A Walk on the Beach at Sunset

It's more than a little bit ironic that although?Rich?and I met on?match.com, neither of us had mentioned "a walk on the beach at sunset" as one of our couple's goals,?but here we are - in Baja - walking on the beach at sunset.?

Walking on the beach at sunset was one of the most cliche phrases on too many dating site profiles. Why the heck do all these people want to walk on the damn beach at freakin' sunset!??I've learned that pre-judgment, or prejudice, is fatal to understanding.?

Only by immersing ourselves in the experience do we get the experience to meld with our bones.?The beach at sunset is majestic and fascinating because you are in the presence of the ocean.?

The ocean is furious and turbulent, spotlighting a proportional and wholly appropriate deflation of your ego.?You can smile at your insignificance and breathe more deeply as a result.

All day, you watch the turgid, roiling walls of water leaping up to become white-capped waves barreling towards you, eventually softening and falling onto the shore, dissipating into foaming pools of manageable splashes.?

It's best to dress knowing the waves will lap up your legs.?Everything at the beach exposes the transitory nature of life itself.?The impermanence, the rust, and the fragility of the frenetic activity of being alive settle on you, inviting you into the rhythm of Mother Nature, calming, and soothing your eyes, ears, and spirit.?

?Today I am encouraging us to take a second look at our emotions through the lens of "emoceans."

• Like the ocean,?emotions are a vast and powerful part of life, a vital energy shifting the landscape every second, every minute, every hour of every day.?
• Like waves,?emotions come and go.?
• Whether we walk beside them or not,?our emotions are always there, churning underneath the pulse of everyday life.?
• Taking the perspective that we can or should limit our emotions' force or "size" is akin to trying to build a wall to tame the seas.?
• If we stopped paying careful attention to the ocean while walking on the shoreline, we could get pulled into the undertow and, at best, get tossed around like a rag doll or, at worst, lose our life.?What we can manage is our?relationship to the expression of our emotions.?

The tools we can use to manage our emotional expressions include:?

• Deep respect
• Careful attention?
• Trust (what looks awesome, potent, and dangerous from a distance is ever-changing evolution full of life force).?In trusting, we learn that feelings unleashed allow full expression to dissipate gently, kissing the shore at dusk.?
• Emotions are as fluid as water. And as vital.?

Our challenge - as people in our relationships with our spouses, our families, our work, and our communities - is learning to share our emotions creatively and constructively.?

And as?Rich's two previous posts point out,?happiness and longevity are more likely in deep relationships with the best of friends within our lives -?from sunrise to sunset.

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