How Dolphins Taught Me Mindfulness
A Lesson Learned at the Ocean’s Edge
Recently I took my children to the beach for a week. We were recovering from that existence known as distance learning. There wasn’t much distance about it since our family of five was sequestered inside four walls for months on end. We had been trying to make the best of an unexpected and difficult situation, but after several months we were done.
Burnt out.
Desperate for a change of scenery.
I had the marvelous opportunity to escape from our confines and enjoy the vast open waters of the Atlantic Ocean.
We have been going to the Jersey Shore for family reunions every summer for the past ten years. In all those years, and frankly, for all of my life, I had never seen dolphins swimming freely in the wild ocean. During this particular week that we were there, we saw them nearly every day.
Dolphins happen to be one of my favorite animals. My childhood dream was to be a dolphin trainer. When I was ten years old, I had gone to a dolphin show at an aquarium and was mesmerized by their effortless gliding and jumping through the water. I loved the tricks they could do and was fascinated by their abilities to communicate with humans.
On a trip to Ireland years ago, I found a place that offered the chance to swim with dolphins. Unfortunately, there was just not enough time to fit it in with our itinerary. Swimming with dolphins is still on my bucket list.
So instead of training dolphins or swimming with dolphins, I have spent the majority of my life as a nurse taking care of children. I have no regrets, but that dolphin dream does make it’s way into my thoughts now and then.
Anyway, enough of my dreaming, back to reality. Here I was, sitting on the beach, breathing in the sea air and watching my children gleefully body surf the waves. Suddenly just beyond them about 50 yards away, I saw some splashing and a fin appear. My childhood was also impacted by the movie Jaws, so at first glance, I thought I was about to witness a shark attack.
But then another fin appeared and arced through the water.
Soon there was a pod of dolphins darting and leaping through the waves, swimming parallel to the shore.
I jumped from my chair and grabbed my phone to get a picture of this rare sighting. These beautiful creatures continued to surface briefly before disappearing in the surf, rendering a picture nearly impossible. I will admit that the thought did cross my mind to try and swim out there and join them, but I was not keen on the possibility of a shark encounter.
Over the next few days, the same scenario would play out. The unexpected joy of seeing dolphins, frantically trying to capture a decent picture or even video of them, then sitting back down in defeat.
In my desperate attempt to capture the moment I ended up missing the moment in its entirety.
In trying to seize an experience with our smartphones and posting all over social media, we miss out on the opportunity to be truly present and gain the more lasting benefit that mindfulness brings.
The fleeting transient nature of posting pictures on our various social platforms only brings a brief instant of pleasing gratification. Yes, we can look back on these treasured times and relive them through the power of a captured image, but we remain in the past — the glow of nostalgia.
I appreciate the art of photography and the power a single image can have in evoking strong emotion. I spend countless hours every year creating photo books that summarize a year in the life of my family.
But those dolphins reminded me that not everything in life needs to be documented and shared with our social networks.
Often the act of pausing and taking in our surroundings — really using all of our senses to soak in the present — can have a deeper and more nourishing impact on our soul.
Every moment of each day offers an opportunity to grow and gain a deeper understanding of ourselves and the world around us. It is human nature to overlook many of these day-to-day experiences.
But how many occasions do we miss because we are immersed in our digital devices? Or caught up in trying to capture a moment digitally rather than allowing the moment to capture us?
On our final day at the beach, we once more witnessed the graceful dolphins. But this time I left my phone on my beach chair, stood at the ocean’s edge, and basked in the wonder of it all.
