The Ocean.
As a surface.
She is whole,
But she is also a gathering.
Of countless waters.
Who is she underneath?
What does she hold below?
The surface of her when we watch the ocean.
Do we always think about what's underneath the surface?
Do we wonder what is floating just beneath?
Do we wonder what's laying on the bed or buried deep within a soul?
She offers us knowledge then.
Even though she looks whole.
She contains an unimaginable number of things that matter.
But she's never the same,
Is she?
Each wave holds the shape entirely its own It gathers,
Rises and folds towards the shore.
And then that exact wave is gone.
There will never be another quite like it.
Sometimes I wonder about the water itself.
Whether those same pieces of her will ever find one another again.
Where they have travelled from.
Where they have touched along the way.
From here she looks whole.
One engulfing body of water stretching further than our eyes can follow.
And yet,
She is made of billions upon billions of tiny pieces.
Each held within something so much larger than itself.
Sometimes she's fierce and wild.
Sometimes she barely moves.
Sometimes the moon draws her towards the shore.
And sometimes she retreats from it.
She doesn't fight herself for changing.
She responds to what is around her.
And sometimes the horizon becomes so hazy.
But it looks as though she's holding on to the sky.
The two meeting so softly that we cannot quite see where one ends and the other begins.
But however beautiful her surface is.
It isn't the whole ocean.
We can stand here looking at her.
And have no idea what is happening beneath.
Currents can be moving through her depths while the surface looks almost perfectly still.
Perhaps there is a surface of you that The world knows well.
The face that answers.
The body that gets up.
The voice that says the words it needs to say.
And perhaps there are times when beneath that surface something entirely different.
Is happening.
You don't have to make your surface match what's underneath.
And you don't have to make what is underneath match the surface.
You don't need to make being honest with yourself another task to complete.
Here you're simply allowing yourself to notice.
That both can exist.
We could sit here for hours.
And never know everything she holds.
And perhaps that's okay.
Perhaps she was never meant to show us all of herself at once.
The surface doesn't need to tell us everything that is happening beneath it.
She doesn't need to bring her deepest waters towards the light.
Just so that we can believe they exist.
She doesn't need to disturb what is resting quietly on her bed.
Or uncover what time has buried there.
We don't ask her to prove her depths to us.
We don't question whether they are real.
Simply because we cannot see them.
We don't look at a calm surface and decide there can be no movement underneath.
We allow both to exist.
The ocean we can see.
And the ocean we cannot.
Neither one makes the other less true.
Perhaps that's part of what makes her whole.
Now that everything within her reaches the surface.
But that she has room for all of it.
And I wonder how often we offer the ocean a kindness that we struggle to offer ourselves.
We can look across her surface and accept,
Without question,
That there is more to her than we can see.
We don't need to see every current to know that it moves.
We don't need to reach her deepest places to believe that they exist Yet sometimes when we look at ourselves We see the face that answers.
The voice that speaks The body that gets up and moves through another ordinary day.
And perhaps because those are the parts of us than everyone else can see.
We begin to see ourselves there too.
As though the part that reaches the surface must somehow tell the whole story.
But you know there is more.
You know what has moved quietly beneath,
What has hurt,
What has been carried.
What has remained unseen.
You don't have to bring any of it to the surface right now.
You don't have to show me.
You don't even have to find the words for it.
Perhaps for this moment.
It is enough simply to know that it's there.
Just as we can stand here looking across this beautiful surface knowing we have not yet seen the whole ocean.
And maybe there is a particular kind of loneliness.
And being the only one who knows what lies beneath your own.
Perhaps there are things you have carried so quietly that nobody would think to ask about them.
Things you have become very good at holding without anybody noticing.
That way.
And maybe there have been moments.
When you've wanted somebody to notice.
Not necessarily to fix anything not to pull everything from you and ask you to explain.
Just to look a little longer at the surface.
And somehow know.
There is more.
To stay long enough for you to wonder.
Whether perhaps it might be safe.
