How are you managing the waves?
1st July 2025
Thanks to the lovely (or not, depending on how you see it) hot weather we’ve been having lately, there have been a lot of little sailing boats and yachts going past my flat on the river. Day to day, this stretch of river is relatively busy with Uber boats going up and down as well as tug boats pulling barges which get moored together here. So as I was sitting on my balcony watching these different boats going up and down, it occurred to me how much some of the little sailing boats get rocked by the wake of the bigger or faster boats going past it. Now I love a good analogy and this image on the river made me think about how we react when faced with people, events, situations that may ‘rock’ us.
When watching these little boats (with my rudimentary knowledge of sailing), I could see that the amount they rocked as they came into contact with the wake of other boats depended on several different things: the sizes of each boat, the speeds of each boat and the angle at which the sailing boat met the wake of the other boat -I’m sure there are many other factors at play if you know more about these things, but this is my amateur’s perspective! Anyway, this observation got me thinking - we’re the same aren’t we? When anything crosses our path in life, the effect it has on us is totally dependent on the way in which we face it.
Think about a time when you’ve been in a really great mood. Maybe things were going really well for you, or something wonderful had just happened and you were feeling amazing. If something went wrong at that moment, say, you dropped and broke a glass in the kitchen, you may not have had too much of a reaction besides initial shock and a little frustration in the moment, before moving to clear it up and go about your day. You may not even remember the event tomorrow.
Now consider a time when you’ve felt really low in mood, perhaps having a really bad day, whether that be because of physical pain or illness, high stress, difficulties in relationships, a tough day at work. Imagine that you now come home and drop and break a glass - your reaction here may be totally different. You may be far more likely to blow up in anger at the glass breaking and at yourself for dropping it, maybe saying horrible things to yourself like ‘I’m so stupid!’ ‘Why can’t I do anything right?!’. Your adrenaline is rushing and you may be tempted to get angry at other things after the event, punching something out of frustration, or exploding to your partner when they come to see what happened.
Your mind is the sailboat
Both situations had the same event - you dropping and breaking a glass - but because of the way you approached the situation, the way you responded and the way it made you feel was totally different. To use the boat analogy - the glass dropping and breaking is like an Uber boat passing the sailing boat. In both situations, the Uber boat is the same - the same size and travelling at the same speed - the only difference is the speed of the sailing boat and the direction it’s facing compared to the Uber boat and its wake, i.e. factors that were situation dependent - your mood and the day you’d had so far going into the situation.
How well do you know your sailboat?
But another factor affecting how much the boat is rocked, is the size and design of the sailing boat itself, and this doesn’t change - regardless of its speed and direction, or the size or speed of the other boat, the size of the sailing boat is fixed at that point in time. This represents our underlying minds - our conditioning, our beliefs, our previous experiences - these all make our minds work the way they do and have been formed over all the years of life we’ve lived so far, and at the point in time where you face a particular situation, that underlying state of your mind is fixed (of course over time, you can alter the way your mind works and your beliefs can change, but the point here is that at the moment when you’re faced with any sort of difficulty, the mind is the way it is, that cannot be changed).
And so in the same way that two different sized sailing boats would be affected completely differently even if they encountered the same sized Uber boat at the same speed and direction, so too would two different people who’d experienced the same bad day and dropped a glass in the kitchen in the same way, show completely different reactions. This is because we’ve each had unique experiences and upbringings, so our minds work differently to each other - no two reactions would be exactly the same.
What is your sailboat up against?
The last factor to consider using this analogy, is the size and speed of the boat whose wake you encounter. In the example so far, the boat we encounter in our little sailing boat has been an Uber boat. If you’ve ever seen one, they’re relatively low to the water and move quite fast but aren’t huge. But what if the boat we’re sailing past is a huge cruise liner? A behemoth next to your little sailing boat. This would require real expertise and skill to manage the waves that would hit your boat as you pass by.
In case you hadn’t already figured this out, the cruise liner represents an event or situation you may encounter in life that could really knock you for six. Huge emotional or stressful situations that really test your resilience - perhaps the death of a loved one, facing redundancy or debt, relationship breakdowns or a sudden significant health problem. When faced with big challenges, even the most skilled sailors run the risk of capsizing. And so, too, do even the most resilient people, when faced with immense or relentless personal challenges, run the risk of breaking down or burning out.
You need to know and understand your sailboat and what its up against to be a good sailor
So I wonder what you think your boat looks like? Have you ever paused to think how your mind has become the way it is - how your experiences in life so far, your upbringing, your beliefs, your environment has shaped the way you think and respond when you’re faced with challenges (big or small)? And beyond this, are you aware of how your mood, your current physical and mental condition and your current environment influence your responses to adverse events?
To return to the boats, the experienced sailors understand the capabilities of their boat and have learned the best ways to approach any problems they encounter on the water, putting their knowledge into practice again and again to build their experience and skill. So, too, do the most resilient people understand the workings of their own mind, know their capabilities, and have learned skills and techniques that help them manage when times get tough and they’re faced with difficulties. A good sailor is open to constantly learning, practising and improving their skills as a seaman. So, too, are resilient people constantly developing - reflecting on their thoughts, their experiences, their responses; continuing to build their resilience so they can maintain the ability to manage stress that comes their way.
You can learn to surf
Do you understand how your own mind is influencing how you respond to stressful situations in your life? You may be wondering why I’m going on about this as a Meditation Teacher. Well this is because meditation is a great way to start learning about your own mind. To start being more aware of how you think, how you respond or react to different situations. And it is a great way to learn how to better manage stress that comes your way, as it inevitably will at different times in your life. Meditation can help you build resilience, so that when those challenges arise, you know you can manage, because you’re equipped with the awareness and skills to help you.
Jon Kabat-Zinn, American Professor of Medicine and creator of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction programme (MBSR) is quoted to have said “you can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf”. How are you managing the waves you experience in your life? Are you able to surf, or do you find yourself drowning? If your answer is the latter, let me help you learn the skills that can build your resilience and help you better manage the stresses you face in your life. You can do this in one of my online classes that I hold weekly, or by taking a deeper dive and purchasing my self-guided online course ‘Basics of Meditation’, both of which you can find out more about on my website or my social media pages. If you’d like a more personalised approach, contact me via email or social media to discuss a 1:1 course bespoke to your needs.
“You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf”.