avatarNishith Goyal

Summary

The website content discusses "The Water Exercise" from Paulo Coelho's book "The Pilgrimage," an activity designed to enhance intuition through the playful manipulation of water.

Abstract

The article titled "The 'Water Exercise' — Arouse Your Intuition" delves into an intuition-strengthening exercise detailed in Paulo Coelho's autobiographical book "The Pilgrimage." The exercise involves creating meaningless patterns in a puddle of water on a smooth surface for at least ten minutes a day over a week. The author shares personal experiences of performing the exercise and its impact on awakening intuition. The post also provides a step-by-step guide on how to perform the exercise, emphasizing the importance of not seeking immediate practical results but rather focusing on the process of engaging with one's intuition. The article encourages experimentation with the exercise, such as using multiple fingers, adding colors, or even closing one's eyes, to enhance creativity and self-awareness. It concludes with a call to action for readers to incorporate such self-improvement tools into their daily lives and to join a community dedicated to incremental personal development.

Opinions

  • The author highly recommends "The Water Exercise" as a method to tap into one's intuition, suggesting that it has been effective in their personal experience.
  • There is an emphasis on the enjoyment and playfulness of the exercise, which is considered crucial for its success.
  • The article suggests that the exercise can lead to significant self-improvement and personal development when practiced consistently.
  • The author believes that while the exercise may seem simple or insignificant, its impact on one's life can be profound and transformative.
  • Engaging in such activities is portrayed as a way to make small but meaningful shifts in one's lifestyle, leading to a noticeable positive change in attitude and perspective.

The “Water Exercise” — Arouse Your Intuition

Image source: Amazon.in

“The Alchemist” is one of the most prominent works of Paulo Coelho. For a very long time, I assumed that this is the only work penned by him. Then one day I got the opportunity to buy a whole set of his books.

I picked up “The Pilgrimage”.

The book notes that it’s a true story about a pilgrimage that Paulo carried in the year 1986. This book is a saga of his entire pilgrimage to Santiago.

In this book, he has spoken about several RAM activities which his teacher asked him to perform during the journey. Though there are many activities being narrated in the book, The Seed exercise, and The Water exercise came to be my favorite.

I have already written about The Seed exercise (BTW it appears as the number one result on Google if you search by the key words “The Seed exercise by Paulo Coelho”).

Here, I would like to share my experience with “The Water exercise”.

I have already attempted this exercise several times. Sometimes at home, sometimes at my workplace, sometimes with friends and a few times with my daughter.

The Arousal of Intuition (The Water exercise) as narrated by Paulo Coelho in “The Pilgrimage”.

“Make a puddle of water on a smooth, non-absorbent surface. Look into the puddle for a while. Then, begin to play with it, without any particular commitment or objective. Make designs that mean absolutely nothing.

Do this exercise for a week, allowing at least ten minutes each time.

Don’t look for practical results from this exercise; simply calling up your intuition, little by little. When this intuition begins to manifest itself at other times of the day, always trust in it.”

Paulo promises that this exercise opens you to your intuitions. And it actually happens!

The first time I attempted this exercise was during March 2019. Though it may sound unusual to spill some water on a flat surface and start making patterns just as it is, my first experience was enjoyable. After that first experience, I have done this exercise many times and every time picking some pure nuggets of perspective.

As you continue to read, you will discover how Water exercise can be an exciting enhancement to your list of self-improvement tools and what it can achieve for you.

Start

  1. Start by finding a flat surface
  2. Sit comfortably
  3. Pour some water on the surface
  4. Notice that the water quickly starts taking arbitrary shapes. At this point, you can either wait for the water to settle down or just start making patterns immediately

Try and find those moments of solitude where you cannot be disturbed by anyone. Water and you, that’s what is required to allow your mind to listen to your intuitions, no one else.

Process

  1. Use your creative instincts to draw, let those creative juices flow
  2. Draw circles, faces, birds, mountains, flowers, stars, planets, houses, trees, God, books, plants, jungles……just keep on drawing whatever your intuition asks you to draw
  3. Listen to what your intuition is saying to you. Don’t question or hitch, just keep drawing whatever hits your mind (this is the single most important element in this exercise and probably your biggest learning in a long time!)
  4. You can also have fun by writing over the water. Write anything, there is no one to judge your handwriting or to read what you have written

Try and give yourself 7–10 minutes for this exercise. That’s enough.

Experiment

  1. One way to do this exercise is by keeping your eyes open but another interesting variant is to do it with your eyes closed! You will be amazed by the variation it will bring to the results of this exercise
  2. Treat this exercise as play. Play while you are with your spouse or your kids or parents or friends or family members
  3. Initially, I started drawing/designing/writing by using just one finger but once while doing this exercise with my daughter, I noticed her using all her fingers to play with the water and since then I have started experimenting with multiple fingers. It’s fun and it brings in new designs and fresh perspectives
  4. Experiment with colors. It will take this exercise to another level of creativity
  5. Experiment by putting the water on a transparent surface. The fact that you will be able to see through the water will add a new dimension to this exercise
  6. An easy prompt to keep you going is by asking yourself questions and keep answering them while writing on the water. These questions can be anything, related to your personal or professional life, related to your mental or physical health, just anything

When you do this exercise and discover innovative and creative ways of doing this exercise, please don’t forget to share it with the world. Just drop a message on this article and probably it will help someone pull a miracle out of this simple yet beautiful exercise.

Remember

  1. Don’t overthink, the idea is to build confidence in listening to your intuitions and hence keep drawing whatever hits your mind. Just keep drawing things one after the other without stopping
  2. The idea of writing non-stop lets your mind make connections. Don’t break the chain of your thoughts
  3. Remember to use all the sections of the puddle. The top, sides and the bottom

Finish

  1. Once you are done, take a cloth or tissue paper and wipe the water off
  2. At this stage, I will advise you to pull out your notebook and note down your thoughts and learning
  3. Note down how you started, what all you wrote or draw and why did you do that.

“The Water exercise” is such a mighty addition to my self-improvement journey that I can just go on and keep writing about it. But no exercise or experiment is capable to produce results without action.

Self-improvement and personal development is a continuous journey. It’s a culmination of small and insignificant efforts which snowballs into big results with consistency.

To me, Water exercise is one of the most significant attempts to shed light on my own intuitions and bring a fresh perspective to the shore.

I believe in improving bit-by-bit and Paulo brought this exercise to me and helped me do exactly that.

Thanks for reading.

If you liked this article, I would request you to kindly hit the 👏 button as many times as you can, so that more people like you can read it.

Self-development is for everyone. Once you start picking these small improvements and add them to your daily life, the results will be huge. At the outset, these exercises/activities look insignificant but with persistence in following them, the results they deliver are huge.

Keep moving, keep making these tiny and insignificant shifts to your lifestyle and soon, you will see a new YOU!

Join us at the “Be Better Bit-By-Bit” platform to experience an innovative and effective way of self-improvement. Through this platform, I try and create daily activities that let you explore this new world of personal development. Please drop me a message and I will add you to the current WA based group. Join a bunch of enthusiastic and vibrant people who have in a very short period of time discovered a new-self and noticed a stark difference in their attitude.

Personal Development
Paulo Coelho
Intuition
Self Improvement
Perspective
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