Enjoy the journey—a growth mindset and self-acceptance

it is hard to be against things and feel compassion ... if you honor yourself, your needs, and your inner integrity... and combine that with some compassion for yourself and others... growth happens

Nina Pole Art, San Salvador

It is a peaceful day here. A rare day. The construction workers who have been climbing a rickety handmade ladder to create a dome roof made of mud and cement are back home in Guatemala for the weekend.

Raul has finished his morning watering of the garden, the sweeping of the dirt around the plants, and the impeccable cleaning of the concrete pathways and steps. He will be back again this afternoon. Maybe to tend the pool or for one of the other tasks that never end. I don’t think there is a day that Raul doesn’t come.

Sometimes he digs deep ditches by hand. Just him. He says he likes it that way. He can work at his own pace.

But he is absent now as well.

My new neighbor, who lives in the room above me, is quiet. I got up to check and yes, my sense is correct. His motorcycle is absent.

So it is just me alone in this usually busy place. And I like it this way. I like it a lot.

I am playing music on my tiny portable speaker. A Spotify-created playlist called “Relaxing Music for Reading.”

There is a decoration hanging from the curtain rod in front of me. White clam shells dangle on strings. They gently tinkle and clink in the breeze created by the overhead fan.

I have balanced my computer on a tall kitchen chair and sit with it wedged between my thighs as I type from a plastic seat designed for outdoor use that is part of my current indoor living room set.

My quest with Mary to get a desk chair, and possibly an actual small desk to go with it, was unexpectedly foiled at the last minute.

It was my second attempt to taxi around the city in search of a comfortable chair. I figure I have now spent about $250 on my quest.

It was 6pm last night and Mary, my new young surfer-yoga friend from Brazil, and I were in Office Depot near a giant mall in San Salvador called Millenium Plaza. It was our final stop on the way back to El Zonte and my last attempt to find a chair. Mary needed some pens to use with her new notebook. She is studying for the SAT and thinking of continuing her schooling. My SAT scores are a distant memory. Did I score in the 700s or 800s? I have no idea. I remember my friend managed to get 100% correct on some section of it. In the end, I don’t think that test changed much in either of our lives and I am a bit surprised to hear that Mary is going to take it, a little less than 40 years after me.

Haven’t we upgraded such things? Don’t we have better ways to mark our reason for being on the planet and to help us craft our future passions and offerings in the world?

I presume obviously, in some ways, we don’t.

But I am glad Mary will have beautiful black Moleskin notebooks we found in a fancy bookstore in the mall earlier in the day and now pretty colored pens with which to review her math problems. I imagine and sense Mary is an artist. Like me. Like all of us really, in different ways.

My interest in Bitcoin led me into a short dive into a white rabbit hole around computer code and binary numbers. I have grown to imagine computer coding as artistic and wondered about it, and if at some point, in some future life, I would enjoy playing with codes and math? Patterns and numbers that form fractals and universes. The incredible diversity that comes from the gateway of simple 1s and 0s embedded into silicone chips. Technology that is so far over my head and yet not far enough to hide beyond the stretch of my imagination.

I always want to write to you about something profound. Something that will or can change your life. Something that will flow through these keys to you so that you feel less alone and more loved.

My mind wanders into so many places, just as I do, searching for such things and ways to make meaning from them.

But mostly I live a life of snapshots and experiences that weave into something beautiful that is just beyond the reach of my mind, like mycelium under my feet.

What have I learned this week? What have I done or felt that leads my fingers on these keys to type something you might find useful, or resonant in some way?

Well, a few times, I have listened to myself.

A few times, I have surprised myself and tried some new things and had a lot of fun.

I pushed my edge a bit doing some body movements and questioned what I really wanted to experience? But mostly my new attempts were fun and I felt energized by them.

I realize from this week that for me, life is about the process of things. I want to enjoy the process of things. And that, can be incredibly empowering, joyful, unexpected, and challenging.

Carol Dweck’s book, Mindset: The New Psychology of Success, has been coming to mind for me a lot. She writes of two kinds of people. One type of person works at things. They don’t give up easily or at all. They keep going. They keep trying. She calls that approach to life a “growth-mindset.”

The other type of person gives up easily. Sometimes they are people with natural talent, mentally or physically. Things come easily to them. Then suddenly when they face something challenging, they are more inclined to quit if their effort doesn’t produce the result they expect and are used to achieving. They haven’t learned to work at things or that their value as a human is not tied to what they achieve. They have not learned that it is the process of achieving that really matters.

If you and I are in a process of achieving, and the thing we are achieving is not a fixed thing, but an ever-expanding sense of our own state of divinity, then there is no messing up, is there? There is no failure or failing.

