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

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

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

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

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

Kevin Lowe: We explore all the aspects of life from the fear and anxiety.

Kevin Lowe: From the worries to the joys of finding purpose, of finding meaning in the simple.

Kevin Lowe: Today's greatest teacher is the ocean.

Kevin Lowe: 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.

Kevin Lowe: To find ways in which you can get in touch with your own story.

Kevin Lowe: With your own life, to find what Alistair Thompson has found for himself.

Kevin Lowe: That's what I want for you.

Kevin Lowe: Today is episode 461 of Grit, Grace, and Inspiration.

Kevin Lowe: I'm your host, Kevin Lowe. My friend, this is my interview with Alistair Thompson.

Kevin Lowe: 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, K-Lo Music, where we took the essence of Alistair's story and turned it into a single song.

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

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

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

Kevin Lowe: Oh my, the power of music.

Kevin Lowe: 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.

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

Kevin Lowe: Today, I have the absolute joy of being joined in the studio by Alistair.

Kevin Lowe: Alistair, my man, welcome to the podcast.

Alastair Thompson: Thanks, Kevin. It's fantastic to be here. I'm excited to be here and looking forward to our chat.

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

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

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

Alastair Thompson: Oh, yeah. I was born, say, back in the dark days of apartheid.

Alastair Thompson: 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. And it was apartheid.

Alastair Thompson: It was literally dark days. And it was only Only when I went to university and I was when I went to university, I remember my my first year at university was the year Nelson Mandela got out of jail.

Alastair Thompson: 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.

Alastair Thompson: But yeah, that was that was me, South Africa.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. Wow. OK, so talk about South Africa for me a little bit.

Kevin Lowe: Give me an idea of just general, just life in general. What was it like for you growing up as a kid?

Alastair Thompson: I mean, South Africa, Africa, Africa is amazing.

Alastair Thompson: It feels, I tell my friends, everyone should go there once.

Alastair Thompson: You've got to sit in the dark somewhere in the middle of nowhere and feel what it must have been like for our life.

Alastair Thompson: 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

Kevin Lowe: That that that sounds terrifyingly.

Alastair Thompson: Beautiful it is terrifyingly beautiful but i mean Back to the recent past, I grew up a very privileged, very white young boy in a country that was deeply, deeply divided by racism and hate and stupidity, really.

Alastair Thompson: But I didn't know any of that.

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

Alastair Thompson: 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 white people.

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

Alastair Thompson: I grew up and my life was beautiful and happy. I had everything I wanted, but there was still this undercurrent of, you know, something's not right.

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

Alastair Thompson: And it took me a long, long time to come to terms with the fact that it wasn't just apartheid. It was everything.

Alastair Thompson: What that does to you, where you have to pretend that everything is okay when it's not.

Alastair Thompson: That, I think, was probably the hardest part.

Alastair Thompson: We ran, we played, we had holidays with our family. It was all beautiful. It was all amazing.

Alastair Thompson: It was what a childhood should be. But it was built on the back of something that was not good.

Alastair Thompson: It was not real.

Alastair Thompson: 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 who were who were oppressed.

Alastair Thompson: I mean, they were that was the how to explain it. I, you know, I cannot I can't go there. I was I was not I was not a young African boy growing up in that situation.

Kevin Lowe: Well, 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 has no idea of what life was like in South Africa today and especially back in the 70s, the 80s.

Kevin Lowe: What was it that you're alluding to that was kind of this undercurrent?

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

Alastair Thompson: Apartheid is a system of oppression where, you know, a group of Europeans disenfranchised and subjugated the Africans living in Africa.

Alastair Thompson: It wasn't just Africans. If you were not literally, if you were not white, if you were 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.

Alastair Thompson: 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.

Alastair Thompson: As a white person, I enjoyed amazing privilege.

Alastair Thompson: I had a beautiful life. I had a beautiful home. I had everything that I could imagine.

Alastair Thompson: We had the house, two cars, holidays.

Alastair Thompson: It was relatively safe for me, although in the background was a wall.

Alastair Thompson: The freedom fighters, the ANC, the African National Congress, and the related groups who were actively fighting apartheid, both on...

Alastair Thompson: Political level and on a very real level were fighting wars inside the country, blowing up substations, you know, trying to create enough discomfort that apartheid fell down, but also in the countries around us.

Alastair Thompson: But for me, growing up, it was easy to pretend that there was nothing happening.

Alastair Thompson: The news was controlled, television was controlled, everything was controlled.

Alastair Thompson: 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

Alastair Thompson: 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.

Alastair Thompson: I'm going to fight to maintain it. That at least was honest.

Alastair Thompson: You know, it was wrong. It was evil. But how different was it?

Alastair Thompson: 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?

Alastair Thompson: Because at the end of the day, it was beneficial for me to pretend that everything was okay, that there was nothing I could do about it.

Alastair Thompson: 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.

Alastair Thompson: I think that was, that was hard, easy, hard, you know?

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. So kind of what age were you and kind of what part of growing up, did maybe all of this really come to head for you personally, like this realization of being.

Kevin Lowe: The place that you were living in and how things were being done?

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

Alastair Thompson: 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 back then of of south africa to dismantle apartheid and and build and create what was called a government of national unity.

Alastair Thompson: Apartheid all fell down. So in hindsight, looking back, I didn't have to pick up a gun for either side.

Alastair Thompson: But at some point, I think that's something that everybody has to do.

Alastair Thompson: And it doesn't necessarily have to be a gun. It can be a pen.

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

Alastair Thompson: Spike Lee made a movie called Do the Right Thing. I don't know if you've ever seen it or listened to it, but it's essentially we can pretend things are not broken.

