Finding Peace When You Can’t Control Life's Waves: A Surfer’s Guide to Enlightenment with Alastair Thompson

And somewhere along the way, though, he started to realize that maybe all of that movement wasn't just about chasing adventure.

Maybe some of it was running, running from himself, running from his past.

Eventually, the ocean, which had been part of his story from the beginning, will become a place that he didn't go to escape, but rather became a place that would teach him about himself, about life.

Today's conversation honestly might surprise you just how deep it gets.

We explore all the aspects of life from the fear and anxiety, from the worries to the joys of finding purpose, of finding meaning in the simple.

Today's greatest teacher is the ocean.

My hope is that today you're not just inspired or motivated by today's guest, but instead I hope that you find a new sense of enlightenment for your own life, to find ways in which you can get in touch with your own story, with your own life, to find what Alistair Thompson has found for himself.

That's what I want for you.

Today is episode 461 of Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

I'm your host, Kevin Lowe, my friend.

This is my interview with Alistair Thompson.

And hey, listen, if you decide to stay till the very end, which I highly encourage you to do so, just know that you're going to be greeted by a custom song produced by my custom music production agency, Kalo Music, where we took the essence of Alistair's story and turned it into a single song.

That song is currently streaming across Apple Music, Spotify, all the places.

You can find a link to the song inside of today's show notes.

Or, like I said, just know at the very end you'll get to hear this whole story shrunk down into just a song.

Oh my the power of music.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode, but more than anything else, I hope that you take what you learned today and implement it in your life.

What's up, my friend, and welcome back to Grit Grace and Inspiration.

Today I have the absolute joy of being joined in the studio by Alistair.

Alistair, my man, welcome to the podcast.

SPEAKER_03: Thanks, Kevin.

It's fantastic to be here.

I'm excited to be here and you know looking forward to our chat.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, man.

Well, I am too.

I'm excited to really just get to explore this entire just kind of journey that you've been on, bringing you up to where you are today, of course, with with your book that we will talk about through through the interview.

But where I really would would love to begin is just really getting to kind of understand the beginning, the the story, the the journey, and and kind of where it all began for you.

Because if I'm not mistaken, you actually were born and grew up in South Africa, correct?

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04: Uh I was born say back in the the dark days of apartheid.

I mean, I grew up in South Africa in the 70s and 80s, which gives you an idea of how old I am, but less about that.

Um I it was apartheid.

It was it was literally dark days, and it was only only when I went to university.

You know, I was when I went to university, I remember my my first year at university was the the year Nelson Mandela got out of jail, and I remember going to watch him watch him speak, a little freshman at university, you know, in this hall full of you know cheering cheering people watching him speak.

But yeah, that was that was me, South Africa.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, wow.

Okay.

So talk about South Africa for me a little bit.

Give me a an idea of just general, just life in general.

What was it like for you growing up as a kid?

SPEAKER_04: I mean, South Africa, Africa, Africa is is amazing.

It's it feels I I tell my friends, everyone should go there once.

You've got to sit in the dark, somewhere in the middle of nowhere, and feel what it must have been like for our ancestors way back then, because there is so much there's so much life.

It's wild, it's intense, it's it's beautiful and threatening at the same time.

You feel alive because it feels like everything wants to kill you and eat you.

SPEAKER_06: That that that sounds terrifyingly beautiful.

SPEAKER_04: It is terrifyingly beautiful, but I mean back back to you know, back to the sort of the recent past.

I was I was I grew up a very privileged, very white young boy in in a country that was deeply, deeply divided by racism and and hate and stupidity, really.

But I I didn't know any of that.

You know, I was just I was uh a boy, but there was, you know, as I grew, you you you know there's something wrong.

You know there's something very, very wrong, but you don't know what it is because no one talks about it.

Everyone pretends it's okay, especially, you know, all the all the white people.

And you know, my friends will I grew up with will say the same thing, though no one can really say, say how they knew.

I grew up and my life was was beautiful and happy.

I had everything I wanted, but there was still this undercurrent of you know, something's not right.

And I think that I didn't really know what it was.

And it took me a long, long time to come to terms with the fact that it wasn't just a part size, it was it was everything.

It's what that what that does to you, where you have to pretend that everything all is everything is okay when it's not.

You know, that that I think was probably the hardest part.

We ran, we played, we we had holidays with our family.

It was all it was all beautiful, it was all amazing, it was all it was what a a childhood should should be.

But it was built on on the back of something that was not that was not good, it was not real.

And I think that that hurt all of us somehow.

You know, both the both us, you know, the sort of the white people and and of course the the Africans, um who were who were oppressed.

I mean, they were that was the uh how to explain it.

I you know, I cannot.

You know, I can't go there.

I was I was not I was not a young African boy growing up in that situation.

SPEAKER_06: Well, would would you mind kind of unpacking, I guess a little bit for me, helping me to understand when what exactly kind of you're talking about, coming from my perspective, maybe my listener's perspective, who who has no idea of what life was like in South Africa today, and especially back in the 70s, the 80s, what was it that that you're alluding to that was kind of this undercurrent?

SPEAKER_04: Well, the undercurrent, it was, I mean, it was blatantly obvious.

