Life lessons 2016

Every year around this time, I reflect on what I learned this year of being alive. It's an old tradition, started by one of the most inspiring women and gifted writers I have had the pleasure of knowing, one I am lucky enough to call grandmother but really should call more often. :)
This year, it seems there are fewer little lessons and more big ones. I am one lucky girl - I live in a place I absolutely love and have had the opportunity to share my love of the sea with over 600 people as I took them diving this year. Naturally, a lot of my lessons are water based as I've been dry about 20% of the year. My hope is that in sharing, some of you might learn something as well, or at least see a lot of good reminders.

It's your life - Get creative with it. Do things for you! Shortly after my last birthday, my friend Colby asked me, “What do you do for fun?” I didn’t have much when he asked me. I made excuses of being too busy. Of not having the same reliable days off.  Of being too new on island to know what there was to do. Of loving my job so much I’d rather work. But then, all I had to do was reconnect to creativity. Find inspiration. Do the work to re-connect.
Shortly thereafter, I delightedly jumped in doing creative projects in preparation for my best friend's wedding.  In the middle of this, with hot glue and peacock feathers on my fingers, I suddenly understood how much I missed this kind of thing! I loved having a creative project, I just didn’t know what to do, where to start. I was out of touch with inspiration. I realized the creativity was in me all along, I just had to build a bridge to let it come over, burst forth. No great writing comes from an unwrapped pen. In the projects that followed that summer: Peacock earrings, metal sculpture, t-shirt painting, portrait sessions for my neighbors, I found that if you cultivate creativity, then it's all possible.


When people have made up an opinion of you, nothing you can do will change that. You can tell them straight reason, rephrase a hundred times, tell them the real story, your side of the story but it will change nothing. (Unless in those rare instances that someone can be mature enough to remember every story has two sides.) Once you are a character in their story, it's their story, they are writing it, they will write you in however incorrectly they choose. Best to just let it go and laugh.

How this transpired: At work, a young man working in another watersports field saw me as a threat. I was shocked - really? Me? But to him, I could be four feet tall, sweet as pie and still be a threat. Nothing personal, he said. He hates that I make a killing at sales and therefore is threatened by me. Which I find funny because a) we are selling two entirely different things, and b) when I first started doing this it was painfully difficult for me to talk to people and ask them to pay money to dive with me. Sales had been a weakness for me, not a strong point.
Now I am just bright and shiny and guests talk to me and ask when we are going out.
I thought -how huge of a milestone for me that I have come so far at sales that I am threatening a grown (immature) man! Awesome really. 
And then, during Spring break, I blew all that out of the water. I broke the glass ceiling. I did more in sales than any employee of this company in 20 years, and happily accepted the largest bonus ever paid out by Shoreline SNUBA. I used to think I could do anything but be a salesman. And now I have learned it doesn't have to be scary or awkward or pushy. I just be myself, show my passion for what I do and invite people to come do it with me. And they do!

 

What we want for people and what they want for themselves are often two very different things. When my step mother came to visit, I wanted her to see these lovely gentle beings - sea turtles - underwater. But she's not really comfortable in the water and what she wanted out of the vacation was something completely different. It took me a while to learn this because it took another type of listening than I had been doing to hear what she really wanted.  We cannot listen to the needs and desires of others when our ego is in the way. Our ego is our wants, it is us controlling what kind of experience the other person has. This is different from truly listening to what they want - separate from us - outside of us - and then seeking it with them. When I set my ego aside, I didn't give her turtles, I gave her photos and she was delighted.

The following week, I had the opportunity to dive a little boy named Leo. When I asked what his favorite fish was he said, "honu!" So we went diving and I found him a tiny honu (turtle.) The normal routine of a dive is to see turtles, have two minutes of photos and watching and then continue the underwater tour around the reef. Part of me wanted to do this because it is what we always do. But people are individuals, dives by awesome guides cater to individual desires, not the routine. So instead, I let Leo stay very close to the turtle, following it around, spending 35 minutes of quality time with his favorite fish, keeping snorkelers in the herd from kicking him as we did so. What I would have wanted the tour to be and what he wanted it to be were very different things, but I could feel where he was happiest and kept him there.

The same day, I met Reese, age 9. (Her mom said, do you realize my daughter loves you?) She's the extremely shy twin, highland dancer, who does hours of very serious backflips in the pool. I asked if she was a gymnast but no, she just loves those. When I offered to take her out, I discovered it was her very first time in the sea. She’d never seen fish out of aquariums, never felt the ocean’s embrace. But although I found Reese her very first turtle, I also found her a soft stretch of sand to do backflips in. We did so many. In sync, away from each other manta style. She came up glowing, still shy but gave me a huge hug and thanked me.