You cannot fail. At anything.

So why not just keep going and maybe decide that having fun matters? What you enjoy doing matters. You are a creative being, always busy creating something…whether that something is anger, loneliness, joy, love or misery. They are all ultimately gateways to higher states of connection, love, and consciousness. In the end, the misery you may be experiencing will make the joy all the more palpable for you and your being. We cannot “see” light without contrast.

This morning I went to yoga at Puro Surf.

Yesterday I was in the city, in a new class with aerial silks and hoops hanging from a ceiling. A gold medal Olympic athlete created a beautiful space to explore such things, including poles for pole dancing. I had never seen pole dancing in person. I found myself entranced and enchanted. The Olympic athlete was downstairs from me, pole dancing her breathtaking routine.

I have more to say about all that.

But this morning, the main thing was that I went to yoga despite how tired and sore my body was from exploring so many new movements with silks and hoops hanging from a high ceiling. I was also tired from the multiple Uber rides with Mary, as we quested for one small desk chair, notebooks, Clinique facial soap, and pens in a very large city.

Mary wasn’t at yoga this morning. I figured she was resting, enjoying her new facial soap and savoring time with her boyfriend, who was making her so happy. However, my other hoop-dancing, aerial silk friend, Suez, was there.

Suez handed me a beautiful purple flower she brought for me as I walked into the room overlooking the ocean, far below.

Unexpected gifts and moments of magical love.

They are sprinkled throughout the world.

A flower from Suez

Sometimes, it is a feather brushing your feet as you walk, or a tiny stone you spy on the beach…

With my flower-from-a-friend sitting next to me, blessing received, I noticed that there were two other ladies in class today. I assumed they both were older than me.

I didn’t talk to them much before Mila started teaching. I just heard that they were staying at the hotel to surf. I found it surprising, that they (who I imagined to be in their 60s), chose to tackle the daunting currents and waves of El Zonte.

We flowed through yoga poses together with Mila leading. I did some arm balances. I have been practicing yoga moves for over thirty years now. Many years ago, my practice evolved into an exploration of how to do things with more ease. For arm balances, I have learned to use the strength of my bones to hold my body.

The lady next to me gasped a little as she looked over at me.

It sounded like a complimentary gasp and it felt sweet to me.

I noticed a scar on her hip and assumed it was from a hip surgery.

When we finished, she took a moment to look me in the eye and say something kind about how beautiful she found my practice to be.

Then she and her friend chatted with Mila about their recent surfing experience from the previous day.

I was the only one in the room who has boycotted anything to do with surfing. (Did I mention the currents and how big the waves are?)

At some point, Raul, who is both a human and a lean, bronze fish in a human body, plans to take me swimming. But until my skill set shifts, I remain wary of the sea here. I am friendly with her from the shore, and wary if she gets too close or tries to grab at me.

The two older women said they had taken their long boards out and struggled yesterday. The woman with the scar on her hip said, with wide eyes, that the waves were more than a foot over her head. She held her hand up high like a child would, telling something that happened on the playground. Something amazing and daunting.

They mentioned their boards got swept towards a part of the beach with a lot of lava rock.

This is my favorite part of the shore for meditating and for sitting and gazing at the powerful sea with it’s giant, crashing waves.

It is not the best part of the ocean here for surfing.

The locals call it Matadero. The women wanted to know what that meant?

I remembered it had something to do with meat-grinding.

The woman next to me held out her phone with Google Translate activated and asked Mila to speak the word into the speaker.

“Matadero,” said Mila easily despite being from Switzerland.

The lady looked at her phone and gasped.

“Slaughterhouse!” she exclaimed.

They got swept to this location, more than once, the day before. It didn’t stop them.

They didn’t give up.

They didn’t avoid those waves.

They took those long boards and went right back in.

The woman next to me didn’t look like a powerhouse surfer.

But she was.

She had to be.

I couldn’t have done it.

And she had complimented me on my arm balances. I was trying to take it all in.

I thought long boards were just for beginners. That is what I hauled out for my one surfing lesson here. I didn’t like it. I like things that are nimble. Things I can pivot.

Suez, my wise surfer-friend, looked at me and pointed out that it takes a lot of skill to maneuver what she referred to as a log, through giant waves and other surfers without hitting them. She mentioned long boards were good for the tiny surf they teach new people in. But out in the real waves, it takes some skill to maneuver one. It took skill to get one of those logs out there into the thrashing, dancing, thousand-pound water torrent. You couldn’t do what is called a duck-dive with them and dip under the oncoming torrents.

