To know humility is to be powerful
We came to Sri Lanka for adventure and to spend two weeks in one place surfing.
Today I had a case of the yips. Fear ruled my head. Tony, my partner and amazing surf coach, reassured me that the waves are different today, requiring a different approach to what I had grown accustomed to. Yet that little voice of fear and doubt ruled.
Ah, life lessons through surfing. Roiling from determination to wanting to quit. To get back out and start again. To humility. Again.
To know humility is to be powerful.
To know vulnerability is to be powerful. In my vulnerability, I become invulnerable. When I have nothing to hide, no place to feel shame, I cannot be attacked.
When my knees hit the dirt, the humus, the composting, bacteria-infested soil, I finally experience the essence of my being. From where I came and to where I will return. The same for every single life, no matter their claim to riches, power or glory.
To dirt we return.
I watch a beautiful neurodivergent young man weep publicly with love for his father. For those who ridicule this spontaneously human act, I feel sorrow for your soul, for the cruelty that has occupied the empty caverns of your being.
I want to see men, neurodiverse or not, be free to be fully human – and seen for their humanity, not to be packaged into some stereotype of how men should behave. Give me tears, vulnerability, and fiercely protective and infinitely respectful.
I love women who embrace their sexuality. Not as a weapon to dominate, or as a front to hide deep insecurity. But are an embrace of their being. A gorgeous flower does not hide its beauty.
I love men who know their own strength enough to stand beside powerful women, where the two together are better in each other’s light and shadow. I am lucky to have a man like this in my life. Who, rather than take me further down into my doubts and fears with surfing, lifts me to another perspective, giving me both hope and the opportunity to keep learning.
Later today, I will go out again to be in a conversation with the water and waves.
Every moment we get to begin again.
Photo Taken August 22nd 2024
