F**Cking Ocean. STOP IT!
On picking fights where there are none.
There I am, struggling in the waves hearing myself scream fack, fack, fack at the ocean. At one point I even told her to STOP IT. I was at that very same moment not unaware of the ridiculousness of that request. Like the ocean will ever respond like, oh dear I am so sorry, I didn’t see you half dying there by rocks, let me tune it down a bit. The swirling cocktail of frustration and panic led me to pick a fight where there was none. Even if there was, it wasn’t one I would ever win.
I recently picked up surfing and as a beginner, I spend quite a lot of time being tumbled around and crashed into the sand by the whitewash. At the highest point of my frustration, I was practising on my own, and failing ungracefully. Most of the time, especially during the safety of classes, I can enjoy each crash and failed attempt to pop up and ride away. The most ridiculous crashes play like a movie in my head whilst they are happening and directly make me burst into laughter. Not this day. This time I started to panic, my lack of control led to frustration and even anger. Somehow, in between breaths of air and gushes of waves crashing on my head, I was pondering the question. How much energy do we waste and what unnecessary frustration do we bring into our lives and nerve systems by picking fights where there are none? There is no point in fighting the ocean, the rain or the wind.
There is no fight to win, there is a Flow to follow
My frustration and urge to pick a fight with the ocean didn’t come from the possibility of winning. No, it was fueled by my lack of understanding of the behaviour and the natural rhythms of the ocean at that location. My instructor told me later, what I worried about would never happen. There is always a current around the rocks that pushes you further out and once you are there you can peddle away and let the waves bring you back to the beach. There wasn’t a fight to win. There was a flow to follow.
In Modernity, everything is a competition
My frustration at the ocean and the fact that she wasn’t listening, was an example absurd enough to open my eyes to my habit of becoming frustrated in odd situations. Being stuck behind people walking at a slower pace. Cycling against the wind, without managing to progress forward. Why do I get frustrated in these situations? Our society keeps signalling us, everything is a competition (sport, school, career) and if we try our best, we can have control over our lives and the situations we find ourselves in. Nonsense, so many situations aren’t controllable. What we do have agency over is the way we respond to them. Once we are aware of how the lens of modernity is leading us to destructive behavioural patterns, we can try to recognize and disrupt them.
The misery and joy of canoe-dragging
In the waves, I was thinking about a story I read the night before in a book called The Continuum Concept, written by Jean Liedhoff and published in 1975. I am specifically mentioning the date because what she writes is beautiful but her choice of wording is outdated. She is describing a situation where her travel group had to drag an impossibly large canoe over a river bank.
“Here before me were several men engaged in a single task. Two, the Italians, were tense, frowning, losing their tempers at everything and swearing non-stop in the distinctive manner of the Tuscan. The rest, Indians, were having a fine time. They were laughing at the unwieldiness of the canoe, making a game of the battle; they relaxed between pushes, laughing at their own scrapes and were especially amused when the canoe, as it wobbled forward, pinned one, then another, underneath it. The fellow held bare-backed against the scorching granite, when he could breathe again, invariably laughed the loudest, enjoying his relief.All were doing the same work; all were experiencing strain and pain. There was no difference in our situations except that we had been conditioned by our culture to believe that such a combination of circumstances constituted an unquestionable low on the scale of well-being and were quite unaware that we had any option in the matter.” Jean Liedhoff
We have options
In frustrating situations, do you realize you have an option in the matter? How does this change the way you respond and show up to the task at hand? What is blocking you from enjoying the experience? In my case, it’s often time-related. Growing up in a country obsessed with time management left a deep imprint. No wonder when you even need to set a date and time for a phone call with a friend. Or agree on when to meet for a coffee three weeks in advance. Being late in the Netherlands, even five minutes is considered disrespectful. That is a belief I can still get behind. I like to value other people's time and plans and I appreciate if they do the same. But the consequence of all of this is a very present constant awareness of time, time spent, and time lost. I am on an intentional journey to silence, or at least quieten my inner timekeeper. I deleted my time tracking app which I used to meticulously document all work-related activities. I counter my inner timekeeper when she comes in with her calculations by asking her to shift her intention to what we enjoyed, (un)learned, achieved or experienced that day. Not how much time it cost. Hopefully, these changes will help me in showing up differently from what I previously experienced as frustrating situations.
Do you recognize these types of frustrations? How have you been experiencing these situations? What are ways you can show up differently to them?
Why are we fighting babies?
Jean shares another example of picking a fight where there is none. I do want to note that I welcome how her book challenges the status quo (in 1975 and til this day) and invites me to reflect differently. However various statements in the book and her choice of wording are problematic. I can be intrigued or invited to reflect upon my worldview without appreciating the form or full content of a book. I am curious to hear your thoughts on this matter!
If you are a parent or caregiver I want to give you a heads-up and say that I am not pointing fingers here, nor is Jean in her book. Most of us in an attempt to do right do what society at that moment tells us is the correct thing to do, even if it is deeply misaligned with our instincts and intuition.
Jean writes about a fight we are picking worldwide with babies. Parents and caregivers desperately want them to stop crying. What we are collectively missing is a clear signal from babies worldwide that they are expected to be carried, held and physically connected at all times. They can’t fend or fetch for themselves, communicate using language or run from danger, they are 100% dependent on their caregivers. Being disconnected from your literal lifeline is a scary situation that feels understandably deeply wrong. I would cry too!
“So blind are we that there is actually an organization in Britain called the National Association for Parents of Sleepless Children. Apparently it functions on the model of Alcoholics Anonymous, fortifying the victims of screaming babies with sympathy from fellow sufferers and consolations like, ‘They do outgrow it eventually’, ‘Take turns with your spouse so that each of you can sleep sometimes while the other gets up’, ‘It won’t hurt a baby to be left to cry if you know there is nothing wrong with it.’ The best they have to say is, ‘If everything else fails, it won’t really do the baby any harm to let it sleep in your bed.’There is never a suggestion that they might call off the war and believe the babies, who unanimously, and perfectly clearly, let everyone know where a baby’s place is.” Jean Liedhoff
What if…
What if, instead of picking fights with Mother Nature we learn to align with her and therefore our innate rhythms?
What if, we learned to fail with joy and laughter?
What if, we didn’t take ourselves so damn serious?
What if, we let go of the need for artificial control?
What if we recognized, gracefully accepted and celebrated our role as stewards in the metabolism of life on Earth?