Lessons from a lake

This past week I’ve been on the north shore of Lake Superior. It is something to behold. It is the biggest fresh water lake by surface area in the world. It is bigger than all the other Great Lakes combined which is wild to me!

It has been hard to pull myself away from her shores. I have spent hours every day sitting and watching the waves crash onto the rocky beach. I’ve dug my hands through the stones in search of the most beautiful ones. And of course, I’ve swam at least once a day in her crystal clear and cool waters.

If you spend enough time with something in nature, it will always teach you a thing or two. One evening, as I was journaling on a rock along the shore, a storm started to blow in. The waves were roaring at me to pay attention. This was a vastly different from that very morning. The lake was almost a mirror with barely a wave present just a few hours earlier.

It’s incredible that something so massive can change so dynamically. It made me think about myself because I’m made of mostly water too! Am I capable of such drastic changes in a short time span? Of course I am. I can be elated one moment and in tears the next.

We all contain multitudes. We show up differently all the time. How beautiful that we are capable of such change but are still ourselves at the core. But I started to think about how much I judge myself when I show up differently. When my waves are roaring rather than being peaceful and calm, I often blame myself.

The lake does no such thing because the lake understands it is connected to everything around it. The roaring waves were because of the storm blowing in. The calm and peaceful morning was because the wind was almost non existent at that time. Lakes are such a beautiful reflection of their environment. Water is incredibly adaptable but only expends the energy to adapt when urged by its surroundings.

This is a reminder I needed. My internal state is not always a reflection of something I did, it is often a reflection of my environment. What we are surrounded by impacts us greatly. Again, we are mostly water. So I can’t expect to stand in a storm and be perfectly calm.

When the wind around me picks up, the waves within with come. No matter how hard I try to stay calm, the waves will grow. This isn’t bad, but often I judge it as bad. I think no matter the weather around me, I should be calm and crystal clear.

That simply isn’t how our bodies work. Just like water, our bodies are adaptable. This doesn’t mean we are always a victim to our environments. It simply means judging ourselves when the waves come with the storm is unnecessary. If we allow our body to express energy when it needs to, we stay adaptable and fluid.

Storms will come. They will bring waves. We would never judge a lake when this happens so let’s stop judging ourselves. Let this be a beautiful reminder that our environment impacts us greatly.

If you’re sick of feeling like your waves are roaring, maybe it’s time to stop only blaming yourself and time to assess your environment. Maybe your body is just responding to the wind and asking you to find shelter somewhere else.

In a world that is sometimes too focused on what we can do to better ourselves, sometimes we forget the impact our surroundings have. We can try to change everything we want about the lake but when the storm comes, so will the waves. Perhaps it is a gentle reminder to look outward as well as within.

Yes, I believe there is so much we can do to lessen our reactions to the storms in our lives. We can calm the waves within in many ways. But sometimes the effort of calming the waves is far greater than if we simply looked outward and addressed the storm. This is by no means a permission slip to run away from all the hard things in life either. It is just a reminder that a storm is a storm and will always bring waves along with it.

When the waves feel as if they are a constant in your life, and no matter what you do internally they still persist, perhaps look up and out. Making a change to your environment may have a much greater impact on your waves within than anything else you can do.

Remember, we are just a bunch of watery cells packed together. Almost as if we are made of a million tiny lakes. We would never blame a lake for responding to the weather. Let’s give ourselves the same level of respect.