> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.gilespcroft.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # A bucket from the river - URL: https://www.gilespcroft.com/a-bucket-from-the-river/ - Published: 2026-10-18T06:00:00.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-18T05:59:59.000Z - Description: Holding on to, or letting go of past hurts 🪣 - Author: Giles P Croft - Tags: Metaphor, Trauma, Thought realisation, Real stories, Sharing, Psychology, Nature & Outdoors, IMPLICATIONS, Guilt, Grief, Gratitude, Attention, Acceptance I just love how water offers so many metaphors for life – I'm on a bit of a roll with them here at the Daily Reminders. #### So far we've had: - [**Getting clear*](https://www.gilespcroft.com/getting-clear/) – how water clears naturally, pointing back to our inbuilt psychological immune system - [**Mirage*](https://www.gilespcroft.com/mirage/) – how the appearance of water can actually not **be* water, and how this relates to an experience being real-and-not-true - [**Contaminated thinking*](https://www.gilespcroft.com/contaminated-thinking/) – how something in water doesn't alter the **nature* of water, and what this means for who-we-really-are - [**Waves on the ocean*](https://www.gilespcroft.com/waves-on-the-ocean/) – how the nature of waves and their life cycle is the perfect metaphor for a human life (and its end) - [**Ripples on the pond*](https://www.gilespcroft.com/ripples-on-the-pond/) – how water receives stones in the same way as the mind receives experiences - [**What are you clinging on to?*](https://www.gilespcroft.com/what-are-you-clinging-on-to/) – how resistance to the flow of life is a pretty unnatural state of affairs And today, I have a quick one about how water offers a great metaphor for letting go of the past. ## A bucket of thought This is one that I'm reminded of, every time I walk a particular stretch of the River Usk, just outside of Abergavenny, where I live. I've taken many a client out that way, on a Walk & Talk [coaching session](https://www.gilespcroft.com/individuals/), and sometimes—because life's been tough—we're trying to get a bit of distance from past events. So we stand and watch the river go by, from up on the bank. The waterway is wide, but not so deep, and it moves past us at a reasonable lick. It's relentless. Water passes by and is quickly replaced by more water. It might look roughly the same, but it's not. This is life. The flow of experience. (100% of which is experienced as thought-perception, now.) It too is relentless. Experiences pass us by and are quickly replaced by more. They may look roughly the same, but they're not. --- And then maybe we get stuck in our lives. Something bad happens—a traumatic experience—and we find ourselves returning to it, time and time again – playing it over in our mind's eye, analysing it, trying to figure out what we could have done differently; considering how things might be, now, if we had taken a different path. Holding on to the past hurts. And this is where the bucket comes in. 🪣 Because it's like we've reached down with a small bucket and scooped up a litre or so of water out of the river. And this is what we're going to examine, now. At first it's an interesting pastime – you can really get into the detail of how the water looks in the bucket. But after a while it just looks the same. There's nothing new there at all. We can swill it around, tilt it, stir it, but at the end of the day it's just a litre of slowly-festering liquid… and we've got our nose in it. Meanwhile the river, with fresh, new water—kajillions of litres of it, flushing away the old—continues to flow by, outside of our awareness. --- This is what it is, to hold on to past hurts. It's looking for answers in a bucket of slowly-festering thought, while perspective and healing and wisdom and forgiveness and understanding and **life*…* are all busy flowing past you, outside of your awareness. But you can put that bucket down. Tip it back in, or just look up from it. The river of life never stopped, and there are so many more experiences to be had. Kajillions of them… flushing away the old. 💟 Giles p.s. We look in a bit more depth at moving on from the past in [Lesson #6](https://www.gilespcroft.com/intro-series-part-6/) of the [**Introduction to Innate Health Series**](https://www.gilespcroft.com/intro-links/). It's free to all Daily Reminders members, and if you're a Premium 🔖 subscriber, you get an entire [**Self-Study Course**](https://www.gilespcroft.com/courses-intro/), built around the lessons, too! p.p.s. One more water metaphor to come! --- SIGN UP FOR THE DAILY REMINDERS newsletter [![CTA Image](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/f3/9bf3d316-7d32-494b-814f-a7d94d6358c3/content/images/2025/12/DR_Lockup-Black-1.png)](#/portal/signup) Want to receive helpful, insightful content like this, regularly? The ****Daily Reminder** is a quick, lighthearted email that arrives in your inbox, and helps you to start **your* day in the right frame of mind. **“They feel like a moment of stillness in a world of madness.” \~* Neil, UK 🎁 Also included automatically when you sign up: an ****Introduction to Innate Health** ****Series** of 8 short lessons, designed to help you **‘Think less, and live more’.* **“One of those small things with big impact. Honestly, just sign up!”* \~ Paula, UK [GET YOURS NOW ](#/portal/signup) ### Related [When you're readyHealing doesn't always mean an end to experiencing past traumas. It \*does\* mean that experience changes 💗![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/f3/9bf3d316-7d32-494b-814f-a7d94d6358c3/content/images/icon/DR_Lockup-Black-3-0d1d6ac2-a3a4-46e3-86cf-7cb0e8405085.png)The Daily RemindersGiles P Croft![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/9b/f3/9bf3d316-7d32-494b-814f-a7d94d6358c3/content/images/thumbnail/2025-12-19-When-you-re-ready-1-da1a02e3-9af1-41c2-8238-10d2c4e0a37d.jpg)](https://www.gilespcroft.com/when-youre-ready/)