I adore this girl, the queen of backflips, more than words can tell you and look forward to her return visit. It was epically brave of her to join me, and a big step for her, and her eyes were HUGE going in, but because I listened to what she really wanted, and gave her the experience she longed to have, she had fun. I think this is part of being a great guide. This is how I imagined myself being as a dive master when we were learning years ago - to ask the client what they want to see, and have them help me manifest drawing that to them. It crosses over to daily life as well, a whole new type of listening.

This December, I dove a celebrity. He booked online using a fake name. He purposely filled out contact details half way, giving me half his phone number, a vague address with no street, etc. His lady was dressed to the nines with an incredible painting of makeup masterly applied and she was very nervous. When people pulled out their cell phones to take photos of the tropical view - not of him - on the beach, he winced, and quickly shielded his face angrily. But underwater, as I held his lady's hand and gently guided her around just a couple feet below the surface, I looked down and saw him swimming excitedly back and forth from things that interested him, just delighted and completely in his own world. I realized, he is just a big kid. Celebrities, I have learned, just want to be treated like normal people, normal divers, just any average Joe. They are hiding from the attention, not seeking it. And even the Godfather of actors is just a big kid at heart.

I had an interesting experience with guests who live an entirely different reality than my own this year. I connected with three daughters and a fun Californian mom who were jazzed on diving and wanted to go out with me. The mother is a certified diver who has waited years to be able to dive with her daughters and finally they are the right age! But when she asked her husband who clearly controls the finances, if she could sign up, he told her no. "Absolutely not. I am not spending money on that." His tone with her irritated me as much as his words. She reacted like a kicked puppy.
The mother and the girls where so disappointed until I decided I was taking them all for free, and oh, too bad, there was not any room for the husband to come along. I don't give dives away often, but it was the principle of the thing. The mother saw me stand up to him, and authoritatively make the decision to make her dream come true. She got the point, even if he didn't.  When it is something you are passionate about, that you really want, don't let others tell you no. Find a way, make your dreams come true. Don't put your dreams in others hands by allowing them to have control over your life. The joy in that mother's eyes as she shared the world under the sea holding hands with her excited daughters was priceless.

This year I became certified to teach teachers. Which is completely different from teaching students.  I learned that it does not benefit trainees to mother them. I learned I cannot be their friend and their teacher. And I found a balance the hard way. I once had a teacher who was too strict, too critical with me and offered no positive feedback. So naturally, I decided never to do the same myself. But in doing so, I swung too far in the other direction and was over-building my trainees up, compensating for their self doubts with too much reassurance. I thought I was being compassionate when I was actually filling in the holes that didn't work for them with my own effort.  This kept me from seeing that this career wasn't working for them and having the blunt hard talk about it.

I learned to ask my trainees - why are you doing this? Why do you want to teach? If they really love it, then we can get beyond the obstacles and circumstances and work through and make it work. But giving them my love for it, and nurturing their ego is not actually effective in the long run. You can't do a career for long because your teacher loves to do it and that's contagious. Diving isn't just ANY job - it's rewarding and challenging and critical at times. You have to sincerely love it yourself in order to make it work.  Since I learned this, my trainees have stuck around longer than those I was compensating for and mothering. The best teachers are those that make you think; who give you enough information for you to have the ah-ha moment on your own, not those who give you all the answers thereby taking away the challenge of mastering a new concept.

I learned basic Hawaiian pronunciation, and two beautiful songs in Hawaiian about love and gratitude. I will continue to build upon this next year.

Christian Heeb taught me that the best photographers can do quality work outside of the studio, outside of the controlled environment. They show up, evaluate, and use what they can to their advantage to capture the moment and accent the most interesting part of the scene. Usually this involves changing perspective by climbing on a fence, car, tree trunk, chair, rock, etc. :) Christian taught me it's not always about having a plan, it's about making the most of what is there. And when you see a photograph that moves you, consider part of the magic in the shot is actually the perspective of the magician who took it.

I learned that sea monkeys (remember those mail order pets from when you were a kid?) are actually brine shrimp.

I learned that a seahorse is a romantic soul and mates for life. Every single morning, the two seahorses change color to match shining silver frequency and take a leisurely swim together, holding tails like a couple holding hands.

