Surfing the Waves on Life’s Ocean of Possibilities
“My soul is full of longing for the secret of the sea.
And the heart of the great ocean sends a thrilling pulse through me.”
— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow —
(Photo Credit: Doran Beach, by Author)
I am grateful to my beloved ancient mariner father for so many things. He has given me countless gifts in this precious lifetime. One of his greatest gifts to me is his love of the sea — second only to that of my life itself. In fact, “My Old Man and the Sea” would make a great title for our soul’s journey together.
Wave Jumping
As I shared in Finding Your Keel: How to Stay Grounded and Centered in Turbulent Times, my Dad introduced me to his great love at a very young age. One of my earliest memories of the sea, when I was a little girl of only about 3 or 4, is of my dad carrying me out into the Atlantic Ocean from the safety of the shore, me clinging to him as we journeyed through the surf zone to play a game he called “Do-si-do, over the waves we go”.
The essence of the game was to assess each wave and decide whether to duck under or jump over. With each approaching swell, we’d look at each other and shout “Do-si-do, over/under the wave we go” and then leap or dive depending on how close to the breaking point it was. It was a game that was equal parts terrifying and exhilarating and, like my early sailing experiences, evoked wild shrieks of fear and delight from me as we gleefully ducked and jumped, over and over again, grinning at each other when we’d reached the other side.
True to my timid, Mousey Mouse nature, my preferred strategy was to hold my nose and duck under as I was sure that I’d fail to make it over and end up getting thrashed by the wave, choking on sand and seawater. But over time, with practice, I grew more confident and bold, courageously leaping over the cresting breakers with a triumphant grin on my tiny face.
My life’s arc has had a similar cadence: starting out fearful and timid and growing ever more courageous — confident in my ability to read and respond to the opportunities presented by the energetic currents in life’s ocean of possibilities and willing to take a thrashing now and again to gain experience and deepen my learning.
Learning to Surf the Waves of Life
Dad’s simple Do-si-do game taught me how to read the surf and choose my responses to it, and these early aquatic experiences likely inspired my surfing metaphor for life — a way of thinking about life’s journey that has been alive for me and guiding my experience for as long as I can remember.
As I’ve shared previously, life is like surfing, an energetic exchange between you and the universe. It’s not entirely active — its trajectory solely determined by you and your individual human will — nor is it an entirely passive experience that the universe manifests for you while you float along, powerless to direct your course. It’s a mix of both.
Universal currents offer us waves of opportunity— with both momentum and direction — and it’s up to us to learn how to read them and choose our responses. We can choose to engage and work with them — flowing with the current to advance our life’s journey — or swim against them, struggling vainly and futilely against the tides, expending a lot of energy and getting nowhere.
Like surfing, life rewards those with the keen observational skills to detect and navigate opportunities and obstacles in their immediate environment and the courage and ability to take action when the timing is right.
And as anyone just starting out knows, when you’re learning to surf, you spend more time falling and getting tumbled in the surf with sand and seawater in your lungs than you do actually riding waves. The same is true for life. It takes patience, practice, and a willingness to return to the ocean of life’s possibilities after each thrashing to try again.
Let’s Meet Some Life Surfers
In my journey, I’ve encountered many different kinds of life surfers. Here are a few of my favorites.
Free Will-y Surfers: Damn it, I CAN Make a Wave!
I’ve met a lot of Free Will-y Surfers in the fast-paced, high-performance environments I was raised in. Free Will-y Surfers are high-achievers who seem to think wo/man can live by Free Will alone. Some have the hubris to think they can make a wave on their own, creating all the energy and momentum needed to fuel their big dreams with no help from the Universe.
Others ignore — and oftentimes paddle directly and futilely against — the universal currents of momentum and opportunity that are flowing around them. Instead of reading the waves and aligning their energies to work with them, these Free Will-y Surfers doggedly pursue their life plans and wonder why they never get anywhere. Or they keep finding themselves upside down in the impact zone with no idea what the hell went wrong.
