There are only five things I’ve worked really, really, REALLY hard at in my life.
They’re big things, though.
Recovery.
Sobriety.
My mental health.
My business.
Surfing.
It dawned on me only recently that all five of these things require the same skillset, mindset, and awareness—all of which are annoyingly simple and wildly challenging to integrate.
You’ve heard these a million times because each self-help and personal development book writes about them. They are in online courses and other Substack articles, Instagram captions, and YouTube channels; they are in books, brochures, pamphlets, and listicles.
Yet they bear repeating because the difference between knowing and believing is in one’s willingness to return, and we live in a world that often questions our knowing.
So here are three of my not-so-secret secrets—the three lessons I’ve learned—to become a better, happier surfer and human.
FIND fun (stop trying to ‘have’ it)
Fun is so underrated in our world.
Fun is where I come alive, where I know who I am, and where my life changes.
“The best surfer in the lineup is the one having the most fun” is a ubiquitous quote for a reason, yet having fun in surfing took me years because of that word just before it: have. It’s such a disservice that we say, ‘Have fun!’ as though fun is only something that spontaneously happens. It does, of course, sometimes, but I’ve learned that I don’t just have fun when I surf.
I find it. I make it. I create it. I choose it.
When I used to surf, I allowed fun to be out of my control.
Waves are terrible? Not going to have fun.
Mega crowded lineup? No fun here.
I’m surfing like a tube man? Can’t have fun when you suck!
Now I find fun. I find it in the paddle out, smiling at people, laughing at my tube-mannishness. I talk to people, cheer them on, and cheer myself on.
I didn’t learn how to create fun overnight. A lot of the time, I didn’t consider myself a fun person. I was the antithesis of chill, predisposed to sadness and anxiety—fun was a luxury I believed myself unworthy of affording emotionally or spiritually. Yet the cost of accepting this was, well, everything.
That word ‘have’ is so unhelpful because it taught me that fun just happens (and, apparently, is reserved only for others) until I learned it’s my job to find fun rather than hope it will show up passively. I don’t leave my fun up to chance anymore.
My best surf sessions weren’t because of the quality of the waves or my surfing; they were directly tied to my choice to create fun that day. My most fabulous nights out happened when I made a conscious decision to be the sober girl in the crowd, not just having the most fun despite being sober, but the one having the most fun, period.
Not fun as performance or gimmick, not fun as toxic positivity or fake it ‘til ya make it (though it did require that, sometimes, in the beginning, especially with sobriety), but genuine fun.
“It is a happy talent to know how to play.”
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson
Gratitude is the way through shame.
Shame and I go wayyyyy back. Shame was there when I was a little girl. Shame looked back at me in the mirror in the throes of my eating disorder, and shame likes to sneak in when I’m in a season of contraction—business is slow, writer’s block reigns, and I’m surfing like one of those inflatable car dealership things (it’s called a ‘tube man,’ btw). In those contractions, and it seems nothing’s working how I want it to, shame beckons, promising to motivate me to get s**t done.
Yet shame keeps me from what I need most in those seasons—acceptance.
Acceptance of my limitations, bank account, crappy surfing, bad skin, social awkwardness, or whatever else is causing me to cringe a little bit inside. Shame offers a false sense of a way out, a sense that I can control things. I thought if I could just feel enough shame, I would improve enough not to feel the feels.
I thought one day I would finally work hard enough, do enough, perform enough, and become careful enough never to feel shame again, finally getting out of the shame spiral one day when I’d become enough.
I’ve finally learned there is never enough when I play shame’s game.
I’ve finally learned there is no way out of shame.
There is only a way through.
And the way through is gratitude—I know, ughhh.
Gratitude paves the way to the thing shame tries to help me get—acceptance. Gratitude is the light through the tunnel of shame.
Gratitude heals, shame harms.
Gratitude connects, and shame separates.
Gratitude teaches, and shame distorts.
Find the positive intent.
There are a million little ways I’ve sabotaged myself in my growth. I can’t even begin to count the number of times I set myself up to be discouraged, disheartened, and demoralized.
Choosing to surf when my body needed rest; waiting too long to eat when my body needed nourishment; putting myself in situations where maintaining my sobriety would be really f***ing difficult and then wondering why I relapsed; getting caught up everything I can’t control in my business rather than what’s I can do each day …
There’s a positive intent behind every behavior. There’s a reason I did that thing I promised myself I wouldn’t do. Maybe it was comfort, perhaps because the familiar feeling of shame beckoned. Finding the positive intent beneath my behavior is how I re-orient myself.
Here’s how to do it.
Sit down somewhere quiet and comfortable. Imagine the thing you’re doing that’s hurting you—something simple, like not taking out the trash or folding your laundry—and simply sit with it.
Tune into your heart, your intuition. Rest there for a while. This is a gentle practice. Then, when you are ready, ask from your heart what the positive intent of this behavior is. Ask what need it is fulfilling.
Once I could see all my behaviors as subconscious choices to meet a need, I could meet that need with grace. I thought I could shame myself into being a better surfer and push myself harder to surf bigger waves and do bigger turns, but all it did was take me out of the moment, which is the only place I can be in to surf well.
What are your not-so-secret secrets?
And that, as they say, is all I have to say about that.
Find fun, let gratitude guide you through shame, and find the positive intent (even when your choices seem impossibly un-positive).
These are my not-so-secret secrets to becoming a happier surfer and human. They are simple to understand and FUN to practice.
So go forth, my friends, and give yourself grace in the growing.
And let me know in the comments what other not-so-secret lessons you’ve learned in your beautiful life journey.
Xoxo, Sav.