You can’t stop the waves

On my recent holidays I was watching a young family at the beach.

Their little girl would have been a year and a half, two years old max, and it looked like this might have been their first visit to the beach.

I was watching the girls’ parents trying to entice her into the water. Her little legs were only ankle deep in the white wash, while her parents were holding her hands, encouraging her to allow the foamy water lap over her tiny feet, letting the swash wash onto her squishy little legs.

The little girl was shrieking, more fear than delight though, while the parents smiled and laughed.

Mum and Dad kept the little girl safe, while expressing their own joy of feeling the coolness of the fresh ocean water on their adult skin. The little girl looked up to her care givers, curious yet dubiously studying their faces, and at the same time trying to navigate those wavelets that kept coming over her feet, again and again, relentlessly.

𝐀𝐟𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝐚 𝐰𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐞, 𝐈 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐢𝐜𝐞𝐝 𝐚 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐟𝐭:
I could see the little girl’s face softening, her little body relaxing, and her little legs starting to ever so gently bounce in anticipation of the next wavelet washing up.

𝐀𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐧 𝐈 𝐡𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐢𝐭: that little shriek of delight, when the next wavelet came rolling in, slightly bigger than the ones before - and all three of them, little girl, adults, bouncing up in unison, welcoming the wash, welcoming the change in movement and size of the wave.

I found myself smiling, and then I reflected on this scene right in front of me 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐥𝐞𝐧𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐞𝐬𝐬 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐮𝐦𝐚.

𝐔𝐧𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐥𝐲, 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐭𝐥𝐞 𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥’𝐬 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐬 𝐭𝐚𝐮𝐠𝐡𝐭 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐫 𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐝 𝐬𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐯𝐞𝐫𝐲 𝐢𝐦𝐩𝐨𝐫𝐭𝐚𝐧𝐭: They showed her to adapt to a stressor (the relentless waves) which at the start the little girl appeared to (at the very least) not like very much, perhaps even fear. They kept her safe, holding her hands and staying close, responding gently to her cues whilst also encouraging her and modeling adaptation (“jump”), delight and enjoyment.

This was so effective, that after a little while the girl’s trepidation turned into joy and shared delight. An embodied lesson learned: “I am ok, this feels nice, I am safe”.

𝐋𝐢𝐟𝐞 𝐢𝐬 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐛𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐚𝐠𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐬𝐞 𝐰𝐚𝐯𝐞𝐬: Sometimes there might be little wavelets that require nothing more than a bit of a skip and a jump. Other times the waves come crashing down on us, and we might find ourselves flailing and fearing to drown.

Resistance to the waves of change is futile, and can in fact increase our levels of (dis)stress. Trying to stop the ocean waves, or the wind? Impossible!

That’s when we need someone, just like the girl’s parents, to hold our hands and show us how to swim, teach us to surf, or duck under and into the waves with us.

How do you manage life's waves? Who (or what) gets you through the big and the small waves?