Uncertainty in practice!
Two hours after publishing my previous blog post about living with uncertainty, I almost laughed at myself as there I was, on the Sark Belle, a river boat, the less sea worthy of all the Sark boats, heading to Sark from Guernsey in rough seas. All the other sailings that day had been cancelled but I did not know this, just as I did not know that the sea had been described as ‘lumpy’.
It was a surprise to me actually, that before we had even left Guernsey harbour the boat was already lolling. I usually like this boat, I always favour it over the other boats as it brings with it happy memories of calm summer crossings to Sark, and especially to the Sark folk festival, one of the highlights of the year in years gone by.
Yet here I was today, oblivious to what lay ahead, as the boat lolled from side to side hit by southerly waves, as we entered beyond what was actually the safety of the harbour, even though that didn’t feel exactly calm. Before too long I had both boys sitting on me, “a leg each mummy”, was the agreement as usual, not particularly comfortable, bony bums sitting on both thighs, but it’s what we do, to spare the arguments.
Not long after then I was gripping both of them into me as the boat appeared to lurch up and down and side to side, the bottom of the boat crashing back down each time a wave had passed. I sunk my head between them and gripped in closer, wondering how I had missed the weather forecast, as I glimpsed the a younger lady ahead and to my left side burst into tears and her boyfriend wrap his arms around her.
It got worse. The boat was really at the mercy of the waves and we were at the mercy of them too. My whole body was locked in stress and I noticed that my right foot was attempting to find a solid place to rest itself, to push into something, to find some certainty in my world that was now desperately uncertain.
I noticed what I was doing and I almost laughed out loud as I considered how funny the universe can be allowing us to put into practice that which we teach. How comfortable was I living on the edge, in an uncertain world as I perceived it in that moment? I’ll be honest, I wasn’t very comfortable at all. I was totally out of my depth, desperate for some certainty that all would be well in the end.
The boys hugged closer into me and into each other and I considered my fear. What was my fear in that moment? It wasn’t difficult to work it out, I had already run through in my mind where I might find an exit from the boat, if it rolled onto its side and overturned, and yet I had also considered that the whole experience would be so shocking and disorientating that I wouldn’t have any control over an outcome of survival however much I planned for it.
It struck me that my greatest fear then was not losing my life, although this was a consideration, but my sons’ lives. I wanted to protect them and keep them safe. It struck me then that this has been the source of much of the underlying tension I have felt these last few years. It is not so much the tension between all the different aspects of self, or the tension of the pace of the outside world with all its perceived expectations, but the tension that arises with trying to keep children safe, of the lack of trust in the inherent safeness of life on planet earth.
In that moment, I did not feel safe. I was out of my comfort zone and was very aware of this. I know that yoga is all about living with uncertainty and I moved my awareness to my breath hoping that this would calm me and it did. I remembered Reiki and put my family and the whole boat in a Reiki bubble. I also prayed to the angels and asked the boys to ask the magic fairies to look after us, their equivalent. This all helped.
Yet, I was very aware that I needed to let go, and allow myself to be moved by the boat, by its rhythm as it navigated it’s path through the rough seas, and trust in that and in the captain. I was aware of other people on the boat, a group of guys ahead of me (beyond the lady who vomited) talking avidly, seemingly unaware of the risks that the rest of us had perceived, our concerns about seasickness and the boat rolling over. This made me think how much of our lives are lived in our heads, through our mind’s perception of reality, and how small the gap between truth and imagination.
To me that was one of the toughest boat journeys I have ever taken, that is my truth and my reality, yet to those guys (hardened sailors as it turns out) it was no big deal, and all the risks I perceived, were stuff of my imagination, not real, there was no truth in them, their mood remained unaffected, high spirited, just another boat journey. I was high spirited when the seas calmed as we got closer to Sark, and as I recognised how much my fears were imagined, and how much they are linked to my boys and not being able to – always – ease their suffering or keep them safe.
Yet really we were safe. The universe has our back. It is our mind that doesn’t always recognise this. Life lived with uncertainty is not easy, but I see how it can make us much more conscious of the moment, come what may. And really the lesson, as always, is about perception and shifting to a more positive mindset. This too is something I am exploring at the moment, so more on this another time. We made it, and with more lessons learned before having set foot on beautiful Sark!
