I'm ninety days into this. I haven't blogged everyday as I had hoped, but lets face it...more often than not I don't have enough material to keep anyone interested on a daily basis. I have learned a lot about myself in the last ninety days. This morning I found myself mired in discontentment in my progress. Although I am no where near where I was when I started, I am still not nearly as far as I had hoped by this time. And while I was stewing on my perceived failures I kept coming back to a lesson my very wise husband had given me on the drywall of the dive shop he owned.
We were living in Hawaii. I had asked him to explain what 'The Bends' was. So many divers shuffling in and out of the dive shop refilling their oxygen tanks and that term often fell from their lips in a somber tone. I didn't know that day that I would later marry Sully. I didn't know that I would stash that conversation away or that it would be such a profound epiphany in relating to my life later. I didn't appreciate at that moment the lengths in which he went to explain something to me. He pulled a sharpie out of his board shorts and used the wall to illustrate not just what 'The Bends' was, but why it happens. I wish I had taken a picture of his masterpiece to share with you today...instead I will just share the gist of the lesson and how it so acutely pertains to me today.
The bends is another term for decompression sickness. When divers are at significant depths the pressure causes gases in the body to build up. If a diver were to rise to fast to the surface, it's like uncorking a bottle of soda...the gas is released. This can cause a very painful situation, and sometimes fatal if not treated. To avoid the effects of quick decompression, the diver must rise slowly and make intermittent decompression stops on the way up, so that they can off-gas slowly. Obviously there was a lot more to the lesson, he showed me how much pressure water has on the lungs vs. air...he used terms like PSI and atmosphere. It was all very fascinating, and scary...considering his job at the time had him diving daily. But here I was over a decade later, in Alaska sitting on a green lawn chair watching our goats graze by the lake...remembering vividly his impromptu lecture on SCUBA diving. Why?
Because I was just in the abyss. And you can't go from the bottom to the top instantaneously. It's a process. I am slowly rising up from the deep, taking those intermittent decompression stops, purging the toxic out of my system as I journey to the surface. I'm learning patience in this process, and I am continually battling those feeling of dissatisfaction with my progression. I honestly believe that is where Satan just revels. When we sabotage ourselves with unrealistic expectations instead of celebrating the growth.
As with all aspects of life I squander any hope for success when I don't allow the time for development. When I step on the scale and feel disappointment in the loss of five pounds because it wasn't ten. When I have a list of twenty things to do for the day and beat myself up because I only accomplished fifteen. My expectations of reaching the surface is what gives me the spiritual 'Bends'.
It's good to have goals, and it's amazing when you reach them. But there are stops along the way that warrant recognition, and it is the process that help us truly appreciate the journey to the top...and breaching the surface after the peregrination is much sweeter.
We were living in Hawaii. I had asked him to explain what 'The Bends' was. So many divers shuffling in and out of the dive shop refilling their oxygen tanks and that term often fell from their lips in a somber tone. I didn't know that day that I would later marry Sully. I didn't know that I would stash that conversation away or that it would be such a profound epiphany in relating to my life later. I didn't appreciate at that moment the lengths in which he went to explain something to me. He pulled a sharpie out of his board shorts and used the wall to illustrate not just what 'The Bends' was, but why it happens. I wish I had taken a picture of his masterpiece to share with you today...instead I will just share the gist of the lesson and how it so acutely pertains to me today.
The bends is another term for decompression sickness. When divers are at significant depths the pressure causes gases in the body to build up. If a diver were to rise to fast to the surface, it's like uncorking a bottle of soda...the gas is released. This can cause a very painful situation, and sometimes fatal if not treated. To avoid the effects of quick decompression, the diver must rise slowly and make intermittent decompression stops on the way up, so that they can off-gas slowly. Obviously there was a lot more to the lesson, he showed me how much pressure water has on the lungs vs. air...he used terms like PSI and atmosphere. It was all very fascinating, and scary...considering his job at the time had him diving daily. But here I was over a decade later, in Alaska sitting on a green lawn chair watching our goats graze by the lake...remembering vividly his impromptu lecture on SCUBA diving. Why?
Because I was just in the abyss. And you can't go from the bottom to the top instantaneously. It's a process. I am slowly rising up from the deep, taking those intermittent decompression stops, purging the toxic out of my system as I journey to the surface. I'm learning patience in this process, and I am continually battling those feeling of dissatisfaction with my progression. I honestly believe that is where Satan just revels. When we sabotage ourselves with unrealistic expectations instead of celebrating the growth.
As with all aspects of life I squander any hope for success when I don't allow the time for development. When I step on the scale and feel disappointment in the loss of five pounds because it wasn't ten. When I have a list of twenty things to do for the day and beat myself up because I only accomplished fifteen. My expectations of reaching the surface is what gives me the spiritual 'Bends'.
It's good to have goals, and it's amazing when you reach them. But there are stops along the way that warrant recognition, and it is the process that help us truly appreciate the journey to the top...and breaching the surface after the peregrination is much sweeter.
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