I have come to terms with just how sensitive my body is. Some huge scary health things this year made me re-think what I want out of life. I am so much happier when I am in balance. And that balance is actually a delicate thing. You have to tend your body like a garden. After a couple rough winters, it takes a time for things to come back. I think we often don't appreciate our body for all it is capable of, we ignore it unless it becomes sore or sick. We don't think about how strong we are, how healthy we are and rarely take time to thank the vessel we dwell in, we experience life through for all it does for us. I'm getting better about this.

Life is precious. Allow yourself more of the things you love. Live fully, live deeply, truly interact with life. Don't just listen to the music, if it makes you happy, get up and dance. If someone has inspired you, been a great teacher, improved your journey, changed your life for the better, reach out and let them know. Appreciation is never wasted, trust me. Go beyond words, let your actions show those you love how you feel.

I've learned that when you love someone, whatever time you have together is time enough.

This year, I've spent quality time with old friends. I have so many I treasure and so much to thank them for, but I will keep it within this year or their piece will be pages longer. Thank you Heidi for your beautiful heart, the magical yoga retreat, the quality brainstorming sessions and for making me a better teacher by teaching me about ego. Thank you JC for the REI talk, for always being willing to share what I need to get when I need to get it, for making time to meet up in odd places and eras, for your friendship and your wisdom. Thank you O for being up for crazy adventures, for still making noises when we kiss, for holding my hair back, holding my hand during The Goonies and encouraging my heart to continue to seek what feeds it.
 
This year, by truly getting out and experiencing life, I've also met some new friends - I shook hands with a seahorse - they hold on tight. I held a dangerous spiny sea urchin, they crawl and tickle. I got high-fin from a turtle. I met a whale face to face. I held eye contact with a giant barracuda and tried to see him as just another fish, and not focus on his teeth. I raced dolphins in a mermaid tail. I rolled around on the surface with an endangered monk seal who seemed delighted that I also knew not to take myself too seriously.

This year I have felt more at home in my own skin, more in my own element in the ocean. Perhaps this is what growing up is like. It's not about being more serious and restrained, it's about knowing yourself better. And when you really get that, get deep down into the heart of that notion and live there, you find that in knowing yourself better, you really know others better. Because you're not projecting yourself onto them. This year, I'm better with letting others be themselves and letting me be me and really reveling in the magic of that. The more comfortable I am, the more comfortable everything else is too. If you haven't been there, it's a difficult notion to explain. I have said in years past that when you are at home within yourself, you are at home in the world, anywhere. It's like that, but on a more intimate scale. You decide when you grow up and you determine what that means. (Remember, it's your story that you are writing after all!) For me, I'm 33 years young, and so grateful to be me, here, now.    

Photo Courtesy of Christian Heeb

A Mermaid in the Flow

I’ve been fascinated by mermaids since I was a little girl. I think it's the romanticism, the mystique, the siren song, the graceful beauty of the female form combined with the sea that appeals to me: woman and nature as one. It’s funny, the things that capture our imagination. Many little girls have a love affair with horses, and for a few girls in my life, they’ve taken that love into adulthood and are trainers, breeders, and competitive professionals with their horses. Somehow, it seems a rather rare thing that the ideas we love as children still fascinate us as adults. Remember what you wanted to be when you grew up vs. who you became today? The versions of ourselves reshape and grow and new fascinations are introduced. In high school, when the assignment was to paint a self portrait as a famous painting, I painted my face on a J.W. Waterhouse mermaid. Half my life later, mermaids are still around: on the bottom of my paddle board, as stickers on all of my water bottles, as Halloween costumes, as doodles on the electric bill while I’m on hold with the power company...

But this year, I’ve taken things farther. I started my own mermaid t-shirt company, which makes little girl sizes as well as grown girl sizes, obviously. I’m also wearing my own art as a mermaid tattoo on my back - she’s got her head and arms back - heart up and open, and is coupled with the word ’Embrace.’

All this reminds me of the Rumi quote, “May the beauty of what you love be in all that you do.” As a dive instructor, I breathe underwater every day. Just this month, however, I’ve become so comfortable in the water that I don’t have to think about breathing or moving, or staying above the coral, it just happens naturally and I truly feel I’m in my own element. I’m at home in the water, and I’ve got a three foot long cascade of reddish hair. Hmmm, perhaps I really have grown into my childhood fascination: a human mermaid.

