.
I don’t have to get pulled into the weather system they’re currently hosting.
(Especially if the forecast is “stormy with a chance of side-eye.”)

I can stay in my own flow.

If you relate to this at all, and you move toward the holidays, here's a good ponder:

• What would it feel like to let people be exactly who they are — without abandoning your own inner steadiness?
• What would it feel like to stay rooted in Essence even when the moment is imperfect, messy, or louder than you’d prefer?

I'd love to hear your observations - especially noticing your qi level as you spend more time in Essence and less time in the three advisors!