Can You Handle Life's 'Impact Zone'?

I put it down to all those years living on the island of Kauai – a surfer’s paradise. Every other person I knew was a surfer and most would happily expound on any one of the principles of riding the waves, given half a chance. One of those principles that stuck in my memory is ‘pearling’, and I do love to use it as a metaphor. It’s a great metaphor for handling unpleasant change, which seems to be up for so many of us.

Pearling occurs when you’re on a surfboard catching a wave and you don’t reposition yourself to compensate for transitioning from the downhill slope of the wave to flat water. As a result, the surfboard digs vertically down into the bottom of the ocean, and you get pitched into the water!

As you come up for air, you may find yourself floundering, anxiously trying to get back up on the board and, if you manage to, paddling furiously in order to catch the next wave that you know is due imminently! It’s often called “The Impact Zone”, a ‘zone’ where time is of the essence! If fear and anxiety are allowed to take over, your much-needed focus will be gone with the waves and your next experience could be a wipe-out!

I am struck by the parallels to life itself – and two questions emerge:

1.    When uninvited change occurs – as it seems to with greater and greater frequency - are we flexible enough to reposition ourselves to compensate for the needed transition? In other words, are we willing to be adaptable, try something new, stretch our thinking till it surfaces out of the box we have so far made ourselves comfortable in? Can we transcend old behaviours and ride the waves of change with flexibility, or are we sticking with long-established, customary measures that will inevitably pitch us back into the water?

2.    Are we anxiously and furiously flailing about, grasping at ‘sea-foam’, our fear of the possibilities ahead paralysing us and keeping us just treading water until the next wave wipes us out? We can no more control external circumstances or other people that we can control the waves, but we can take charge of our own internal state and choose how we react and what we feel. (You may not think this is possible, but I assure you -after thirty years of working with emotions- you can!)

One thing I know for sure is that managing our own emotions is key if we are to be successful at ‘riding these waves’ of life!

Of course, when something bad seems to come out of left field, or disagreeable change is thrust upon us, it is natural to feel anxiety and even fear, but our chances of successfully navigating whatever it is will be in direct proportion to our ability to process and move through those feelings, keeping our ‘limbic (or ‘threat-response’) brain’ in check and our cortex or ‘thinking brain’ switched on: When we feel anxiety or fear, our ‘limbic brain takes over and puts us into defence mode, causing, inflexibility, resistance to the unfamiliar, or even panic .Short-term thinking and bad decisions are made in this state.

Conversely, smart, innovative thinking that will notice opportunities or create new ways of doing things that we probably need, comes from a switched on ‘thinking brain’, which can only happen when we are in an emotional state of centredness; focused yet flexible, open, and willing to reposition.. ‘Riding the waves’ in this state will minimalize the chances of ‘pearling’ or ‘wiping out’, in fact we may eventually find the ride quite exhilarating! Let's go for that!

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