To let a little of it be seen.
Because being seen can be frightening too.
There can be safety in the surface.
In deciding how much of yourself reaches it.
Because sometimes the fear is what happens if you show somebody what is underneath.
And they don't know how to hold it.
What happens if you finally allow some of the weight to leave your hands?
Only to discover there is no one reaching out to take it.
Perhaps sometimes we hide.
Not only because we are frightened of being seen.
Maybe we hide because we're frightened of what might happen after we are seen.
Perhaps sometimes the hardest person to convince that something beneath the surface matters.
Is you.
Because somewhere along the way Care can become something that feels much easier to give than to receive.
You can recognize another person's exhaustion.
And know they need rest You can hear the hurt in somebody else's voice and know that what happened to them mattered.
You can watch somebody you love struggling and never think to ask whether they've struggled for long enough.
Whether they've earned enough.
Whether things have become bad enough.
For them to deserve our care.
Their needs are simply needs.
And yet your own can begin to feel like requests.
A special treatment.
Is there needing something from life?
From another person.
Or even from yourself requires some kind of justification.
As though rest becomes legitimate only once you've reached collapse.
As though something has hurt enough.
Before you're allowed to leave it as though disappointment should be swallowed because someone else has had it worse.
As though saying I don't want this.
Needs a better reason.
Than simply not wanting it.
As though they're things you dream about.
Can wait patiently at the bottom of the list.
While you take everyone else's hopes seriously.
And perhaps caring about yourself isn't always something beautiful.
Or indulgent.
Sometimes it's simply admitting.
That hurt me.
Sometimes it's allowing your disappointment to matter.
Sometimes it's resting before your body forces you to.
Sometimes it's wanting someone to notice.
They are struggling.
Sometimes it's asking for help.
Going to therapy leaving something that continues to hurt.
Spending an afternoon doing something.
For no reason other than because somewhere inside you.
Something comes alive when you do it.
Sometimes it's much quieter than any of those things.
Sometimes caring about yourself.
Is simply believing.
That your experience deserves your own attention because perhaps being worthy of care and feeling permitted to require care are not quite the same thing.
You might know somewhere within you.
That you matter.
You might readily tell somebody else that they are worthy of love.
Patience.
Rest.
Tenderness and care.
And still find yourself living by a very different rule.
Other people's needs are needs.
Mine are requests for special treatment.
And I wonder what happens when we live by that rule for so long.
What gets pushed beneath the surface because we decide it wasn't important enough to bring it above.
What have you learned to carry quietly,
Because asking somebody else to help carry it?
Felt like asking far too much.
What have you called fine?
Because you did not feel permitted to call it painful.
What have you hidden?
Not because they didn't matter.
But because somewhere along the way.
You began to wonder whether you are allowed to let it matter.
I'm not going to ask you any more questions now.
You don't need to search any deeper.
You don't need to find an answer.
Or make sense of why you've hidden.
Or decide what you should do with anything you found beneath the surface.
Hold my hand.
As walk towards the ocean together.
Feel the sand beneath your feet as we move closer to the water.
Until the first wave reaches forward and touches your toes Perhaps she's warm tonight.
Warm enough that you don't pull away.
So we'll stay here for a moment.
And let her come to us.
Feeling another wave.
Higher around your ankles this time and another.
And then when you're ready.
We'll walk a little further.
You don't need to know how to swim here.
You don't need to be brave here.
You don't need to know what you're doing.
In this ocean you can float In this ocean you are safe.
Keep walking with me Let the water rise slowly around your legs.
Your hips and your waist.
Feel how differently our body moves here.
How the weight you've carried so easily on land begins,
Little by little.
To be met by something else.
You're still carrying yourself.
But perhaps not quite all of your weight.
And maybe that's enough for now.
Maybe we don't need to do a trust fall.
Maybe you've spent enough of your life wondering what would happen if you did fall.
So I'm not going to ask you to fall.
Just lean.
Slowly.