Apartheid is uh the system of oppression where you know a group of Europeans disenfranchised and subjugated uh the Africans living in Africa, and it wasn't just Africans, if you were not literally, if you were not white, if you're not European, you were considered a second-class citizen, and you couldn't write, and you couldn't, you couldn't write, you couldn't vote, you couldn't do certain jobs, you were your whole life was designated as a designated a servant, essentially slavery, because

there were no other jobs open to you.

As a white person, I enjoyed amazing privilege.

I had a beautiful life, I had a beautiful home, I had you know everything that I could imagine.

You know, we had the house, two cars, holidays.

It was relatively safe for me, although in the background was the was a war.

The freedom fighters, the ANC, the African National Congress, and the related groups who were actively fighting apartheid, both on um political level and on a very real level were fighting wars inside the country, blowing up substations, you know, trying to create uh enough discomfort that apartheid fell down, but also in the countries around us.

But for me, growing up, it was easy to pretend that was not there was nothing happening.

The news was controlled, television was controlled, everything was controlled, so that the white people were able to pretend that everything was okay.

That I think that that pretense had a devastating effect on all of us.

All of us Europeans, all of us white people.

You know, we we pretended it was okay, and I think that's what we learned to do.

We all pretended it was it was okay, that we somehow it wasn't our fault.

And I'm talking about we we called ourselves liberals, my family were liberal, in that we didn't agree with apartheid, but there was nothing we could do about it.

So we just had to live with things the way they are, and I think that was that was even more harmful than being overtly racist, than saying, no, I agree with apartheid and I'm gonna fight to maintain it.

That at least was honest.

You know, it was wrong, it was evil, but how different was it, or how much less, or how much more evil was it than pretending that you could do nothing about it and you just were going to accept the way things were?

Because at the end of the day, it was beneficial for me to pretend that everything was okay, that um there was nothing I could do about it, it was beyond my control, that you know, I just I would just carry on and you know, let other people make the change for me.

I think that was that was hard.

Easy, but hard.

You know.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah.

So kind of what age were you and kind of what like part of growing up did maybe all of this really come to head for you personally?

Like this realization of the place that you were living in and how things were being done.

SPEAKER_04: That was probably you know, leaving leaving high school, going to university, and and seeing for the first time, you know, meeting people.

But Kevin, I mean I'm I'm embarrassed to say this.

It was, you know, I ran away.

I I didn't have to do anything.

It all happened, it all fell apart in the 80s, apartheid.

So by the time I was 17 when I left high school, apartheid was officially, it ended.

That was the the year that Nelson Mandela worked with the then president of or prime minister, I can't remember what we called it back then, of South Africa to dismantle apartheid and and build and create what was called a government of national unity.

Apartheid all fell down.

So in hindsight, looking back, I didn't have to pick up a gun for either side.

But at some point, I think that's something that everybody has to do, and it doesn't necessarily have to be a gun.

It can be a pen, it can be a it can be a plaque, it can be a banner, whatever it is, we need to do the right thing.

Spike Lee made a movie called Do the Right Thing.

I don't know if you you've ever seen it or or or listened to it, but it's essentially we can pretend things are not broken.

But as soon as we realize that they are, we have a moral obligation to do something.

If we don't, we become a shell of ourselves.

And I think that's for a long time I carried around the it's almost like the guilt of having lived through it and not having done anything about it because I didn't have to, because it was easier for me not to do anything.

And that was something I I came to terms with much later, after I'd left university, after I had um, you know, in my 30s somewhere, that I was carrying around a guilt that maybe I was too young but to have had to do anything, but still I think I should have I should have done more.

I think we all should have.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah.

It's always kind of wrestling in the aftermath with both the I guess we could call it the blessing and the curse of living a blessed life, you know?

SPEAKER_04: Yes.

Living a life of abundance and ease, when while all around us we see others are are potentially suffering.

And I think that's you know what what is the right thing to do?

What do we have to do?

I think in a case of apartheid, a system, any system of oppression, although most systems potentially oppress, that's a deep another conversation entirely.

But a system like apartheid, I think it was we should all we all have a moral obligation to do something.

And what that is, that's each of us individually has to make a choice.

But it's it's very hard.

And this got this got very deep, very quick, Kevin.

unknown: Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_06: Well, well, let's let's kind of shift gears slightly because I I want to, I guess what what I would like to understand before we get too far along, you know, like after going to university and stuff growing up, I would love to kind of understand a little bit more about you personally.

What what things shaped who you would become, whether it was good things, bad things, things that really were monumental in those pivotal childhood years.

Is there any things that you would say kind of stand out that you feel like kind of really contributed to building you into the man that you became?

SPEAKER_04: That's a great question, Kevin.

I mean, it there always is.

For me, things that stand out, I guess apartheid growing up in the system where a lot of us pretended that things were okay when they weren't.

So as a as a young person, that there was that growing up.

I went to boarding school.

Pink Floyd wrote a really good song called The Wall.

It talks a lot about you know what it's like to go to boarding school where you you're in um a situation where you have to learn to build a wall around you to survive in a in a very challenging situation.

Some kids are better at it than others.

I loved it as a little kid.

As a teenager, it was it was much harder.

It was not it's not the most supportive environment.

It's very, very demanding.

I didn't like it.

I became I became withdrawn.

I went into my head.

