How To Flow With The Tides Of Life

Life is a flow and just like in the ocean, the tides of Life flow out and then come back in again. Winter is now beginning to turn into spring. The crocuses and the daffodils are blooming and the buds on the trees are ready to burst wide open. It is beautiful, miraculous and awe-inspiring. And yes, the flow of Life includes pain, loss, illness and death. It is all a necessary part of the flow and it is all amazing. Yet most of us don’t see its perfection because the storyteller in our heads puts a veil between us and the living experience of Life. 

Instead of flowing with the tides of easy and difficult, joyous and sorrowful, it is as if we decided that the tide coming in is good and the tide going out is bad, and we completely ignore the fact that it wouldn’t work if the tide always came in – the land would flood, crops would die, and we’d have wet feet all the time! We fail to see that after the tide goes out, it gathers up wonderful gifts from the sea, like beautiful shells, water-carved logs, rich communities of seaweed, and on its return, it deposits them on the shore. The same is true with your life. 

There is a wonderful quote by Joseph Campbell that touches on the core of what I am exploring here with you: 

People say what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances within our innermost being and reality so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.

You long to feel truly alive. You long to know the peace and well-being that is your birthright. But in your search for peace, you try to get rid of what you don’t like about yourself and your life, not understanding that this very resistance to the unpleasant parts creates deep suffering. You want the high tide (the pleasant) without the low tide (the unpleasant) and wonder why you are lost in what I call “the bubble of struggle,” always trying to hold onto what you like and fighting with what you don’t. And yet, the pleasant and unpleasant experiences of Life are two sides of the same coin. You can’t have one without the other. You can’t have winter without spring; you can’t have day without night; you can’t have the ocean without the tides coming in and going out. And you can’t know the peace you long for without fully experiencing the challenges of Life. 

Freedom comes when you can learn to respond rather than react to your challenges. Whether it is a deeply challenged body, a broken heart, an abusive boss, deep rage, freezing cold, an overdue deadline or a dying friend, peace and ease come when you learn to relate to the overwhelming parts of your life rather than being caught in their web. Pain then becomes an awakener, an ally, and even a friend.  As author and spiritual teacher, Stephen Levine, once said, “Pain sucks, but it grabs our attention.”  That which is difficult in your life is here to heal you, and your job is to learn how to pay attention to it.

Every challenge in your life is tailor-made to bring you the gifts of truly being alive. In order to gather these gifts, you need to understand that true peace is not the absence of conflict; it is the ability to be with what is. We are all destined to take on challenges in our lives and get lost in them. When you can bring your challenges into the light of compassionate awareness, you will then be able to gather the gifts they offer. 

Image of Ebb & Flow by Margaret Juul  http://www.margaretjuul.com/