Life is a Creative Process. Trust it.
I went to the beach this morning for swim. It’s very hot here these days, and I find if I can cool down my core temperature in the morning I’m comfortable for the rest of the day.
This morning the waters were a bit turbulent. My swimming buddy told me he was nervous. A little girl in her father’s arms cried. And I got to thinking about the difference between trusting the water and fighting against it and what a good metaphor this is for life.
When a person goes into the water with fear, they go in worried, hyper-vigilant, fighting. The natural inclination is to work really hard to stay afloat, to fight against the water, to paddle paddle paddle against a big force perceived as aggressive.
The person who has experienced the buoyancy of the water knows it will hold them up, and the fear subsides. But until they’ve put themselves in the water to experience it, the fear just keeps coming up.
What I noticed this morning, as I have so many times before, is that all there is to do is to put myself in the water, get still and allow the salty water to support me. I’ve also noticed that when I take a deep breath and fill my lungs with air, I rise; when I let the air out of my lungs, I fall. If I keep breathing, I’m okay.
When I have experienced this enough times that I can trust the process completely, there is joy. And that is how I come to love my life. When I can bring this same pure, unadulterated, childlike, playful, all-is-well-in-the-world joy to my daily life, love is all there is.
The sea is there like a great mystery. It invites us or repels us, depending on what we project onto it. It can be wild and untamed or smooth as liquid glass. It is constant change, unknowable, and alive.
Life is a mystery as well. It is buoyant, energetic, and changeable. I may fight against injustice, against inertia, against intolerable cruelty, but let me not fight against Life itself.
Even when it’s turbulent, Life is a creative process. When you jump in, get still and allow it to support you, it is completely natural to love the life you live.