It turned out the two older log-riding women were from my Southern-California neck of the woods. They lived in Santa Monica and Malibu.

The woman next to me, Myra, said goodbye after introducing herself and disappeared.

Her friend lingered for a few minutes and I asked a little more about the two of them.

She said Myra didn’t learn to surf until she was in her 30s. She loved it so much it became a passion. Then Myra started to surf tandem with Charlie, who is her life partner now.

Myra became a champion.

I had never seen or heard of tandem surfing before and was both astonished and inspired by what I saw.

Myra mentioned at the end of class that she had skipped the headstand because her neck hurt and she had some past injuries that required care. That was before I knew any of this. But her choice struck me as momentous.

She listened to her body. I had been playing with that myself this past week.

So I took a moment to tell her I thought that was a kind thing to do. That I felt it was wonderful to honor her body in that way.

It was later that I learned I was talking to a tandem surfing champion.

Life is both interesting and unexpected.

I used to sit next to my friend in school in calculus class so I could ask her questions when I didn’t understand something. She is the one who got 100% on her SAT.

In my early years of yoga, I would set my mat up next to Michael. Michael was a lawyer, surfer, and a model for Prana clothing. And Michael could do a slow-motion, press-up handstand that was one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen.

I practiced next to him and attempted to mimic it.

I never did.

But trying was fun. The trying and thinking about it, and feeling his handstand in my body as I watched him float into it, was exquisite.

Am I incomplete because I never mastered it?

I don’t think so.

I don’t think I need to master everything to become enlightened…or more filled with less dense energy and more clarity and love.

I think it is more important to honor who I am and make this entire experience a loving, playful journey.

It is important I honor my body.

It is important I honor and listen to my soul.

Really listen.

That feels like it matters most.

This week, Suez brought a chess set to Puro Surf, and we played a game.

I have never studied chess, and I love to play. It has been years since I have done so. And it was fun.

Suez won. Pretty quickly. She moved the pieces around a bit more after she won and asked questions. “What if you had done that? Then I would have done this? And then this?” Her questions came from curiosity. It was about the adventure of it. The chess of it.

I don’t have to win.

I don’t have to be the best.

I don’t have to surf The Slaughterhouse.

I don’t have to do a press up handstand (although I did eventually and delightfully master my version of it, for a brief period).

There is a theme here for me this week about kindness to oneself and listening. There is a theme for me about having fun and combining that with a sense of curiosity and adventure. About a growth mind set with a goal of expansion rather than achievement of one “thing” that will never be enough, or feel like enough.

I sat at a Bitcoin meet-up dinner one night and listened to people around me tell some new people things about Bitcoin and taxes in the US I know to be incorrect. I pointed out what was dissonant, but they didn't receive it as I would have liked. Soon I realized I was in a group with whom I simply was not resonating. That is ok. I finished my dinner, stood up, and left.

I didn’t worry about upsetting them and I didn’t leave in a huff. I just left.

Looking back, I realize that was a big moment for me.

The old me would have worried about what they thought of me or how they felt. The old me would have worried that my comments were wrong, or delivered badly.

But now I just decided it didn’t feel right to me and I wanted to spend my time somewhere else. That’s ok. And they are ok too. We all get to choose.

It felt good to me to stand up and leave. I didn’t even think about it. I just did.

It felt new.

It felt like honoring myself and what I want, who I want to spend time with, what kind of energy I synchronize with, and what I choose to say no to.

Times like that in the past would lead me to questioning myself a lot. I have picked situations to pieces so much in my life trying to learn how to do a metaphorical press-up handstand.

But it is really about the process of things, trusting myself, and most importantly, knowing it is ok not to nail the handstand. That when I get things “wrong” it is simply a learning opportunity.

There is no need to stand in a position against anyone and say you or I will never forgive them. That is tiring and takes energy. It is like pushing against a wall and refusing to budge.

But you know what shifts it?

Compassion.

Myra had compassion for her neck and skipped the headstand.

In one of the hoop classes, I decided I had enough for a time. And I let that be OK.

The minute you feel a smidge of compassion for yourself or others in a situation (and I don’t mean victimhood or pity—I mean actual kindness, care, and empathy), you can’t stay locked in resentment. You can’t continue to battle against anything. And you can’t just sit in a blob of give-up-ness.

You will shift into a growth mindset.

“Never Again!” becomes… “I was doing my best. Now let’s keep going and see what happens.”

I may “mess up” again and that’s ok. I will learn every time, even if it seems imperceptible or momentous.

You are not here to do a press-up handstand, unless you do. You are here to find things that inspire you and have fun experimenting with them and exploring them.