And for a long time, I guess I hid away from the responsibility, again, going back to doing what must be done, doing what we need to do.

I believe all of us have a something that we we need to do.

I mean, it it can be sending people to the moon if that's something we were born to do.

Maybe that's it.

It can be doing a you know a podcast, it can be writing a book, it can be raising good kids, it can be you know building a garden.

There is something that we all need to do, and for a long time, I avoided knowing what it was that I needed to do because I had learned to avoid looking carefully at myself.

It was easier that it was easier that way, Kevin.

I didn't as long as I didn't look too closely at myself, I didn't have to do anything about apartheid, I didn't have to do anything about boarding school, I didn't have to do I could just do what people expected me to do instead of doing what instead of doing what I what it was that I knew I wanted to do.

Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, yeah.

So I guess what I'm curious to know is where do things change for you in this story?

Where where does things kind of come into you taking control of your destiny and your of your life?

Where does that begin after university?

I uh what happens?

SPEAKER_04: That begins a few years, a number of years down the line, Kevin.

After university, I I travel for a bit, I do all the things that we're you know, we're supposed to do.

I go explore the world, I meet uh a nice lady, we we get married, we we have two amazing kids, and none of that, none of that I regret.

But in my uh late 30s, midlife crisis time, I joke sometimes that I had a midlife crisis in my early mid-20s when I canceled my career and went went traveling.

I used to be an engineer and I just I went traveling, but it was I was running away in hindsight.

But we do we do only what we know, what we're able to do, really, Kevin.

And um around about my my 40s, I I saw that really what I was doing, it was somehow not aligned with with who I was and how you know I uh I'm embarrassed to say this.

I you know, I I s I spent way too much time just in the computer, and I I I developed a s a problem with pornography, you know, became addicted to pornography, and that's it's something I'm not I'm not excited about, I'm not uh proud of, but it was a distraction from real life.

So wherever things got too hard or there were things I didn't want to look at, I could always, you know, the computer was brought pornography to my to my life in a way that was that was unmanageable for me.

And it was only when I came to terms with the fact that while I was wasting my life doing things I didn't want to do, I was wasting my life lying to people, lying to myself.

That it was really only then that I I'd say that I that that transition, that transformation came about.

And yeah, that that's a hard thing for me to to share with people, you know.

Yeah, you know, shit, man.

I I was I was a good person.

I am a good person.

But I spent, you know, it's so when I say I looked at I looked at pornography every day, it was it was every day, and it affected my interactions with my With my wife, with my kids, my job.

We all have our thing that we need to overcome, right?

We all have our challenges.

You know, some people drink, some people work, some people eat.

You know, for me it was really, it was, you know, pornography, and that was I had I had to stop that before I could start living.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, you know, you you mentioned a couple of times about running, running away.

Yeah.

And which I want to come back to that, but in regards to the pornography, I have to think of it as another form of running away.

SPEAKER_04: Oh, absolutely.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, man.

Instead of physically running to somewhere else, you're mentally running away, lost in that.

SPEAKER_04: Completely.

You know, as um I've done some, you know, done a lot of therapy.

I've done a lot of personal work on uh, you know, got into um a program for uh pornography, uh sex and love addiction, but also as a child, you're going to boarding school.

Yeah, and back back in those days, pornography wasn't available, but the running away, it's so true.

Even today, after you know, let's say decades of of having this mental pathway where things get hard, it's okay.

I can just take a turn, you know, open a open a browser and go and look at porn, and everything becomes okay.

So even today, when when things become challenging emotionally or you know, life gets challenging, I've I've got a little window that pops up in my brain that says, but it's okay.

You can just go, you know, just go look at pictures of naked women.

And I recognize that now.

It's a clear stepping away from stepping up.

And yeah, running away.

It's so true, Kevin.

I agree with you 100%.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, yeah.

Well, staying on that theme, running away, because you've mentioned it.

You you mentioned that you would end up kind of traveling, I believe, all over the world.

Was that as much of a desire as a young man to see the world, experience the world, or was that tied back to this idea of running, of just trying to find something better?

SPEAKER_04: I love that question, Kevin.

It was probably a bit of both as a young man.

Yes.

No, I I grew up, I've always loved, always loved reading.

Reading is is a beautiful place to go.

Books take you anywhere you want to go.

You just choose the right book.

And then, you know, I wanted to see the world.

So yes, that gave me that gave me the adventure.

Also, I knew there was a part of me that knew that I wasn't where I was supposed to be, that there was something, something missing, something wrong.

And I thought if I just went out and looked for it, I would find it.

And there was a part, part of me that that journey, you know, stepping out into the unknown.

It's part of growing up, that that transition, that change, that moving out of what is known into the unknown.

There was that, but I think it was also staying where I was physically.

I wasn't ready to to step up and and face what I needed to face then.

So yeah, there was a bit of running away, but it was also a part of running towards looking for something, if that makes sense.

So a bit of both.

There was a very ambiguous answer there, Kevin.

I I think I I think I very carefully managed to sidestep your your question.

SPEAKER_06: You did it so expertly though.

No.

So I guess what what I'm curious to know is I know for myself, I mean, there's there's a lot of times, you know, just in life when when I think about just the struggles of life and things just not going good, I just think to myself, like, gosh, I would love to just run away.

