Lessons from a Surfer Boy

I’ve always been someone who appreciates a sense of control. The feeling that I have a say in what happens to me throughout this lifetime. To a certain degree, I really believe that to be true. Our thoughts hold power. We have free will, the ability to choose, and the capacity to imagine what we’d like our future to look like.

Through intention, there is a steady force that directs us to those desires.

In the same breath, there is a plan we can’t see. One that we couldn’t possibly understand until after the fact. Unfolding like a mystery, eventually leading us where we wanted to be all along.

The hardest pill to swallow: This mystery, it’s not on our timeline

We disregard this deeper knowing because hello! We’ve got plans! Places to be, things to see, lots to experience. Lives well lived are high in demand, after all. 

I was having an off day, like really stuck in my head about a particular situation. One that I had zero control over (even though my Type A ‘you are responsible for making it happen for yourself’ personality said I did).

In an irritated mood with a heart full of uncertainty, I texted a good friend.

“Hi! What are you doing right now?”

He responded with a photo of him shaping a board at the surfboard shop and said he’d be home soon.

“I think we should go to the beach and watch people surf and drink” 

“Ya. We should”

The drinking part? Very rare move for me. I hardly ever do it but for some reason it felt like the right occasion. A final salute to my resistance.

Beers in the front seat, he pulled up to my place. Blasting the album Orange Blood in his truck with a casual laid back demeanor.

The kind you can only find in people who live close to the beach, whose schedules are determined by the ocean, and who spend the majority of their time barefoot.

Sitting on the beach with the sun starting to dip below the horizon, tinted orange and pink, we started to talk.

I told him what was up. And he just goes;

“Sounds like you’re stuck in your head. You gotta get out of there”

So nonchalant. So simple. Which is what I love most about spending time with him.

“I think I just need to surrender” I declared, more to myself than anything.

“Why is the resistance there? What’s the fear?”

I told him I was worried I was slipping back. Moving backwards to a place where I used to be. A place I didn’t necessarily want to go back to.

“No, but that doesn’t happen”

I looked at him, tilting my head in a confused sort of way.

“You get me, yeah?” matter of factly in his southern californian accent.

No, I shook my head. I did not.

In between sets of waves, with frequent pauses to admire and point out which pros were doing what maneuvers; he told me of this philosophy called ‘The Coil’.

That, your life, a series of events, never goes back down but rather keeps spinning upwards. Ever evolving in an upwards direction, an upwards moving spiral.

Because every evolution, every phase builds off the last.

“But I have it now” I said “What I want. I have it. That’s where the resistance comes from. I don’t want to let it go. Because I’m afraid that if I do, it won’t come back to me. I’m afraid I won’t find my way back”

“The waves, that energy. It extends past the shore. It doesn’t just end there”

I smiled softly. Ah, surfers. 

’It doesn’t end there’. The same goes for the experiences we want to keep. The moments we wish could last forever. The energy extends & extends. None of it disappears. It is all wrapped up in the coil. A part of it. A part of us. 

Even if you surrender, even if you let go – it stays.

The trajectory of your life may look different to how you expected it to. It will likely not follow your timeline. And maybe that’s okay. Maybe it’s not the end of the world. Maybe that redirection, strangely enough, is the thing that will lead you to the same place, just as a different evolution of yourself. The version of yourself that you are meant to be when you get there.

You’ll be brought back. That is the way of the world. 

Three Tools —

A mantra: to slow the spinning, the hysteria in your mind. only if/when you’re ready, repeat.

“May I find calm. May I surrender”

A quote: to lean into the mystery that presents itself

“We call something good, we call something bad. But really, we just don’t know”

A playlist: to channel the wisdom of a chilled out surfer dude

with love, jewels xx

What are your thoughts? Have any surfer boy stories of your own? Please share in the comments below.