Searching for Equilibrium

Diary Entry: March 25, 2021

There’s something about the ocean or perhaps the beach that invokes a spirit of play and gives us permission to rest...to fall into her rhythms that are sure and steady.

I’ve been thinking this week—what is it about coming here that brings so much clarity and healing? I think there are likely many reasons, but what I’m currently observing is the tension the sea holds.

In so many ways she is wily and unpredictable and in others so steady and sure. I know the tide will come in and out everyday and I can plan around it, when to walk or swim. But then there are the waves—ever changing in their size and scope...gently kissing my ankles one minute and knocking me over the next. It feels like a metaphor for life, huh?

As I think about the juxtaposition of the sea—of her playful qualities and her more practical or grounded ones I see a picture of the kind of life I desire to build.

I often have a hard time sitting in the tension of paradox and let my pendulum swing far in one direction or the other...making lots of rules in order to “succeed” and be “be productive” or setting no rules and boundaries to let my inner artist run wild and play. Neither of these extremes work for me nor have they been fruitful in creating the life I dream of.

Watching the ocean this week I can see how the tides provide an anchor— a constant that allows for playful adventure. I want to create something like this in my life...an allowance for a happy union between order/structure and playfulness and creativity.

For the past several months I’ve been putting my heart’s desires on the back burner in service of what felt logical, responsible aka “adult”. I let my logic and beliefs that work=drudgery keep me from leaning into what lights me up. I pretty much stopped writing and started doing what I thought I was supposed to do.

I bought into the lie that I had to give up what I love in order to be successful and make money. And you know what happened? I resisted doing that work BIG time because it was at odds with my soul—not in the way that it was work I shouldn’t have been doing, but in the way a child throws a tantrum and sits down in the middle of a store and refuses to get up.

My spirit was unwilling to compromise giving up play and creativity for a potential paycheck.

My spirit is tired of swinging pendulums and is longing for equilibrium.

And I think that’s perhaps the most notable thing I’ve observed so far this week...I can be like the ocean—full of wiles, wonder, mystery and play...and I can be like the ocean in its steadfastness and predictability. No matter what is going on I can set proverbial tides in my life that keep me grounded and free...order and play aren’t mutually exclusive.