🌊 "You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn how to surf.” Jon Kabat-Zinn 🌊
Jon Kabat-Zinn is an American professor emeritus and is the creator of the MBSR - Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction.
Mindfulness isn’t about controlling what happens, it’s about learning how to meet each moment with presence, steadiness, and compassion. 💙
Life will always bring its waves — challenges, emotions, relationship challenges, and change. We can’t stop them from coming, but we can learn to ride them with awareness and balance. 🏄♀️
We can’t always control what arises, whether it’s a partner’s mood, a loved one’s reaction, or the tide of our own stress and sadness.
But mindfulness teaches us that we don’t need to control the ocean. What we can do is learn how to ride it.
In relationships, this might mean noticing when tension rises and choosing to respond with patience rather than react with anger.
It might mean allowing a partner’s emotions to exist without feeling we have to fix them.
In our inner world, learning to “surf” means practicing awareness—acknowledging feelings of anxiety, grief, or frustration without being pulled under by them.
By staying present, breathing, and grounding ourselves, we allow emotions to pass like waves, rather than fighting against them.
Mindfulness is not about avoiding difficulty, but about finding balance and flow within it.
With practice, each wave becomes less of a threat and more of an opportunity to deepen our resilience, compassion, and connection.
💙 Next time the waves rise, pause. Notice. Breathe.
And gently remind yourself: You are learning how to surf.