I would love to escape.

I would love to just go somewhere new where nobody knows my name.

Yeah, where I know nobody.

I can start over.

But I have to believe that that really doesn't really probably solve the problem in the end, because it all kind of comes back to what's going on inside our head.

SPEAKER_04: Oh, Kevin, as you say that I that is because what we we're really running from ourselves.

And you know, that I I found that it was it didn't matter how far I ran, it didn't matter where I I lived.

I lived in I lived in the desert in Egypt.

I was a diver and it came back to me there, and then I had to leave.

And I I went, I lived in the highlands of Scotland, and it comes back to there.

Wherever I've gone, we we can't run away from we can't run away from ourselves.

And I think that's that's essentially what we're doing when we run.

And even, you know, even running into my my naked, you know, the naked ladies that I used it as as a distraction, you can't run forever there too.

You know, eventually, as an alcoholic, you either drink yourself to death or you come to the right realization that you've got to stop and do something different.

You've got to, when you travel, you've got to stop and come, you know, face that thing from which you have been been running.

And I I'm going to the the book I wrote was really about, you know, I ran to the ocean, I got into and finally in in my 30s, I started to surf and I would go to the ocean.

The ocean was my became my my place where I would run, but also a place where I would find myself.

And the ocean I I see as a metaphor for life.

You cannot run away.

Life has this way of putting you into places where you have to you have to step up, you have to grow up, you have to look at yourself, you have to own your shit.

And the ocean was the space where I eventually started to look at myself.

I started to look at how I stepped up to the tiny challenges the ocean threw at me, the waves, the situations, the rips, the cold, the whatever it was, whatever challenges the earth, the the ocean threw at me.

I started to see parallels in my life.

So I think when we start to open ourselves up to accepting that we are constantly being asked a question, that is when we start to that is when we start to grow.

You know, we're always being asked a question.

Being on a podcast asks a question, crossing the street asks a question.

What are we learning?

Are we open to learn what we need to learn before we can before we can go to the next place?

SPEAKER_06: Yeah.

Yeah.

I love it.

The the ocean surfing.

When was it in your life that you first had that experience?

That that maybe that first trip to the ocean, the first time seeing somebody surf.

I mean, do you do you have that memory?

SPEAKER_04: Kevin, I don't have that memory, but I know there is a part of me that has always wanted to surf.

And I've always I've always loved the ocean.

There's always been I lived, I grew up inland, you know, the thousand kilometers or you know, 500 miles from the ocean.

And I remember the getting in the my parents' old station wagon, and or even they had a combi back then and driving to the ocean.

The getting to the ocean, being near the ocean, just watching the ocean was always a huge thing for me.

And then somehow I don't remember watching people surf.

I don't remember knowing when it was I wanted to surf, but I always knew somehow that I wanted to surf.

And it was, and that maybe that's what I was running for, running from too, but I it was only in my 30s that I I found a way to make my life surfable.

Does that make sense?

I moved to a yeah, I moved to a place where I could surf every day, and that was that was life changing.

I put myself in a place where I was doing something that I mean it's I'm completely, you know, sort of almost changing the subject.

Surfing is it's arbitrary, it's a random activity where you go spend a couple of hours paddling around on a little board for a few seconds of fleeting, almost instantly forgettable joy.

Why do we surf?

But for me, that those one and a half or two hours where I went into the ocean, they were the space where I could breathe, where I could feel, where I could think, where I could be myself more than anywhere else, and where I started to learn and started to open myself up to who I was.

I don't I don't know how to explain it, Kevin.

I guess we've all got our place, and that was mine.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, well, you know, it's it's a kind of a weird comparison, but um I was honestly just this morning, I was was, I think I was listening to another podcast, and uh they were were talking about I think they were talking about hunting and first experiences, hunting as kids.

And what I think when you're talking about surfing is I think of the overall experience more than just the moment in time.

So the moment we could say for surfing is the actual catching the wave, actually standing up on the board, riding the wave, the surfing that we all think about.

Yep.

Hunting, hunting, we think of the actual act of pulling the trigger, shooting, you know, the animal.

Well, I, you know, when I was listening to that podcast this morning, I was thinking back to me as a kid when when I grew up and would go hunting with my dad.

And I was sitting there thinking, and I thought, the memories aren't of pulling the trigger.

The memories are of setting up the tent out in the middle of nowhere.

It's cooking on the campfire stove, it's the overall experience of just being in nature, of being in the middle of nowhere, spending time with my dad, getting to enjoy just life in nature.

And so when thinking of surfing, again, I mean, the most just beautiful representation of life is the ocean.

The the fact that it has a rhythm to it, but it also has an unpredictability about it as well.

And, you know, from the paddling out to the sitting and the waiting in the anticipation to those little moments of bliss of actually catching the wave.

I think listening to you, what a beautiful representation of just life captured in a single activity.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah, Kevin, I uh thanks for sharing about the hunting.

I mean, it is, it's the whole experience.

It's I don't remember, like you say, you don't remember pulling the trigger, but you remember, you remember the moments.

I remember, you know, I surf, my son is is 15 now, and um we surf together.

And it's special just sitting out there, you know, you'll see a dolphin swim past.

