Even though we are formed from stardust and carry within us the intelligence that created the stars, we are still required to navigate our unpredictable, ever-changing lives here on Earth. Living here in Hawaii I have plenty of opportunity to watch surfers riding the giant waves, and though it may be over-used, surfing seems like a good metaphor for us humans living our lives. It requires being balanced and centered, and continually adjusting to the movement of the wave. It also requires practice and a certain amount of trust. I’m told that when you’re knocked off your board (which is inevitable), rather than panic and resist, you should relax and allow the water to bring you back up to the surface.
Did you set intentions at the beginning of the year? How are you doing with them in the face of the current global crisis? We know life will always throw us some curve balls, we just don’t know when and what they will look like. The question is how do we stay on course no matter what is or is not happening? How do we surf the waves that come our way? How do we dance with the ups and downs of our life?
Knowing we are here on Earth to grow and evolve through learning the lessons we came here to learn is a good first step that engenders compassion for ourselves and others. We can drop the burden of believing we can and should do everything “right” since, as humans, that is not the point. Like the guided missile that appears to be headed straight for the target but is actually (as I understand it) continually veering slightly off-course and realigning itself, our lives are a process of mis-aligning and repairing. The ‘repair’ part of the equation happens when we notice we are off-track in some way and re-adjust our course, steer ourselves back to center like the surfer riding the wave.
Years ago, when I worked at an agency in a program that served parents and babies, I learned a principle of parenting that can be applied to our lives in general. We learned about the natural process of mis-attunement and repair in the parent-infant relationship. Research on this topic put to rest the notion that the parent had to be perfectly in tune with their baby at all times. Not only is this not possible, but the process of mis-attuning and re-adjusting was found to be a vital part of healthy development in infants.
We can never be what we think of as perfect. Like the well-intentioned parent who regularly falls short of correctly reading and responding to the baby’s cues, we often fail to live up to our highest intentions for our lives. Instead of judging ourselves when we go off course, can we see it as part of our healthy development as a human being? This is how we are as humans.
Growth is about setbacks and healing, and as much as we don’t want any setbacks, that is how we evolve. I think we all know not to expect a free ride here on Earth. We are going to be thrown off course at times. The waves are going to crash over us. To return to the parenting metaphor, if a baby’s every cue were fully understood and responded to by the parent, the infant’s development would be stunted. We need to develop the ability to live in our perfectly imperfect world.
Probably most first-time parents believe they will be the first perfect parent who ever lived. I know, I was one of them. I was not going to repeat my parents’ ‘mistakes.’ A book I read called The Good Enough Parent, when my first child was a few months old, helped free me to accept my own perceived mistakes in parenting. I was relieved to know I didn’t have to be perfect—I could be good enough and my child could still make it through—even thrive.
Most of us intend to be caring and compassionate, to live up to all the ideals we hold for ourselves, but being human involves missing the mark over and over. When I was twelve, I wanted to be baptized in the church I went to as a child, which required attending a class taught by the minister. The only thing I remember from that class, all these decades later, was Mr. Tuttle drawing a circle on the blackboard with a target in the middle and an arrow pointing at it. “Sin is nothing but missing the mark,” he told us. “If you miss the mark, you can always try again. It doesn’t doom you forever.”
Can we see that good enough is actually perfect? We can be good enough parents to our evolving selves, good enough humans, and at the same time acknowledge our birthright as beings endowed with universal intelligence. The purpose of the spiritual path is to bring us into the present where we are aligned with the flow of life. The more the surfer is in tune with the wave, the smoother the ride.
CONSIDER THIS: Can you see your life an intrinsic part of Nature?