You may be an older woman with a couple of surgeries under her belt, paddling a long board in and out of The Slaughterhouse for fun, and topping it off with a yoga class with a friend.

Or you may be sitting on your porch with a cup of steaming tea, doing “nothing.”

Who is to say which is closer to God? I don’t think it is about the outward picture in the end.

It is about how you feel, how you honor yourself, how much fun you are having and how much compassion you can bring to yourself, for whatever stage you are at in your current quest and hero’s journey.

I was going to say more. A lot more. About the hoop class. The silks. The moments I refused to do the “next” thing the teacher suggested because I simply didn’t want to and the concrete floor bothered me. How that, for me, was a big win.

Or the moment I was at the beautiful studio in the city, with pink crash pads, silky ribbons, contorted into a pose that I never expected to be in and feeling proud…when my Swiss-educated teacher looked over at me and said, “that’s not it!” And how in that moment, I realized it wasn’t about any “it” ever. It was about celebrating who I am, and how I feel in the moment, whatever shape I manage to get myself positioned into.

Then there was the other moment. We were all busy photographing one another. We were proud of our hoop moments. We were feeling that second of going down the slide on the playground and looking around to see if anyone saw the magic moment of our joyous achievement.

Then there was mine. My one moment. When I, in delightful slow-motion (as I like to do things), found my way into the position she had shown and dangled from the air, anchored with my foot wrapped in the tie holding the hoop, far above the ground, as one tiny movement at a time, I allowed my heart to open and unfurl through my arms. My body melted, and I was in a backbend, upside down, gently rotating above the distant floor. My tired arms were strong enough, and I was free. I was listening to my body, and I was trusting. For one brief second, I found “it.”

People clapped around the room. I think they felt the moment.

And no one took a photo.

I think that says something about the magic of that precise moment. I heard later there was a so-called “influencer” there. But it wasn’t an influencer-moment. It was a moment that mattered just because it happened, and it felt exquisite in that instant. That’s all. That’s enough.

I imagine it probably felt kind of like doing a press-up handstand like my friend Michael.

Our life is such a journey, full of fairy gardens and slaughterhouses we face, sometimes in equal measure.

May you sense what you need and have compassion for yourself.

May you honor the places in you that are calling for care and skip things that don’t resonate for you, despite what other people may say, feel, or believe.

May you feel that you and your life are a constant experience of your own beautiful version of a press up handstand, however it looks.

I have a few last word-images for you. Two from the beach and one from this moment.

From the beach:

Two women.

Both sit in the surf and allow it to wash gently over them.

One lies down in ecstasy.

I see her feeling the warm, white foam wash around her.

She sits up and gazes at the sea, its shapes, and the kisses it wraps around her form.

She lies back down again to savor it more.

It flows towards her, bigger this time, and she senses it.

It almost washes over her face and her body shifts as it moves her.

She sits up, smiling.

I am amazed at her joy.

As I walk by, she stands up.

I see she is limping.

Walking for her is difficult.

But lying on the sand allowing the sea to make love to her?

I imagine her struggle was part of her ecstasy and her presence and delight in feeling the sand and sea.

The next day…

Another older woman is in a thin yellow dress.

She also sits in the sea and it splashes around her hips.

A man stands nearby. I wonder if he might be her husband?

Her grey hair is in a tight bun and she laughs and the water paints the thin fabric against her elderly frame.

Soft folds around her middle mold with equally soft, hanging breasts and she is laughing.

A wisp of wet grey hair escapes from her bun and the man grabs her before the sea knocks her over.

Another young man comes to help him.

It reminds me of a sort of baptism.

In a yellow dress, with two sets of loving hands.

At home now…

The cross here is fluttering next to the pool.

The workers made it last week.

I wondered if it was something having to do with Easter?

The day they hung it…

The workers all sat next to the pool in wooden chairs they had made by hand,

I think for the first time.

The tissue paper was still bright and multi-colored then.

They ate together.

I wasn’t sure if someone had passed away or if they were celebrating the resurrection.

They are gone and today the faded paper flutters from the cross and dances gently, sun-bleached, sun-kissed, in waves of wind.

I don’t know what any of this means, except there is something peaceful in it, and in being alone with my music playing and the shells tinkling next to me in the wind.

May you and I bring some love and compassion to those cracks of resistance that sit rigidly in their stance of “against” or flop hopelessly in despondence. May those cracks fill with light. A light that comes from a growth mindset, filled with care and softness. May your heart and mine find an authentic willingness for compassion that melts away resistance.

May tiny lotus flowers of the constant energetic expansion of your soul become visible to you in their own unique way and may you see the exquisite uniqueness and divinity of your own existence.