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Surviving Strong Winds
Surviving Strong Winds

It was always my husband’s dream to move aboard our sailboat and cruise the world.  I always enjoyed sailing, but the thought of both moving aboard and leaving home was both scary and exciting at the same time. I knew that if I didn’t go with him, his dream would never be realized, so in a weak moment, I committed to one year on the seas. We decided to sail the Caribbean and set a departure date of January, 2007, and that would give us two years to work a little longer and wind everything down.  We got the boat prepared for living aboard, sold our home, left our jobs, said good-bye to family and left New Bern, NC on December 26, 2006.

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Like many who have chosen the cruising lifestyle, I was continually tested at all levels…much more than I ever imagined.   There were times when I felt so alone… a feeling that comes from being stripped of everything, especially the things which make you feel content, nurtured, and fulfilled…a teaching job that I loved, at a small private college in Milwaukee, my three daughters, and my little Maltese, Tucker and golden retriever, Dakota who had been with me for 8 years.  My youngest daughter Annie, volunteered to take the dogs when I was gone, but this did not make saying good –bye to those big brown eyes and wagging tails, any easier.

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I was encountering  new winds that were incredibly strong, which required developing different strengths, survival  strengths, such as unrelenting patience, quietly experiencing all with non judgmental perception, staying in the mindfulness of the moment, and developing a large capacity for solitude.   I knew that dwelling in the past, or allowing the fears of the future to loom, I would never be able to survive this period of change.

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As time went on, it continued to become crystal clear, that the only place to go to survive  these strong winds and rough waters was within me. All of the outside things that  had been  my support, such as my home, my job, and my family, could not help me here. I had always listened to my thoughts; it was new to listen to my heart. 

 

I needed to calm my mind, still my pursuits, and just listen.  Only then did I hear the true direction in which to move.  The key was to pay attention and respond to how I felt moment to moment, rather than imposing a structure that supported me before I moved aboard.  I needed to abandon many of the “old” thought processes and develop new ones that would support what I was doing now, so that I did not become increasingly frustrated, reactive, or impatient.   I knew my challenge was learning how to tap this strength, how to connect to it….to this source, this truth about life, the answers, which I know now, are available to all of us?  

 

What does one call this strength...…some people call it God, the Divine, the Universe, or Truth … but whatever we call it,  however we define it, for each of us it is different, but for all of us, it can be the friend we need to talk to, and go to, for wisdom and insight.  It just takes the discipline to go within.

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This would be a journey of learning who I really am, and allowing myself to embrace the darkness and shadows that lurked within me.  I discovered that I would not only have to learn to tack when we sail, but to emotionally tack through each day, navigating through difficult waters.   Will I be able to shift with these winds?  Will I be able to hold steady when they are strong, and relax when it’s a gentle breeze?  Will I be able to find the strength and the answers to embrace this life?   Will I be ok?  These were the new winds that I needed to face head on, to embrace, openly, and non judgmentally.  These were the winds that required different strategies and ways to listen.  These were the winds that taught me to “go within”, and the realization that I couldn’t live in the past. 

 

Past supports could not serve me here.  I had to embrace the new…what was now in front of me.  The key, I realized very quickly, was staying in the present moment, rather than trying to impose a structure that supported me before I moved aboard.  The other key support was “surrendering”.  For me, surrendering is connected with trust.  It’s when I come to an emotional impasse, I allow something to give…not a reaction, but a letting go.  It was a recognition that it’s ok for things not to be like I expect them to be, but to open to a deeper level, and let the energy take me to the unknown, fearlessly surrendering to the fact that many times you can’t make something happen, but rather I had to give up the illusory control, and open up to it and let it happen. 

 

Surrender is not giving up, it’s something much greater.  It allowed me to become in sync with my new world and what it has to offer, without judgment or comparing it to my life before.  And, I found the ocean and the wind invite the spirit to open to a place of acceptance through surrender.  The sound of water beckons the spirit to become one with it…flowing and moving in a natural path.  This is the beauty of nature, and why, I believe, we all feel more serene when we are in it.

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It has always been known that strength comes from crisis’s…from difficulty.  My lesson was that through all the difficult challenges, there was a beautiful gift as I emerged, a gift that can happen to all of us in difficult times.  We transform, and with our transformation comes truth and honesty with ourselves and others, and a clearer understanding of who we really are…it all evolves from staying in the present moment and surrendering and embracing what is.  It all comes from the strength within.                  

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  Birdwings

Your grief for what you’ve lost lifts a mirror

Up to where you’re bravely working.

Expecting the worst, you look, and instead

Here’s the joyful face you’ve been wanting to see.

Your hand opens and closes and opens and closes.

If it were always a fist or always stretched open, you would be paralyzed.

Your deepest presence

Is in every small contracting and expanding,

The two as beautifully balanced and coordinated as bird wings.

 

By Rumi From The Essential Rumi

Coleman Barks with John Moyne

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