Yet having struggled for a lifetime with letting the needs of others define me, I’ve come to understand that without the healthiest form of self-love, putting another before you can result in damaging self-sacrifice…
Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening
Greetings from the Red Kayak Institute (RKI)! We wish you a healthy and fulfilling 2019.
At the beginning of each year, I create a mantra that either rhymes with the year, as in “nineteen,” or the last number, as in “nine.” This year my mantra is, “the writin’ life is mine, in 2-0-1-9,” committing pen to paper. As I begin, I discover that my writing is very rusty, so please bear with my attempt to polish the tarnish with this initial piece.
Wednesday, January 2nd is a noteworthy date, a significant milestone to begin my quest. I was born on a Wednesday. And today, 10 years ago, a new “birth” took place. I quit drinking alcohol. After a time of painful losses and hurtful experiences, I found myself on an unhealthy path of consumption. On January 2, 2009, I stopped. I just decided this direction served no purpose for me.
It is now the fifth Wednesday in January and I continue polishing my writing to find the words to express my feelings. Over the last 10 years, and particularly the last three years, my life has been in massive transition, letting go of familiar, comfortable pieces of my tapestry. I completed a rewarding 23-year career as a financial advisor, I sold my home of 30 years which required a huge purge of “stuff,” both physical and emotional, and most difficult, I lost my 14 ½ year old yellow lab, Bayfield, my loyal and ever-present companion. This intense detaching opened spaces within me that shed light on old emotional patterns.
Twenty-three years of kayaking, and the last six years of leading the Red Kayak Institute taught me valuable lessons. One of them is about recovery.
Most people who try kayaking are afraid they are going to flip over. This concern is expressed by our first-time RKI retreaters even though recreational kayaks are very stable. However, every once in a while, the inevitable capsize occurs and we find ourselves unable to keep paddlin’ on…
In the stillness and silence, I recognize an additional compulsion. A major one. WORK. If I was going to have any addiction, this, I thought was OK. I was being productive, feeling appreciated, bringing value, earning money and working so much that I didn’t have time to spend my money. I loved to work, loved the people and loved the challenges of my career. What could be wrong with all of that?
Something very significant. On the water in the quiet of my kayak, I am on a personal rescue mission. I perform my own “Eskimo Roll,” going under into the deep to examine and bring light to the darker shadows of my workaholic behavior.
I realize that my overachieving pattern nourished something deeper. Productivity as self-worth. Wow! Me? Low self-worth? I couldn’t imagine that, but there it was. Reflecting off the water. Staring at me. Glaring at me. CHALLENGING me to once and for all acknowledge it.
The questions flooded me. If I wasn’t being overly productive, how was I bringing value? If I wasn’t always going the extra mile, what was the point of going? And here it comes…if I wasn’t continually going overboard to take care of everyone, would they still love me? Whoa! Get me off the water!! Get me back to work! I did not want all of this. Keep it under the surface. At the bottom of the river.
But here is my inner revelation.
Through my work, I found a way to feel appreciated. There’s nothing wrong with feeling that way from bringing value to others, but for me, there is a key, compulsive word. EXCESSIVE. In the incredibly long 15-16 hour work days, constantly putting the needs of everything and everyone ahead of my own, essential parts of myself sank to the murky bottom. Taking time for myself and my needs was last on the list. How sad is that? I cried for myself. The painful recognition of devaluing myself and the reasons why, were anchored deep in my heart for years. I think I always knew this in my head, but this feeling in my heart was altogether different. Quite a long, arduous journey, that distance from head to heart.
Yet, it was, and still is, important for me to bring value. Every day. That virtue is one of the most fulfilling aspects of my work and my life. I love going the extra mile and I love taking great care of those I love. So how do I regain a healthy balance? How do I right my kayak? By removing that compulsive and harmful sidekick, EXCESSIVE.
So I paddle on my journey of essential healing. Sobriety brings me clarity. Silence creates understanding. Paddling, always, steers me home to myself. Crossing the bridge from the side of addiction to the side of recovery, I learn, is an ongoing process. I am never really “there.” I am always recovering from something. Back and forth across the bridge I go! That’s OK – the quest for authentic living is progress not perfection.
Life presents many bridges for all of us to cross. In our world today it seems, addictions abound – not only to alcohol, drugs, gambling, eating, shopping, but also to the Internet, texting, noise, instant news, and 24/7 communication to name a few. Slowly and deceptively these sly compulsions own us, our time, our attention. Losing our inner sense of the benefits of quiet and silence, we become more and more mentally fragmented and distracted.
At the Red Kayak Institute, our mission is to encourage people facing challenges to reclaim themselves and receive the healing benefits of kayaking. In addition to the cancer survivors and their caregivers, grieving parents, women in 12-step programs, we allface challenges. We all need time to “pause,” allowing space for the unexamined to surface and resolving the deeper issues that often lead to our obsessions. When our retreaters exit the water after paddling in silence, they wish the time were longer, craving the healing gifts of quiet and solitude.
In the dictionary, recovery is defined as a “return to a normal state of health, mind or strength” and “to regain possession of something stolen or lost.” Kayaking restores me, filling my emptiness with the essentials – peacefulness, simplicity, calm. I don’t want addictive patterns as distractions anymore to protect me from emotional toxins.
Now in January in the northwoods of Wisconsin, I must be content to just BE by the open water, standing on the bridge between the old and the new…
…observing the creek, its banks clearly defined by the snow and ice. Although I can’t be ON the water, just WATCHING the flowing current in harsh conditions reminds me that my ongoing, healing journey also follows its own course. I am the architect of my own recovery.
Feels good. Really good. Embracing and making peace with all my imperfections.
I recently read a book by Jeff Foster called The Deepest Acceptance. In it he writes, “Perhaps you will become addicted to the deepest acceptance of this moment.” Perhaps that is what we all should strive for. Perhaps that is a good addiction.
Kayaking keeps me in the present moment. Paddling allows me to be comfortable with silence and be with life as it is. Right now. It helps my recovery and although I continue to make progress, a new revelation surfaces. Uh oh!
There is this other craving…called chocolate….dark chocolate…mmmm… perhaps I’ll keep this one…for now…
Do you have a compulsion that is impacting your life?
Is this distraction helping you or hurting you?
What unhealthy pattern can you identify today that once healed, would help you reclaim yourself?