Lean back into the water Lean into me.
I've got you.
I'm not going to let you go I will hold you.
May your head rest by.
And the water find the shape of you without asking you to become a different shape first You don't have to hold yourself so tightly here.
You don't have to make yourself lighter.
So that you are easier to carry.
You don't have to apologize if you're awake.
You don't have to tell me what happened You don't have to convince me that it was bad enough.
And now it was.
Just let yourself be held.
You matter.
Not because of what you do for anybody else not because of how well you've coped.
Not because you've finally reached some invisible point.
At which our pain has become serious enough to deserve care.
You mattered before it became unbearable.
You mattered while you were still managing.
You mattered when nobody noticed.
You mattered on the ordinary days when you got up.
Answered.
Smiled.
Carried on and nobody knew.
What it cost you and you matter now.
And perhaps there isn't somebody in your life who knows how to hold all of this.
I wish I could tell you.
That there always will be.
But I won't ask you to replace one painful truth with another story simply because it sounds more hopeful.
Sometimes people don't know how to hold us.
Sometimes they don't notice.
Sometimes they cannot give us what we need.
And sometimes we find ourselves alone,
With something that was never meant to feel so lonely.
But their absence does not tell us what you are worth.
It tells us that something you needed.
Wasn't there.
And those are not the same thing So for now,
Stay here let me hold you Allow your body to float.
And be held.
And perhaps somewhere between the two.
You can loosen your grip on yourself.
You don't need to catch yourself for these moments.
And if tears come,
Don't wipe them away.
Let them move slowly across your face.
Let them reach the water beneath you no great release,
No washing anything away just you.
Meeting the ocean.
And the ocean holding every part of you safely.
A tiny drop of something you have carried.
Becoming part of something unimaginably larger.
You are safe.
Beheld.
I am still here.
You are safe.
Let the last few moments be whatever they need to be.
You don't need to do anything with them.
You don't need to find anything.
You don't need to let anything go.
And when you're ready I'm going to bring you back to the shore with me keep your body resting against the water for just a little while longer.
And then slowly let yourself come forwards Feel me beside you as your body becomes upright again.
Keep hold of my hand.
I am still here.
And we'll swim together towards the shallower waters.
Slowly feel the ocean bed beneath your feet you don't have to reach for it let it find you and as we move a little further towards the shore.
Feel more of your feet meeting the sand beneath us.
Solid ground beneath you again.
Let's walk the rest of the way together Feel the water becoming shallower around your body as we move.
Your shoulders,
Your chest.
Your waist and your legs.
Until eventually we reach the place where the ocean meets the shore Come and sit with me.
Right here.
Close enough that she can still reach us.
And notice how every now and then a small wave travels far enough up before returning to herself again and again.
And just watch her for a moment.
The same ocean we were looking at before a surface still moving A depth still hidden.
Still holding more than we will ever know.
And perhaps you do too.
I don't know who is waiting for you when you leave this shore.
I don't know whether there is someone in your life who sees beneath your surface or whether you are still waiting for someone to look long enough to notice.
But i hope before you go you can let me tell you this You are not too much to hold.
You were never asking too much simply because you needed care.
There is nothing shameful.
About wanting someone to notice.
Nothing weak about wanting somewhere to rest.
Nothing selfish in wishing that,
Just once,
Someone else might carry some of the weight.
You matter when you're laughing.
And you matter when you're hurting.
You matter when you're coping beautifully and you matter when you have absolutely no idea how you're going to keep carrying what lies beneath your surface.
And if for now,
You are the person who has to keep meeting yourself there and please.
Meet yourself,
Gently.
And perhaps we don't have to say goodbye to this place.
She'll still be here.
Tomorrow if you need it.
Next week.
On an ordinary afternoon when everything simply feels a little too heavy.
Or a night when you're tired of being the only person who knows.
You can come back to this shore.
And I'll meet you every time I'll walk in with you.
You don't ever have to fall.
You can just lean.
And I'll meet you there Namaste