The sun is, you know, the sun is rising, you the moon rising over there, just these little moments of not catching the wave.

Even getting ready, you know, just getting the car ready, the anticipation, driving over the hill, come over the hill, and you look down over the bay, and there's there's waves, just whatever they're peeling down the point, and that that sense of it's not the purpose, is not, it's almost like the purpose is not to catch the wave.

That is that is a distraction.

The purpose of hunting is not to pull the trigger, that is the distraction.

I mean, it is what we do it for, but the the whole activity is beautiful, and that I think you touched on that.

That's life.

You know, the whole activity is beautiful.

We live for the individual moments, the the perfect job, the perfect whatever, the getting somewhere, but it's not about getting somewhere, it's about being somewhere.

It took me a long time to learn that.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, yeah.

And what I am curious to learn from you about surfing is, you know, a lot of times in life we we have ideas and we have pictures in our mind of the way we think something is going to be.

And so let's take surfing, for instance.

In my head, I think of surfing, I think of, yes, the the sitting on the board, the waiting, the catching the wave.

But then actually living life a lot of times doesn't go quite like our mind has envisioned.

Instead, you get out there and you realize, holy crap, this is impossible.

How am I able to paddle out through these waves?

You're sitting there on the board, you're tipping over, you're looking like an idiot, let alone dare thinking you're going to catch a wave.

And so I'm curious for you is surfing, you know, when you first started, how did you not let those moments, because I'm sure you had those moments, of being like, what the heck am I doing?

How does that continue though to have you showing up and continually paddling out and trying again and trying again?

SPEAKER_04: Oh, another great question, Kevin.

And it's almost like I wish I knew, but I think it goes back to something I mentioned earlier is knowing what you've got to do.

Sometimes we get lucky and we we take our board out and it's nice and easy, and we we sort of paddle out without get our getting our hair wet, and you know, we we sit and we wait, and there's a nice little wave comes in, and we it's easy.

And that's like life.

Sometimes life seems easy, but there are other days where you can't get out.

It seems that the only thing keeping you from paddling or keeping you from giving up is sheer bloody-mindedness, insanity, just this determination.

I don't know where it comes from.

It's this part of you that says, Hell no.

I I you know, it's like fuck this.

I am getting this done.

And just pushing through because the alternative is is unbearable.

Is is not unbearable, but it's it's I'm going to do this.

And a joke underwater, no one can hear you scream.

You know, when you're you're paddling, you've been paddling for 20 minutes, and it feels like forever, and you look up and you see another wave, and you know that that wave is gonna drag you back further than you've paddled these last five minutes, and what are you gonna do?

There's something in you that makes you do the hard thing, not the easy thing.

And now you've got the humility of knowing, okay, maybe not today, you know, finding that balance.

But it it really is there's something inside us inside us, Kevin.

I don't know, something inside me that for a long time I ran away from doing what was hard.

And surfing was a a place that helped me to see that yeah, there was a certain amount of judgment required.

You know, there's some some oceans you cannot paddle out into, but there are other oceans where it will take work, but it's worth it.

And you know, making that choice and giving it back in yourself, that was something I learned from the ocean.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, yeah, I love it.

So I'm kind of curious, I guess, is what was the point in in your story when things started to change?

Let's stick with the metaphor of surfing.

When was the point when you finally caught maybe that first really good wave that really started taking you in the direction that that life has led?

All right.

SPEAKER_04: Going back to the hard questions, huh?

Yes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Appreciate you.

I remember you talk about that first wave.

I remember the first wave I caught that was truly surfing, Kevin.

It was um I've been surfing for probably five years.

Maybe not that for five years.

And I'd been out there and I pedaled into a wave, and I stood up on the wave, and there was something in this wave, there was this power, it's like this raw energy, and it it wasn't, I didn't catch the huge barrel, it wasn't perfect.

It was just something in the wave picked me up and carried me.

And I felt that when I was surfing, the combination of the wave and my surfing was bigger than me surfing alone or the ocean being alone.

There was this combination, it was bigger than anything I had imagined before that was possible.

And I still remember that wave clearly.

And my, as you asked the question, that wave here in Brazil, almost 20, 30 years ago, 25, 30 years ago.

And what was the the transition point?

The transition point was knowing that there was something out there that I was missing out on, and I didn't know what it was.

But I knew that, and this was before I wrote the my book, and I call it a surface guide to enlightenment, but enlightenment's a big word.

It was just what I learned from the ocean when I decided to listen, when I decided to stop thinking I knew everything, stop thinking I I use the expression, stop thinking I got this, I got this, I got this.

I stopped thinking that and I started to relax.

And I got to that point, Kevin, because I felt like I had been paddling against the current for so long, and I was just getting pushed back and pushed back and pushed back.

My relationships were empty, my you know, my children were were distant.

I was distant from them.

My marriage was had fallen apart, and that pushing through wasn't working anymore.

But I knew that there was a way somehow to get out, and I started listening.

So, to use a surfing metaphor, maybe I started paddling against the waves and stopped and waited for the waves to push me into a place where there was a bit of a rip to help me.

So the paddling became easier and working with the ocean instead of against the ocean.

Again, maybe I've sidestepped your question.

Question, Kevin, but it's that transition.

It was almost like the ocean.

