"Two of the key questions in life: How do I grow? How do I manage risk? You need to do both if you wish to survive and excel." ~ James Clear
One Saturday last month we were zooming around in the salt marshes off Virginia’s Eastern Shore in Captain Buddy’s boat. For more than six decades, Buddy has fished and explored these beautiful marshes. In our time with him, he generously revealed their delicately balanced, intricate interdependent wonders. He showed us how the grasses protect the shoreline and how the snails protect the grasses. He showed us pelicans diving and peregrine falcons soaring and a never-before-seen-by me Tricolored Heron.
Tricolored heron!
At one spot he pointed out a channel marker that had been ripped from its mooring and lodged in the grasses during a storm. It made me laugh: what good is a channel marker that has been shipwrecked? Even with the buoy floating, without its anchor, it doesn’t help anyone.
The opposite is true, too, of course. If the buoy filled with water and sank, even if it was anchored to the right spot, it’s still not helping any boater find their way home.
What’s true for channel markers is true in our bodies, our relationships and our lives. Esther Perel says,
“Love is a vessel that contains both security and adventure.”
The first time I read that, it felt like someone had opened a curtain on relationship. OH! RIGHT. Just looking for the excitement and adventure leaves me feeling uncertain and untethered. Only seeking familiarity and security leaves me feeling stuck, bored and unseen. A relationship that has both security and adventure is alive and thriving.
As James Clear underscores above, the need for growth and managing risk isn’t just the stuff of romantic partnerships. It applies to everything. We ignore or avoid either at our (and our beloved people and projects’) peril.
You can feel this balance of security and adventure in your body, right now. Stand up and find some kind of balance posture: feet close together, feet on a tight rope (toes of one foot touching heel of the other), or on one foot.
[No, really. Give this a shot. Feel what it feels like. I’ll be right here.]
Once you find yourself in a pose you can hold, feel the stability. Feel where you feel rooted. Feel your heels and the inner line of your feet and legs. Feel how your body squeezes and releases to keep you upright. Keep breathing and relaxing, using only the energy you need to stay up.
Now add in some adventure! Look up as if your chin was floating. Look side to side. Play around with closing one eye. If that feels easy, close both. What happens? What do you notice?
You may be able to hold your stability if you look straight ahead and don’t breathe. But then you aren’t growing. There is no experimentation, play, adventure. Just like the channel marker with no buoy, you aren’t helping anyone.
On the other hand, you might try all kinds of challenging balances, but if you can’t find your stability, you’re always falling, never finding your center and maybe getting hurt. Just like the channel marker that has been blown into the bushes, you aren’t doing anybody any good.
Listen to Captain Buddy. Listen to Esther and James. Listen to your body. Find your balance between being anchored and floating free. We all need both.
My friends and me on Buddy’s boat in the salt marshes!
[AND if you want to practice Balance & Buoyancy with me, join me – either live or on the recording – for a free Nourishing Movement class on this very topic on Wednesday, Oct 26 at 11am/Eastern on Zoom!]