Sound like anyone you know? I invite the Free Will-y surfers reading this to examine the ways in which you might be swimming against the tide or trying to make a wave all by yourself. Try turning your attention outward to look for currents of opportunity in the present moment and assess how you might tailor your strategies and plans to harness the universal energies they provide to advance toward your dream.
FOMO Surfers: Chasing the Perfect Wave
A lot of people today are FOMO Surfers chasing the perfect wave. Some are convinced they can ride multiple waves simultaneously, hedging their bets to increase their odds of catching — or rather not missing — the perfect wave. Other FOMO surfers commit to a single wave but surf with one eye over their shoulder, scanning the horizon for a better, more perfect wave just behind them. And some are so paralyzed by selection stress, they end up sitting on their boards or on the beach as wave after wave of opportunity passes them by.
“As any surfer will tell you, you can only ride one wave at a time and if you’re focusing on the waves behind you, you’ll likely end up being swallowed by the wave beneath you.”
As any surfer will tell you, you can only ride one wave at a time and if you’re focusing on the waves behind you, you’ll likely end up being swallowed by the wave beneath you. If you keep passing up waves waiting for the perfect one, you miss the opportunity to hone your skills and won’t be mentally or physically prepared to ride it when it comes.
Truly epic rides only happen with lots and lots of practice when you’re fully engaged with and committed to the one you’re on. Lack of practice and/or partial engagement means that even if you happen to catch a perfect wave, your ride will be anything but epic and you’ll waste the growth opportunity and joy it offers.
I meet a lot of FOMO Surfers in my life and work — they’re waiting for the perfect job, engaged in endless swiping to find the perfect mate, driven by Zillow alerts to a never-ending search for the perfect home — paralyzed by indecision or giving everything their constant partial attention, never fully engaging with anyone or anything.
To you FOMO Surfers out there, remember that there’s not one perfect wave on your life’s journey but a never-ending series of swells that offer the energy and momentum to help you realize your soul’s calling. Commit to the best of the available near term options and give it your all, riding the wave of opportunity until you’ve reaped its benefits and learned what it has to teach you. Trust that however this particular ride goes, it’ll give you the wisdom and experience you’ll need for the next best wave.
Nostalgia Surfers: Riding the Waves Gone By
For a woman who prides herself on being a pretty astute judge of the universal currents, I realized about a week ago that I can be a new kind of Life Surfer I hadn’t considered before: A Nostalgia Surfer, chasing waves of opportunity that passed long ago — trying to will a wave of past momentum back to the present moment when that moment is long gone.
“No matter how epic the wave, once it’s moved through, you can’t recreate its magic.”
No matter how epic the wave, once it’s moved through, you can’t recreate its magic. If it’s meant to be, the Universe will bless you with another opportunity for engagement in the future. For now, fellow Nostalgia Surfers, I’m celebrating the gifts of insight and wisdom it gave me. Rather than trying to conjure it again — to reanimate a ghost — I’m focusing my attention on the energies and opportunities of the present moment, trying to make the most of what is rather than trying to recreate what was.
Flow Riders: Life Surfer Nirvana
When it comes to Life Surfing, the Flow Rider is the state of nirvana, the bliss of enlightenment we can all aspire to. A state that we can approach through a committed, lifelong practice but likely never reach. The Flow Rider lives in a state of flow with the Universal currents, fully present with themself and simultaneously attuned to the energetic opportunities that surround them, engaged in a dynamic exchange of energy between themself and the Universe, at one with the wave.
I am a Lifelong Learner, Won’t You Join Me?
As John Kabat-Zinn says, “You can’t control the waves, but you can learn how to surf.” At this point in my journey, I am still discovering new ways to deepen my practice of life surfing to harness more of the Universal abundance of energy and momentum that is all around us always to further my soul’s calling and be of service to our collective evolution.
Are you working with the energetic currents around you or pitting your Free Will against them?
Are you surfing waves of FOMO and having a less than epic ride?
Are you chasing a wave of Nostalgia whose time has passed?
Do you dream of being in a flow state with the Universal currents?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, let’s talk! Book a curious conversation with me to explore what the Vulnerability Doula can do for you. I’d be happy to share the wisdom of my experience with any of you aspiring Flow Riders out there.