I had to look at myself because I got put in a place where there was no other choice.

You know, I could keep doing what I was doing, but it wasn't gonna work.

It wasn't working and hadn't worked for a long time.

And the ocean was probably the clearest manifestation of that.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah.

Yeah.

So I guess what I'm curious is how do you, and how has it worked for you in your story, of balancing, finding this inner purpose, this inner understanding, maybe this inner enlightenment and understanding where you're supposed to be, what you're supposed to be doing, while balancing that with life is terms of career, with being a husband, with being a father.

How does all of that find a way of balancing out with one another?

SPEAKER_04: That's another very good question.

You know, I mentioned before that I was in a recovery program for you know my dependency on you know using pornography to avoid life.

But really, we all none of us have a choice about what happens around us.

The ocean is the ocean.

I have zero control over the ocean.

What I do have control over is when I go surfing, where I go surfing, the people I surround myself, when I surf, my equipment.

So I guess what I do is I I manage, I try and manage what I can, what is mine, Kevin.

So I I have children, I have a responsibility to pay their bills.

So I need to find a way to do that that is aligned with my values, of course, and my life, to pay their bills, to be a to own my responsibilities as a father, as a father.

As a husband, what are my responsibilities?

So I have certain obligations, things that I must do.

And I get to, you know, I get to decide what they are.

Do I want to be a husband?

Yes, I do.

Do I want to be a good husband?

Yes, I do.

So what does that entail?

So the enlightenment is living a practical life based on what I'm able to do, and then understanding that the things that I have no control over, that those I must just accept and do the best I can with the situation.

If I want to surf and the waves are small, then I'll take out my my longboard and I will surf small waves.

If I want to surf and the waves are big, then I will take out my shortboard and I will go to, you know, make sure I'm I'm I'm being safe and I'm surfing with someone who is capable and we can look out for each other.

The enlightenment, I think, is the piece that comes with letting go of what we what is not ours and knowing that what is ours, we're doing the best we can.

I think tying that into how we started this this interview, this conversation, forgiving myself also a little bit for not doing enough back then because I wasn't able to.

You know, that's that's it, Kevin.

I mean, it's we played the cards we're dealt to use a poker analogy, right?

We can imagine, we can fantasize about how things could be different.

I could be surfing a classic wave, I could be surfing a perfect wave, I could be surfing in warm water, the sun could be shining, it could, it could all be different.

But I can delude myself, I can live in that fantasy world of you know, pornography is the perfect fantasy.

You know, it's all fantasy.

You can live in that fantasy world or you can step into the way things are and be at peace with that.

I think that's a circle's guide to enlightenment is about being at peace with the way things are.

SPEAKER_06: And do you feel at this point in your journey that you've reached that point of enlightenment?

Oh, Kevin, your questions are great.

SPEAKER_04: Yes, until that guy on the pickup cuts me off in traffic, and then I just do my shirt emotion.

SPEAKER_06: Yes, yes, yes.

There's always life to contend with.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah, life, life like the ocean, you know, throws us, throws us curveballs.

It it it's I feel that the enlightenment is almost about letting go of it being perfect and knowing that there's always something, something new, something, you know, that pickup is gonna cut you off, that wave is gonna close out on you and throw you and hold you under for 20 minutes.

It's just that's just life, you know.

And we're gonna, yeah, you know, that's for me is it's almost like enlightenment, is letting go of me, of the I've got this, and you know, accepting that, well, I've got enough of this.

Okay, and this life is gonna show me something even more beautiful and even more exciting tomorrow, maybe.

Right now is beautiful and exciting and amazing and wonderful, but maybe it'll get hard tomorrow and that'll be even better.

I don't know.

That's hard, you know?

SPEAKER_06: It's yeah, yeah.

Well, well, before we get too far past something that you said a little bit ago that I want to come back to, and and to be honest with you, I don't even know where where it will go, what will come from it, but I just I can't fail to bring emphasis to something you said earlier about surfing.

And I couldn't help but think of just the the irony of the sport, of of life, of the ocean, is that you said that when the waves are big, you grab your shortboard.

When the waves are small, you grab your long board.

That seems completely opposite.

If we knew, if we knew nothing about surfing, do you feel like there's something we can unpack there?

Because I feel like there's gotta be something to this of when the waves are small, we grab the big board.

When the waves are big, we grab the small board.

That just doesn't make sense in in common sense.

You're right, Kevin.

SPEAKER_04: It doesn't actually.

There is there is a spectrum of big and small there.

You know, I I use small as as in just two feet and big as in six to eight feet, but there is 15, 20, 30 feet waves, and then you need a slightly bigger board.

Then the boards get bigger.

We need we need more support, we need more more structure, more stability, the more chaotic things go.

So there is a level of fun.

And the shortboard, longboard analogy is really different surfers surf different boards.

So there's some there are people who surf a long board on the big waves, and there are people who surf a small board on small waves.

It's the board is the board is the way we express ourselves.

It's it's not necessarily any any relation.

I think that as a surfing analogy, the size of the board is is is less important than the size of your your heart.

Because the bigger the wave gets, the more courage you need to paddle out there.

And I think that's that's a lot about talks a lot about adversity, Kevin, in that you know, it requires a lot of courage to step up and overcome adversity.

