Learning to Surf the Waves

Written by: Jorinde Berben
Image credit: Jorinde Berben

It’s 2024! Happy New Year everyone!

2023 was a year in which I blogged very little, but not because there was nothing to blog about. It was an incredibly intense year, in which my partner renovated my bathroom, which meant living in dust for about 6 months, in which I dove into researching my autistic traits in women and what they might mean for me personally, in which I took two professional courses, saw 21 people find their way to my growing coaching/couples’ practice, joined a women’s circle, became a career coach, and managed to somehow stay afloat amidst an often chaotic household and parenting two neurodivergent kids.

Early in the year, I found that medication for ADHD doesn’t work for me, even though I’ve tried several different ones. In a podcast yesterday, I heard this is the case for about 30% of adults with ADHD, so not that uncommon. This meant that I had to forgo the idea of finding a quick and easy solution to the issues I’ve been struggling with, especially since caffeine, which used to be my quick fix, is affecting both my mental and physical health. So I’ve switched to decaf as well.

When I look back on the last year, I can see some major lessons emerge.

On the one hand, the invitation was to let go of wanting to control the circumstances and the people in my life. Whenever I tried to control my environment, things seemed to slip away from me and they turned out different from what I’d hoped. The state of my house, my struggles with finding an accounting program that could work for the business, the battle with my battling children, the financial consequences of being self-employed… it all caused so much stress that the only options either seemed to let go or to go under, and that was not a path I wanted to take again.

Over the course of the year, it seemed that taking this approach, not battling the waves, was working better than being pulled under each time. But there was a step 2 that was also beckoning:

Instead of just drifting with the waves, how about trying to surf them? This meant proactively looking for where the upturns or downturns were going to be, and to take those into account.

One of the waves I’ve been trying to surf is that of my menstrual cycle. The times I didn’t listen to my own advice on that matter (i.e. planning a full weekend of meetings or a trip at the start of my cycle), were great reminders of what happens when you don’t listen to that inner voice of wisdom: emotions run wild and my mind is nowhere to be found.

Another way of surfing the wave was to really look at the way my family is functioning and to try to work with it, rather than finding ways to push it into a different form. This meant, for example, installing Pokemon Go on my phone so my son and I could go on walks together. Or planning a trip with my daughter full of Japanese-themed activities because that’s what she’s currently obsessed with.

It also meant planning a trip to Luxemburg by myself, allowing space in between all those moments that surfing the wave, finding the path of least resistance, still clashes with what I actually want and need.

What I’ve mostly grown to rely on throughout 2023 is the voice of God guiding me through my days, and the difficult moments of my life. It was only about 5 years ago that I reconnected with the spirituality that guided me through my teens in a powerful psychedelic trip, and especially in the last two years, this presence has become the voice of wisdom, courage and grace in times of trouble. It’s also the voice that drops me hints and insights during coaching sessions, and points out the beauty and opportunities around me. I couldn’t have come out of 2023 unscathed without it.

And that voice, again and again, reminds me that wherever we go, we are never really alone.

I hope you are excited for the coming year, even if only because you can leave 2023 behind you. There’s promise in the month of January, of new waters and new waves.

Let’s surf them together!