Happy #20plenty

Happy #20plenty! This is how a client wished me yesterday. I really liked it and thought how apt for the beginning of a new decade. So my wish for you this year is also a year of #20plenty. Plenty of whatever ignites your passion, stokes your creative expression and allows you to find your groove in life. I took 10 days off at the end of last year and spent some time down on KZN’s South Coast. My boys have grown up in Joburg so for them being able to swim in the sea creates a large amount of excitement (and anxiety for Candice). Although they can both swim, being in the ocean is very different from swimming in calm bodies of water. The awareness required to navigate currents, waves and bluebottles just doesn’t register in the forming minds of 6 and 8 year olds. A few times the strong backwash started pulling the boys deeper into the ocean and when I could see the panic set in on their small faces, my advice would always be the same. “Just relax. Keep swimming but don’t fight the current. There will be a wave coming towards the shore that will bring you back in.” My gran passed away in July last year at the age of almost 94. She always had some sage advice like: “ don’t ever share a drinking straw with anyone” “ never ever go to bed without settling an argument with your spouse” “you need a healthy respect for the sea” And so in trying to teach my boys a healthy respect for the sea I realized that trying to navigate the ocean is pretty much like trying to navigate life. Sometimes life sweeps us away. It completely overwhelms us and our first instinct is to fight and resist what is happening, trying to change the situation. Perhaps a better option is to accept what is, keep swimming but not fight the current we find ourselves in. Relax into whatever unpleasant situation is presenting itself, allowing it to take you along. As long as you don’t resist and remain unattached, you can make decisions that aren’t based on the emotional response being created within you. The lesson is knowing that just like the ebb and flow of the ocean, eventually the situation will change. At my 21st birthday party a friend wrote the following message in my birthday book “Tomorrow the sun will rise, the ocean will go out and who knows what the next tide will bring in.” So I wish you a year of prosperity (whatever form that takes for you) and happiness. Who knows what the tide will bring in for you in the year of #20plenty. Chat soon