I mean, it's easy to to fall in fall into a place of of pity and say, nah, this isn't for me.

Um I'm gonna go, you know, sit in the beach and and watch other people do it.

Kevin, I I I've read a bit about your story, and you know, stepping up and doing what needs to be done in the face of adversity requires requires courage.

And regardless of the tools we use, the big board or the small board, you know, sometimes, you know, for some people, paddling out into a small wave.

I surf with a guy here in the south of Brazil, and he's technically blind.

And I've seen him, you know, going out in small waves, but I've seen him surfing big waves too.

And it's the amount of courage that entails is is enormous.

You know, our yeah, our our waves, however they come, are ours, you know, and how we deal with them, you know, the I think our internal resources are far more important than than the external tools that we may use.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, absolutely.

Absolutely.

Well, Alastair, your book, A Surface Guide to Enlightenment.

When did you come up with the idea that you wanted to write this book?

SPEAKER_04: Uh yeah, thanks, Kevin.

That's the the book.

I remember when I started traveling, I remember writing down one day I want to be a writer and I want to be a and I want to teach.

And I have a teaching qualification.

I've taught all sorts of crazy things.

But writing, I wrote, I wrote for travel publications, I wrote a lot of different things.

But the the book, Surfer's Guide to Enlightenment, probably took 30 years to write.

And probably another 10 when I was actively, you mentioned when we surf, surfing's not about catching the wave.

If we if we surf, if we go for a two-hour surf session, maybe we surf maximum for for 10 minutes.

Maximum.

You know, our rides are 10, 20 seconds long, and that's a good ride.

You know, two or three seconds is a bit of it.

So we spend a lot of time sitting.

And I I enjoy surfing by myself, and I'd spend a lot of time sitting on the ocean and reflecting on what was going on in my life, and then the ocean became this parallel, this metaphor.

You know, the waves suck today.

Life is hard, the waves are heavy today.

Yeah, life can be challenging.

Wow, it's beautiful out here.

Yes, life has these amazing, beautiful moments.

And it sat in my head for a long time.

I tried to write it two or three times, and I, you know, almost had complete books and they just weren't right.

And I remember rereading something and thinking, wait a minute, this is it.

Started writing and it felt right.

All of those hours in the ocean, they got condensed into these short little chapters on that were literally on loss, on death, on happiness, on the things I'd been thinking about in my life.

You know, how they how the ocean taught me to look at them in a way that was healthy, that was, let's say, that that brought light to my life, instead of letting me get caught up in the darkness, turning me towards resentment.

You know, there was really, I carried a lot of resentment about things I had no control over and letting go and how the ocean became that metaphor, that that pathway to transition.

There was a catharsis there, and it all came out in the in the book.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah, yeah.

Who is the person that that you hope reads this book?

Like the person in regards to maybe where they're at in life, what chapter, what season of life they're going through.

Like, who do you feel like that person is that you really hope reads your book?

SPEAKER_04: The person who needs to read it.

It's I was um chatting to a guy and he said one of the great things about this book is it doesn't need to be read cover to cover.

It's short, kind of concise chapters on on fear, on sharing.

I'm just on abundance, on perfection, on acceptance, short chapters on these concepts that that are part of our life.

It's for somebody who's looking for something.

And it doesn't necessarily need to be enlightenment.

Maybe we've lost someone, maybe we're struggling with a change.

Yes, if you surf, read the book.

You will, if you're thinking of surfing, read the book.

If you love the ocean, read the book.

But if you're a if you climb mountains, you will you will understand that the concepts of of the challenge, of the the mindset, the acceptance that is that is necessary to to reach up for that next hold.

If you're a if you're a jagger, if if there's some part of your life that you are struggling with, pick up the book, read it.

Maybe there's something in there that you need to read.

If you're you know, if you're sitting by the ocean, read the book.

You know, it's yeah, it's for everyone, but especially for those who are in a luminous space transforming in the process of transformation, who need to hear something.

Maybe it's maybe it's in there.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah.

Yeah.

And you know what I think is so powerful with this metaphor related to the ocean, related to surfing, is I feel like those two things together, ocean, surfing, it doesn't matter if you've ever seen somebody surf before.

It doesn't matter if you've ever actually been to the ocean before.

I feel like naturally in us all is this understanding of water, of movement, of waves.

It's just it's it's a piece of us.

It's and so that's what I think is so powerful about this is how it truly can be for everyone.

SPEAKER_04: Yeah.

I that you know, we're what do they say, 70% water.

We are the ocean.

We are salt and water.

You mentioned you start the day with your cold shower and you feel amazing.

If I can get into the ocean every day, sometimes I don't even need to catch the wave, a wave.

I just need to paddle out, I just need to sit there.

And my life balances.

That's my space.

And surfing, surfing is a thing I used, but the ocean, we've all got our ocean and we've all got our thing.

You know, for some of us, the ocean is the ocean, for some of us, it's it's something else.

So I think everybody can relate to it.

You know, our thing is to find our thing.

unknown: Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: If we find our thing, if we find that space where where we even for a moment can be can be at peace, then we can start to find that peace everywhere in our lives.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, Alistair, one of the last questions I want to ask you is how did you realize that maybe you were finally somewhere both internally and externally, that you could stop running?

