Making Waves

Twenty years ago, I moved to Australia for a year. During this year I decided to do something I had long dreamed of experiencing. Surf! Every day I committed to getting up at sunrise and going for 1 1/2 hours before work and then again at sunset for a couple more hours. For my days off, I bought a car so I could travel to beaches that were farther away and surf some more. A woman I worked with gave me a board when I expressed interest in learning. The caveat being, it was a short board for an advanced level surfer. I was really excited and grateful.

I bought myself a wetsuit ready to have the time of my life. When I put the board in the water and hopped on, I couldn’t even stay afloat. I was determined to use the board, thinking maybe it will be challenging for the moment but I’ll soon figure it out and be good to go. It took me 3 weeks to even stay afloat on it and then more time to get out past the break. I spend a couple of months using this board and wasn’t able once to catch a wave. I was soon gifted another board, better than my last, but still an intermediate level. My progress was a little bit better. As the months passed, I made friends with a surf shop owner. He told me I really needed a different board that it was more the board than me. I did not heed his advice and in turn spent the whole year and many hours rarely getting to experience the true freedom and joy of surfing.

What was I doing?
Why was I so hell-bent on making it hard?

All these years later, I find myself reflecting on this experience. There are so many gems to glean from the way I approached surfing that even 20 years later I need to be cautious of. It took me years to see how it was me, not the board causing the problem. I was unconsciously setting myself up to fail. Somewhere, buried deep, I was not willing to let myself experience the freedom and joy of surfing. I told myself, and actually believed I was surfing. I was not. Instead I was showing up to “do the work” on the surface, but what I was really doing was banging my head against a wall, not accepting help from someone who already knew how to surf, “proving” to myself that no matter how hard I try I am still going to fail. I was having a inner battle for the whole year between the part of me that wanted to fail to prove I wasn’t worthy and the part of me that needed to prove I was wrong (“I’m not going to fail. I can do this. By banging my head against a wall.”) just to be right. 

The battle between unworthiness and being right was pretty even on both sides. I made some improvement over the months, but my unworthiness won the final match.  I spent many hours out on the water that year yet actually surfing very little. Every day I paddled out and waited for the “perfect” wave to roll in, telling myself that each one wasn’t the one. I would choose a few waves per session to actually go for it and then tumble in the waves. Over and over again I played out and imprinted in my brain that no matter what I did I was going to fail. The amazing thing about this is I visualized surfing, I had vivid dreams of surfing, I told myself I am doing it, I am going to do it. In some ways I had a great attitude and was taking important steps for succeeding. The part stopping me was the iceberg of subconscious beliefs under the water that I had no idea at the time were more powerful, overriding the positive attitude I had. I got to a certain point very quickly where I stopped trying new approaches and instead kept repeating the same thing that wasn’t working for multiple hours a day. I was persistent but stubborn. I lacked resourcefulness and still refused help. Without realizing it, I lacked courage to keep stretching my comfort zone in the directions it needed to be stretched.

This pattern of showing up in action everyday, making it look like you are doing something productive, when in fact you are only repeating what you already know doesn’t work, expecting different results, and then when they don’t come feeling down about yourself is crazy-making. It is detrimental behavior to prove to yourself that you failed again. This needs to be identified and named for what it is in order to stop the self-sabotaging effects it has. I have seen this pattern repeatedly show up many times in my life. Every time it significantly delays, or worst case scenario stops me from doing what I set out to accomplish.  

This is where doing something uncomfortable every day comes in.
It is the training regiment to antidote this destructive mentality. 

Every single one of us will constantly hit thresholds in all areas of our lives that require new actions than you’ve ever done before. Do not waste your time kidding yourself that you are doing the work or what is required to grow if you are not getting the results you what! You can spend months, years, a lifetime doing this. At the end of the day, the only one you are fooling is yourself. And the rest of the world doesn’t get to benefit from the incredible gifts only you have to share.   

Dare to Desire!
Kristen