Are You a Dolphin on the Ice?

I did a rare thing this morning. I turned on the news. What popped up is an image I won't soon forget: five dolphins stuck in the icy waters of New Finland. I could hear their cries as their tails waded from one icy surface to another.

The reporter indicated that five dolphins were trapped by ice in New Finland, that ice cutters couldn't be used to get them out (for fear it might kill the dolphins in the process), and the only hope was mother nature, warm weather that could melt the ice and set the dolphins free.

Something about this story touched a chord in me. After all, dolphins are symbols of healing and joy, virtually the only mammals who live in the water. They're like us, maybe our best selves, but not us.

One question kept coming back to me, "Are you a dolphin on the ice?"

Dolphins, by nature, are free, fun-loving creates. Extremely intelligent, dolphins communicate better than most, require companionship and socialization, and, due to their very sensitive skin, love being touched.

In many ways, they're like us so when I saw the image, it immediately hit me that there was a lesson to be learned here.

There are times in life when it feels like you're doing fine. You wake up, go to work, come home, see the kids, eat dinner, put everyone to bed, read a book, go to sleep, and wake up the next day to do it all over again. It's normal. It's "the usual." It's what you call life.

But are you really living it?

It is so easy to get trapped in the icy waters of life and not know it until it's almost too late. Why? Because you're used to adapting.

One day, the water was lukewarm. It was a normal day in your normal life. The next day, you get laid off from work or your spouse starts coming home late or the doctor wants to see you in person. You shrug and say, "Ok, it just got a little colder. Let me put on a jacket, some gloves, a hat and I'll be fine."

There's a certain numbness to "fine" just as there is a certain numbness to living in ice cold waters. Eventually, something big hits and if you didn't know you were in icy waters then, you know it now. Whether it's death, divorce, desertion, or financial ruin, it hits like a rock and its residue remains like the ash of a volcano and, now, in the midst of it, you know two things:
1) You're stuck
2) You'll do anything to get out

But what most people do here is wage war against the circumstance rather than learn from it. So, like the dolphins, you kick and fight and cry, all to no avail. The raging against the situation increases your feelings of hopelessness and despair.

At some point, you get too tired to fight. The water's been too cold for too long. Everything you've tried hasn't worked and you come to a very big fork in the road. Here you have two choices:
1) Quit
2) Surrender

There is a difference. To quit means to give up, to give in, to retract all efforts (mental and physical) and to be resigned to a fate that has no good in sight.

Surrender is a whole other choice. When you surrender, you acknowledge that there is something greater than you in this world that made you, lives in you and orchestrated this entire situation. You do all that you can and, in this moment, you turn the entire situation over to a higher power, knowing and trusting that, at any moment, the sun could shine, the temperature could go up, and you could break free.

However, in order to do that, you can't afford to lose your mind. Surrender means you stop the external struggle and you build the internal courage. It means you take on a greater force than you've ever known by accepting the fact that, in life, all things have a way of working themselves out... if you are ready and willing to stay the course.

Quitters never win, not because they're not good enough but because they don't mentally stay in the game long enough. Those who surrender never give in and never give up. What they do, however, is rest and trust. If you haven't learned to do these two things yet, life will certainly give you plenting of experiences to learn it later.

Your defeat isn't sealed by your circumstances but your victory is guaranteed by your approach. In life, be sure to take a positive one!

Final Point: Anyone can be a dolphin in the ice and not know it. Be alive in your life now so an experience doesn't have to come along to make you wake up later. Either way, no matter what happens, know one thing for sure and affirm:

All situations work out for the highest good of all.

Know that this is true ALWAYS...