The Story of the Man Who Tried to Stop the River

There was once a man named Riku who lived in a quiet village at the edge of a river. The river ran calmly most days, but at certain times of the year it swelled with rain, rushing past his house with force and noise.

The more Riku listened to the rushing water,

the more he worried.

What if the river flooded?

What if it destroyed his home?

What if it swept away his life?

Riku began to panic with every change in the weather. A single dark cloud made his stomach twist. A distant rumble of thunder kept him awake at night. He stopped tending his garden, afraid to leave the house. He stopped inviting friends over, believing disaster could strike at any moment.

One evening, after yet another sleepless night, Riku decided he needed to control the river.

He began building a wall.

Stone after stone, day after day.

He missed meals.

He ignored his family.

He worked without rest.

The villagers tried to talk to him, but he waved them away.

“I must stop the river before it stops me.”

At last, he finished. Exhausted, he stood back and looked proudly at his great wall.

But that same night, the rains came — heavier than ever before.

The river rose.

It pushed against his wall.

And with one great crash, the wall collapsed.

The river flowed on, exactly as rivers do.

Riku sat in the mud, soaked and defeated.

Everything he’d spent months trying to control

had broken in a single night.

As dawn arrived, an old fisherman walked past, his clothes dripping wet from the morning catch. The old man looked at the ruined wall, then at Riku.

“Why would you try to stop a river?” he asked gently.

“That is like trying to stop the weather or the wind.”

Riku whispered, “I just didn’t want it to hurt me.”

The old man nodded. “Then learn its rhythm. Respect its power. You can guide water, redirect it, build alongside it… but you cannot fight it.”

The fisherman walked home, leaving Riku to sit with the truth:

He had not failed because the river was strong.

He had failed because he believed fear could be prevented by control.

The Lesson

Anxiety works the same way as Riku’s river.

We try to control the future.

We try to block uncertainty.

We build walls made of worry, tension, perfectionism, and avoidance.

But life still flows — with all its unpredictable currents.

The more we try to control it,

the more anxious we feel.

People don’t break because life is hard.

They break because they try to stop the river.

Why This Happens (Psychology Insight)

Anxiety tries to protect us by predicting danger.

But when we treat every possibility like a threat, our brain becomes a soldier without a war, fighting everything.

CBT calls this catastrophic thinking.

NLP would call it an unhelpful internal model — we live inside the fear, not outside the moment.

Anxiety doesn’t need control.

It needs safety and flexibility.

Reflection Prompt

Where in your life are you trying to “build a wall” against uncertainty?

What would it look like to stop controlling the river and start learning its rhythm instead?

If anxiety is shaping your life…

You don’t need to block it or fight it.

You can learn how to move with it — and I can help you do that safely.

📩 Message me if you’d like support learning how to “flow” instead of fight.