Surviving a Riptide

And reflections on mindful acceptance

Photo by Geio Tischler on Unsplash

The past couple of weeks have been challenging for me. I’ve been dealing with seasonal allergies, looming writing deadlines, and sleep disruptions amidst a background of sociopolitical chaos. I haven’t been my best self. It wasn’t until a conversation about navigating hard times (for someone else) was I able to remind myself that sometimes the best strategy for moving forward is surrender.

When most people hear the term “surrender” I imagine it’s immediately followed by a sense of rejection or resentment. How does it make sense to surrender when something isn’t going well for you? You’re supposed to fight…especially in America. As a man, I’m also personally challenged by the idea, or the risk, of “giving up” and its alleged threat to manhood.

I know better.

But there are times I forget. As a recovering perfectionist who highly values my dependability, I sometimes struggle with letting go and not having the magical solution that will simply make everything right again. It’s an evergreen challenge of being human and I suspect that you’ve also felt this way too. It’s normal to struggle and not know how to recover.

I’m entitled to struggle too. I’m entitled to feel challenged by life’s hard moments no matter how small they may seem on the outside. None of us is immune from what life throws at us.

Being able to embrace defeat is the art of mindful acceptance. I can give myself permission to be beaten sometimes, and then at some point later, simply re-emerge. I do not need to give into pressure to come back with a vengeance. I don’t need to come back stronger, nor fearless, nor renewed. Sometimes we need to just allow ourselves to be whatever we are in the moment and simply start again.

When faced with life’s challenges, many times we panic and react by flailing. We desperately search for the answer that will bring us back to a sense of emotional safety by any means necessary. But might it be wiser to learn to take our proverbial lumps, accept defeat, and calmly reorient when we are able?

We have so many sophisticated and elegant ways to cope or problem-solve. I spend most of my days helping people discover the ways that work best for them. And yet, sometimes we have to also accept that life throws us around. In order to make it through the rough, we have to recognize the moment of defeat, accept it, and simply wait to re-emerge when its safer to do so. When we feel more capable we can simply restart again.

If the waves of life are tossing you around right now, take a moment to consider your best strategy. Is this the moment to fight and force your way forward, or ride the wave and wait until you have more control and then start swimming again?