SPEAKER_04: Oh, Kevin, I love your questions, man.

Ah, that's a hard one.

I think it was, I mean, it's it's it's fairly recent, but it's knowing that accepting myself, accepting the reality, letting go of the illusion, the the fantasy.

You know, I'm just I'm just a guy who likes to surf.

And that is enough.

You know, and I will I will share the best part of myself.

I'll share all of myself, because even the even the worst parts, you know, even the darkness, there is no light without darkness.

So accepting that I want to share the most authentic version of myself, be the best possible version of myself without deluding myself that I am, that I am perfect.

I am just enough for me.

I think that was when I stopped running, was saying, I'm enough for me.

All right.

Yeah.

And that is good enough now.

And it doesn't mean I'm gonna stop trying to do some cool and amazing things.

It doesn't mean I'm gonna stop challenging myself.

It doesn't mean I'm gonna not, I'm gonna sit on the beach.

It means I'm gonna paddle out there.

I'm still gonna put myself out there.

But it's putting myself out there from a place of a place of peace.

You know, I'm okay.

If I paddle out tomorrow and the you know, wave lands on my head, that is what it is, but I'm still gonna paddle out there the best way I can.

And I think that's that peace means I don't have to run anymore.

I don't have to run from people, I don't have to run from myself, and I don't have to run from reality.

Yeah, whatever that is.

SPEAKER_05: Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_04: And that's a beautiful place to be.

It is, right?

It is it is what it is supposed to be because that is the way it is.

You know, that is enough.

And if I don't if I don't like it, I'll do what I can to change it.

But if there are things that I cannot change, that is okay.

You know, but what I can change, it is my responsibility to step up and make that change.

SPEAKER_06: Absolutely, absolutely.

Yeah, Alistair, for somebody who's interested in in diving deeper into your story, into your book, where where can they find a copy of your book?

SPEAKER_04: Right.

So, right now it's on Amazon.com.

It's you can get it there.

If you don't like Amazon, if you want looking for it somewhere else, you can reach out to me.

Uh AlistaThomson.com, you can find me and reach out.

If you can't get the book, I'll send you a copy.

Always happy to help.

That's where I am.

I'm excited to be to be doing this, really.

I am I am writing.

I am my story.

If it somehow helps somebody out there, if they they read just a paragraph that they need to read, if they hear something they need to hear, I am exceptionally grateful to be to be able to be of service and really grateful to be able to be on this podcast with you, Kevin.

So thank you also for you know taking the time to speak with me today.

SPEAKER_06: Oh man, uh dude, this has been absolutely amazing.

I've enjoyed this so much.

For for the person listening, please be sure that you check out today's show notes.

I will be sure that links to Alistair's book are there directly on Amazon.

And I will also leave links to the website that he just mentioned where you can reach out to him directly.

So please be sure to check out those resources for you.

Alistair, my man, today's been truly incredible.

I've really enjoyed just getting to learn a little bit more about you.

And I guess just more so, just I guess I'm coming away at the end of our conversation day with just a renewed and fresh just perspective on life.

And you know, the fact is true is life is is not easy.

And some days are a struggle, some days are good.

And again, I Of the ocean.

It's just like the ocean.

It's just like a day out surfing.

Some days are good.

Some days are bad.

But you keep huddling out.

You keep huddling out.

Because you know it's just all worth it in the end.

It's just truly been a real blessing to have you on the podcast.

SPEAKER_04: Kevin, thank you so much for having me on the podcast.

It's been a real blessing to be here.

I really appreciate it, man.

A lot of gratitude for today.

SPEAKER_06: Yeah.

Well, thank you.

And for you listening, I thank you as always for being here.

I think I hope that you have enjoyed today's conversation with Alistair Thompson.

Please be sure to check out the show notes and grab a copy of A Surfer's Guide to Enlightenment.

And until next week, I'm Kevin Lowe, and this, of course, was Grit Grace and Inspiration.

SPEAKER_00: There is no conqueror, no last wave to write, only questions in the water, and the self we cannot hide.

SPEAKER_01: Was still though a darkness moved below it like an undiscovered swell.

So I learned to trust appearances, never questioned what lay beneath.

I mistook the lack of thunder for the evidence of peace.

I learned a man can live on land and still be lost at sea.

With his eyes fixed on the distance and his back turned to the deep.

So I chased the edge of every map.

Certain peace was somewhere else.

But every road I disappeared down led me deeper into myself.

The ocean became my teacher, but it never taught in words, it spoke in rips and undertoes.

In a language shaped by motion, it asked why I fought the current, why I feared what I could not change.

I went running to the ocean, and it taught me through the waves.

Climb through highlands cold and bare.

Every country was another way.

A man can change his longitude and carry the same sea with him.

There are undertoes that whisper.

There are rips disguised as a rest.

There are beautiful distractions that pull you from yourself.

I call drowning an escape roof.

While the life above me blurred, till the silence underneath it became the only truth I heard.

You can lose yourself in anything.

You can drown without the sea.

Every refuge held a mirror, every road returned to me.

The ocean became my teacher, but it never taught in words, it spoke in rips and undertoes.

In a language shaped by motion, it asked why I fought the current, why I feared what I could not change.

I went on into the ocean, and it taught me through the wave.