My husband Tim saw this resemblance and gifted me a turquoise mermaid tail for Christmas. It’s like a tight sock around my legs with a monofin in the base. Impossible to walk in, difficult to tread water in, but capable of being faster and more efficient than I’ve ever been in the water. It took a lot of practice to learn to swim in a mermaid tail. I did research, watched videos, and discovered the most efficient swim stroke for a monofin is called ‘dolphin’ and works by using your body in a wave motion.

In the pool, my dolphin stroke was herky jerky at first. I would think about it too much, plan starting the wave, try to make my body dip and move in a flowing motion. This was anything but flowing in the beginning. I was more in my head than my body - trying to analyze, to control. Which, I realized is pretty funny considering Tim and I aspire to be true to our business name - Living In The Flow. Nothing about that is in your head, choreographed, planned, controlled. So I laughed at myself and tried a different approach. I held on to the side of the pool, closed my eyes and cleared my mind of everything, becoming a blank slate, and open page. Then I took three deep breaths and swam without thinking about swimming. My body inherently knew what to do and how to move and in a few fluid dolphin strokes I was quickly to the other side of the pool, astounded at what my body was capable of! When I didn’t try to control the stroke, when I just let go and trusted my own body’s intuition, I was efficient, fast and in the flow. How different my life would be if I applied this concept to everything! If I just let go of judgment, of attachment to how things should go or look, let go of trying to push for things to happen, or controlling the way in which what I want comes to me. If I could let go of my ego and be a blank slate, an open mind and just trust and move forward, would things be more fluid and easy like dolphin stroke when I get out of my head, out of my own way?  

Next, I took this to the open ocean. The turtles reacted differently to me in the tail than they did when I was in two fins. This was amusing, awe inspiring and fantastic for taking pictures of them. They let me hang out next to them respectfully, as they curiously eyed me up and down. I was suddenly a fish, part of their world.

The greatest challenge of being in the ocean and deeper water was being able to tread water to keep my head above the surface. Without a wetsuit layer, I’m not as buoyant, and things like removing and replacing my mask while still breathing were nearly impossible with my head bobbing under. Despite that, I felt I was ready for more, for another big step.

Those who know me well know that I’m much more into having experiences rather than things. And this year for my birthday, I wanted to swim with the wild dolphins again, this time as a mermaid.

We traveled to the Big Island, where we met up with one of the most expert boat captains I’ve ever met (and that’s saying something, I work as a dive professional, I’ve rolled off a lot of boats in my day) - Erika is a young woman rocking a traditionally male occupation. She runs tours with Dolphin Discoveries, an educated, ocean minded group that teaches people to swim with dolphins in the most respectful manner possible.

We found the pod of Hawaiian spinner dolphins in one of their favorite bays, doing laps with the swimmers who are practicing for the Iron Man tournament. After a thorough briefing, Erika announced that “the pool was open” and Tim and I dove in to the ocean. Well, he dove in. My legs were bound so I sorta hopped off the boat. I cleared my mind, let go of control and swam towards the pod. Soon, several families of dolphins surrounded us. Pregnant females, silly babies, males with scars from deep sea encounters. They didn’t react the way the turtles had, and noticed me more for my playful behavior and singing in my snorkel rather than resembling a fish. This went against my expectation, but Erika knew exactly why this was. Dolphins use sonar like whales, she explained. Basically, they see your body, your bones, your heart beating. (Talk about a superpower!) They could easily tell the girl playing with them had two legs bound together and was not indeed half fish. But it was still a joyous, incredible interaction. I could tell when they were curious because as they passed me they would just stop swimming. All momentum would pause and they’d wait to see what I would do next. One young dolphin turned upside down and swam in line with his family - like a child walking down the sidewalk between his parents on his hands instead of his feet. The water was full of whistles and clicks as they conversed around us.

After months of practice, I could clear my mind and just be in the present moment, not thinking about swimming or breathing or equalizing or treading water. I had no other thoughts except for what I was seeing and experiencing at that very moment. I was unaware of time, of anything but the now and I had fully let go. I was in the flow, and the most comfortable I’ve ever been in the ocean. And fast! My husband, the water man, who has always been able to out-swim me, had trouble keeping up to take photos. I am so grateful that he did, as only images can share with you how incredible the experience was that day. And the little girl in me can’t stop looking at the woman playing big, having an incredible experience she designed herself, living on a level she’s now comfortable with, in her element, as a mermaid. The child in me is delighted by this image - seeing the woman she’s grown into as a physical embodiment of her fascination: a mermaid in the flow.