Closed eye ocean mood lady

So, I've been rediscovering the ocean lately. I have always loved the ocean. I have always felt its call - even as a child. I can remember certain times of my life, when just arriving at the ocean would somehow set things right in me. I have lived near the ocean a couple times in my life, but that was quite a while ago. Recently though, I made a move and am now just a 15 minute walk from it. This is allowing me to rediscover the ocean first hand and quite intimately.

It feels a little like getting reacquainted with an old friend. And now that I am older I am discovering how I feel about its qualities and how we can fit into each other's lives. I also know that I appreciate the ocean in new ways now with life experience and life years. Or maybe I am just more reflective now and take the time to become more aware of those ways.

One of my favorite characteristics these days is the ocean's vastness. I stand or sit on a favorite rock and see unlimited possibility. It is calming and reassuring in this time of some uncertainty in my life.

After spending the last 10 years living abroad, I recently returned to my native California to spend a year here closer to my family and friends in this part of the world. I had this plan for quite a while. It is part of the bigger bi-continental plan I have for my life. This plan I came up with about 10 years ago-it's the plan of having a home in two continents. Can you tell I like plans? I do. I love plans.

But I also love spontaneity and I'm totally fine with revising a plan. I'm also very aware that it is certain parts of me, i.e. my mind, that looooooves the whole plan thing. My mind thinks it feels safe and it likes that the planning can feel like direction. I also know that as far as my mind is concerned, the planning helps keep me on track.

So ever since I came up with the bi-continental plan, I have slowly been working on it. I have spent the last 8 years in Stockholm, Sweden, building up my life there. I have an apartment, a good job, a support system and circle of friends. It has felt stable and predictable. Although my mind loves the stable and predictable, another part of me doesn't always love it.  That other part of me knows that sometimes shaking things up a little and not necessarily having a plan is the best way to move forward. When my mind has its way totally, I can be so focused on the goal, on the doing of everything, that I can sometimes forget to enjoy the journey. My mind doesn't really see the benefit of enjoying the journey. It just wants to stick to the plan.

At the end of July, I packed up my apartment of 5 years and took a leave of absence from work for a year. My mind loved the way I planned it all out - everything is in place for me when I go back. And so I arrived in California 2 months ago. And here is where my mind is having a bit of a panic. I haven't planned this year in detail.  I have some things in place, but others are wide open - a vast openness of uncertainty and most importantly, possibility.

Since I got here, I've been experiencing all kinds of things - reverse culture shock, feeling very happy to be closer to people here, re-evaluation of life and work, my beliefs about money and security, discovery of California, and a beautiful coastal city, and a balance between having a plan and letting go. Because even when we have a plan, we don't ever really know, do we? ('QUIET!'-shouts my mind, 'What are you TALKing about!?').

So since my move to my new apartment, I visit the ocean at least once, sometimes twice a day. I watch the tide, the waves, the light, the birds and I feel like my old friend is back and it makes me feel connected - to nature, the world and to myself.

I was talking to friends recently about being just a little afraid of the ocean these days because of the undercurrent. Being away from it for so long has make me uncertain about how much I can trust it. My friends reassured me and one of them told me that if there ever was an undercurrent, just don't fight and to stay calm. If you try going toward shore, you'll just wear yourself out. Instead, just hang out and swim sideways.

Swim sideways? Soon after she said it, we made the connection.

I know when you swim sideways, you see things you've never seen before. Because you are not focused on the end goal, or on the next step, your mind is free to see things it would never have seen had it been sticking to the plan and going forward relentlessly. You let those goals stay out there in front of you, but there is no reason to push yourself toward them because it's fruitless. So you let go. And new thoughts and ideas as well as old outdated thoughts and patterns come to the surface. If you stop fighting, you see them clearly. You get to look and re-evaluate. You get to choose what you want to hold onto and what you want to let float off away from you.

My mind is screaming as I write this. "You CAN'T let go of the plan! Are you CRAzy?" It's ok, Little Mind. I've got you covered. I'm going to need you soon, but for now, just lie on your back and float a little, ok? The rest of me is going to just relax and swim sideways here for a while.