Clinging on
My friend was looking at the incoming wave, he turned to me urgently and in a briefest of moments said, “the best way through this is to lift your feet off the bottom and let the wave carry you.”
I was facing a very big fear. Being in the sea. Not only the vast rugged ocean but a choppy pre-stormy version of it.
I’d been avoiding this for a very long time. I stood there unexpectedly willing to test my vulnerability at a level, quite frankly, I prefer to keep firmly under control. Holding the hand of my safety person I was trembling. Standing right in the place where the waves where the worst. If I went backwards or forwards it would be better but here, I was.
Frozen. I simply couldn’t move.
He was more experienced. I trusted him. With little time to think about it, I lifted my feet accompanied by a fearful sound that escaped my mouth whilst sea water snuck in as he held me steady, our feet lifted from the bottom.
Over in seconds and our feet on the sea floor again, I turned shaking and immediately moved closer to the calmer edge of safety as I could. My trembling turned into tears of relief.
“To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don't grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.” – Alan Watts.
In my case I wasn’t clinging onto a belief about the water - although it could easily seem like that – but about letting someone physically help me. Like many I have the “I must be strong” persona. In order to let someone else take the reins with my physical safety I had to let go of the notion that I was the only one that could do that. True, I was clinging on for dear life in its place, but I walked over a psychological barrier I’d nurtured for a very long time.
I look around at our political landscape, the workplace, family dynamics, self-relationship and I marvel at the damage we are doing in clinging on. Clinging to draconian concepts and unfounded self-righteousness that prevents the very thing we all want more of. A safe and loving life. Clinging to any false sense of security that masks and hides our truest needs.
Imagine experiences where we are more gracious in letting go of a rigidity particularly during tumultuous times - how we could be far more effective and expansive rather than protective and constrictive? Imagine in that expansion better ideas, new information and dare I say a happier contented way of living life that is far less lonely.
It takes courage to let go of the notion that any-one of us is the only one that can.
Me and the sea? Still need to do some work on our relationship. Small steps, as they say. But I respect it and even understand it a little more. Gratitude going to its willing participation and my wise friend.
What are you clinging onto for dear life that if you relaxed your grip even just a little will help?