Muse, tell me how he wandered and was lost
when he had wrecked the holy town of Troy,
and where he went, and who he met, the pain
he suffered in the storms at sea, and how
he worked to save his life and bring his men
back home.
The Odyssey, Book I, Homer — trans, Emily Wilson
Leading a handful of monks, St. Coleman set out from Lindisfarne in the north-east of England. Sea-searched no doubt, wind-searched, and salt-searched, they rowed themselves south along this Atlantic coast. Following the old Christian custom, it is likely that they would at one stage have shipped oars, and then wherever the currents took them, that’s where they would settle.
To ship oars. To surrender to something bigger and wiser than we are…
John Moriarty — Nostos
The attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be.
Alan Watts
Awareness, creativity, and intuition are all “muscles“. We can build them up, use them, making them stronger… we just need to use them on a regular basis.
Anne Wilson-Schaef
Over a period of several years, my morning practice included the daily reflection from Anne Wilson-Schaef’s wonderful little book: “Native Wisdom for White Minds“. Anne’s wisdom on the topics of letting go, control, and acceptance focuses on releasing perfectionism, stopping the need to force effort, and allowing life to unfold as a natural process. She later referred to her approach as: “Living in Process“.
Another great teacher of mine over the years has been Sant Rajinder Singh Ji Marahaji, who leads the “Science of Spirituality“ (SOS) movement based in New Delhi, India with a western headquarters in Chicago. In a long tradition going back to Guru Nanek (15 April 1469 – 22 September 1539), the founder of Sikhism, he describes his form of meditation as, among other things, “effortless effort“.
This effortless effort is by no means a permission slip for inertia, a laissez-faire attitude or, indeed, indifference, but rather a manner of living life to the full, trusting in the guidance of the Universe, unattached to specific outcomes, and confident that every situation, without exception, contains gifts and opportunities for the benefit of self and Creation as a whole.
The concept of highly aware non-attached engagement is also a cornerstone of the Positive Intelligence (PQ) Mental Fitness modality which I have been practicing and coaching for almost five years now. By relinquishing our attempts to control outcomes and by trusting that we will be given whatever we need to handle what life throws our way, we seldom revert to the formerly ingrained fear-based patterns of thinking, feeling, and behaving.
This enables us to shift into a mode of ease and flow. We no longer drive through life with our foot to the floor while the handbrake is engaged. All the energy which used to be consumed by resistance, denial, delusion, guilt, shame, and resentment can then be applied to creative expression, innovation, self-care, and service.
The subject of how we can live the life we love came up this past weekend at an international gathering for a birthday party of a friend who had kindly invited me to Zurich for the occasion. There were about seventy people from many countries at this celebration, some of whom I already knew and some I had not yet met.
A few of those who had known me for longer but had not met me in person for several years asked what “had happened“ to me, in the sense that they found me to be very much calmer and more relaxed than I used to be.
The observation, while astute, presented me with a challenge. How could the shift – the miracle – that has happened over the past ten or fifteen years, be put into words?
Some time ago, in the process of establishing my business as an independent Transformation Coach and Mental Fitness Trainer, I was encouraged to get on the social media merry-go-round to attract clients and then scale the business towards a six-figure annual salary once the algorhythms had been cracked.
Well, this didn’t work out very well, as I would prefer to watch paint dry than to be putting up video sequences on Instagram every morning. Another factor is that the less time I spend each day at a screen, the better, for my own sense of sanity.
Apart from that, there is no need for a six-figure salary. At a Twelve Step meeting on Zoom last year there was a guy from New York who described how he managed his financial affairs using the “prudent reserve“ principle widely adopted as best practice in the running of the AA fellowship – and many others – itself.
This strategy is that a group pays its running expenses and sets aside a reserve for a reasonable given period, say six or twelve months. The remaining money is then passed on down through the organisation to the next level, which has a wider geographical footprint and scope of responsibilities and, therefore, higher costs. This cluster applies the same principle, paying its expenses, setting aside a prudent reserve, and passing on the remaining money to the next level below. And so on.
This guy explained that he had been self employed for decades, was now in his seventies and that the principle worked very well for him in his business life. I thought: “If he can do it, so can I!“
Just around this time, another idea came my way. I reflected that I didn’t want to work with people who needed my services but only with people who really wanted them. This shift lifted a weight of tension, resulting in even more serenity on my part.
Then someone told me the story about how bamboo is propagated. Apparently, when cuttings are taken and placed in the ground under suitable conditions, no progress is visible in the first year. The plant simply appears to remain alive in a dormant state, with no growth.
In the second year it remains unchanged. And in the third and sometimes even the fourth. But somewhere in the fourth or fifth year, the plant will explode into growth, often reaching a height of three to five metres in one season.
What had been happening in those early years? The plant was not dormant at all. In fact, there was substantial growth, but it was underground, in the root system, hidden from view. Only when the root system has been sufficiently established – this can take several years – does the visible growth above ground commence.
That story gave me hope. I had a five-year initial phase in mind when I founded SoberOasis in 2022, so decided to trust the progress and put my faith in organic growth and “attraction rather than promotion“. In many years of fellowship service, it had become abundantly clear that that approach can work only if we ensure that we are visible.
These Weekly Reflections contribute to raising the visibility of SoberOasis among the international general public, for example.
All these factors enabled me, at some point, to ship oars. My Saboteurs (Judge, Controller, Stickler, Hyper-rational, etc.) repeatedly still try to undermine my trust and derail my equanimity. That is simply their nature, and I don’t take it personally. Every time they try to hijack me, I welcome them but do not follow their lead. Instead, I use the situation as an opportunity to train my mental muscles, to improve my mental fitness.
As John Moriarty points out: To ship oars. To surrender to something bigger and wiser than we are. I thought about it. The shark is a free swimmer. He has the muscles and the endowments that enable him to go where he chooses. As their Greek name tells us, plankton are drifters, they go with the ocean currents. How extraordinary, I thought, that those early Christian monks were so willing to be plankton.
My life used to be that of a shark, or so I thought. In fact, I was gridlocked in a stance of defiance and resistance to life, as life is. My game was: “I’ll be happy when…“ but whenever the conditions were met the feeling of success was fleeting and I was soon off again chasing the next goal. And someone or something kept moving the goalposts.
In Christopher Nolan’s new film “The Odyssey“ – a good story indeed about hospitality, values, redemption, and returning home after having lost one’s way, yet certainly not the story that Homer relates – there is one scene that captures “To Ship Oars“.
When Odysseus finally leaves the Island of the Lotus Eaters, he staps himself to the raft he has built and allows the ocean to take him where it will. That scene resonated strongly with me. Having gradually opened my heart to the guidance of the Universe in my own recovery, and by maintaining a daily practice of Mental or Spiritual Fitness, I now live the life of plankton.
