Being the foolhardy, “that-looks-hard-so-I’ll-try-it” type, I’ve had a good bash at surfing in my time – and my fair share of wiping out. Which is when the world becomes a churn of whitewater, and I’ve no clue which way is up. The harder I struggle for the surface, the more difficult it is to find.
So, too, I’ve leapt valiantly into life’s rapids, tumbling and gasping for breath, buttocks exposed and bikini-slipped boobs askew. That’s when every part of me tries to grab onto something – anything – to slow the inner roil and find solid ground.
It feels disorientating. It feels unknown. Most terrifying of all, there’s no map to show where this rude, unapologetic current goes.
And yet, I know I can’t survive the rapids by resisting. As long as I fear life’s powerful flow, I’m trapped against my self-created boulders, taking the full force of the river. There’s nothing to do but surrender: let go of what I’ve been clinging to in my barnacle-strong terror.
Because the river’s current IS life: pulsing with change and direction and urging me gloriously on! I’m here to explore and experience the whole messy marvel of it; to whoop, cheer and holler. I can paddle furiously upstream all I want, convinced that salvation lies at the steep end of struggle, but it won’t change the truth: nothing I came for is back there anyway. That’s just where I travelled from.
Fighting the flow is just going backwards, towards the source. No matter how beautifully clear that water might be, I came to travel downstream: to cascade into waterfalls, spill through crevices and branch into a thousand pools; to sculpt and soften the way for others as I go, carving new dreams, paths and possibilities.
Good lord, EVERYTHING I seek is downstream! What if I stopped resisting – put down the mighty oars of my fears and conditioning and let my daft dinghy turn with the flow? Perhaps I’d discover what life has been doing all along: taking me where I need to go.
I’m here for the adventure, for the thrill of the ride – not to dam life’s flow with the bricks and mortar of my mind! So, when I feel trapped and buffeted in the whitewater, it’s not because life is hammering mercilessly at me: it’s because I’m still clinging to the same old boulder, bikini round my ears, while life dares me to let go.
Time to give up my thrashing, soften into stillness and trust the flow.
The whitewater was real; I just didn’t know I had gills.