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

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

Alastair Thompson: 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's easier for me not to do anything.

Alastair Thompson: And that was something I came to terms with much later, after I'd left university, after I'd, you know, in my thirties 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.

Kevin Lowe: 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.

Alastair Thompson: Yes living a life of abundance and ease when 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 of oppression, although most systems potentially oppress, that's another conversation entirely, but a system like apartheid, I think it was...

Alastair Thompson: We should 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 very hard.

Alastair Thompson: And this got very deep, very quick, Kevin.

Kevin Lowe: Yes, yes.

Kevin Lowe: Well, well, let's let's kind of shift gears slightly because I want to I guess what I would like to understand.

Kevin Lowe: And 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.

Kevin Lowe: 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?

Kevin Lowe: 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?

Alastair Thompson: That's a great question, Kevin. I mean, there always is.

Alastair Thompson: For me, things that stand out, I guess apartheid growing up in the system where a lot of us pretended to.

Alastair Thompson: That things were okay when they weren't.

Alastair Thompson: So as a young person, there was that growing up. I went to boarding school.

Alastair Thompson: Pink Floyd wrote a really good song called The Wall.

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

Alastair Thompson: Some kids are better at it than others. I loved it as a little kid.

Alastair Thompson: As a teenager, it was much harder.

Alastair Thompson: It's not the most supportive environment. It's very, very demanding. I didn't like it.

Alastair Thompson: 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.

Alastair Thompson: I believe all of us have a...

Alastair Thompson: Something that we we need to do i mean it it can be sending people to the moon if that's something we're 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.

Alastair Thompson: It was easier that way, Kevin. 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 it was that I knew I wanted to do. Does that make sense?

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

Kevin Lowe: Where does things kind of come into you taking control of your destiny of your life? Where does that begin after university?

Alastair Thompson: Oh, that...

Kevin Lowe: What happens?

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

Alastair Thompson: After university, I travel for a bit. I do all the things that...

Alastair Thompson: We're supposed to do. I go explore the world. I meet a nice lady. We get married.

Alastair Thompson: We have two amazing kids. And none of that, none of that I regret.

Alastair Thompson: But in my late 30s, midlife crisis time, I joke sometimes that I had a midlife crisis in my mid-20s when I canceled my career and went when 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 yeah i'm embarrassed to say this i you know i i i spent

Alastair Thompson: way too much time just in the computer and i i developed this 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 proud of, but it was a distraction From real life.

Alastair Thompson: 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 life in a way that was unmanageable for me.

Alastair Thompson: And it was only when I came to terms with the fact that, well, I was wasting my life doing things I didn't want to do.

Alastair Thompson: I was wasting my life lying to people, lying to myself, that it was really only then that I'd say that I, That, that transition, that transformation came about.

Alastair Thompson: And yeah, that, that's a hard thing for me to, to share with people, you know, you know, shit, man, I, I was, I was a good person.

Alastair Thompson: I am a good person, but I spent, you know, it's when I say I looked at, I looked at pornography every day.

Alastair Thompson: It was, it was every day and it affected my interactions with my, with my wife, with my kids, my job.

Alastair Thompson: We all have our thing that we need to overcome, right? We all have our challenges.

Alastair Thompson: You know, some people drink, some people work, some people eat.

Alastair Thompson: You know, for me, it was really, it was, you know, pornography. And that was...

Alastair Thompson: I had to stop that before I could start living.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, you mentioned a couple of times about running, running away.

Kevin Lowe: 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.

Alastair Thompson: Oh, absolutely. Yeah, man.

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

Alastair Thompson: Completely. You know, I've done a lot of therapy.

Alastair Thompson: I've done a lot of personal work on that, you know, got into a program for pornography, sex, and love addiction.

Alastair Thompson: But also as a child you go into 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 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.

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

Alastair Thompson: You can just go, you know, just go look at pictures of naked woman.

Alastair Thompson: And I recognize that now. It's a clear stepping away from stepping up.

Alastair Thompson: And yeah, running away. It's so true, Kevin. I agree with you 100%.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, yeah. Well, staying on that theme, running away, because you've mentioned it.

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

Kevin Lowe: Was that as much of a desire as a young man to see the world, experience the world?

Kevin Lowe: Or was that tied back to this idea of running, of just trying to find something better?

Alastair Thompson: I love that question, Kevin. It was probably a bit of both as a young man. Yes.

Alastair Thompson: I grew up, I've always loved, always loved reading.

Alastair Thompson: Reading 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 It's part of growing up, that transition, that change, that moving out of what

Alastair Thompson: is known into the unknown. There was that.

Alastair Thompson: But I think it was also staying where I was physically.

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

Alastair Thompson: 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. A bit of both.

Alastair Thompson: There was a very ambiguous answer there, Kevin.

Alastair Thompson: I think I very carefully managed to sidestep your question.

Kevin Lowe: You did it so expertly, though. Thank you.

Kevin Lowe: No, so I guess what I'm curious to know is I know for myself, I mean, there's a lot of times, you know, just in life when I think about, just the struggles of life and things just not going good.

Kevin Lowe: I just think to myself, like, gosh, I would love to just run away.

Kevin Lowe: I would love to escape. I would love to just go somewhere new where nobody knows my name, where I know nobody. I can start over.

Kevin Lowe: 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.

Alastair Thompson: Kevin, as you say that, that is because what we're really running from ourselves and you know, that I, I found that it was, it didn't matter how far I ran.

Alastair Thompson: It didn't matter where I, I lived. I lived in, I lived in the desert in Egypt.

Alastair Thompson: I was a diver and it came back to me there and then I had to leave.

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

Alastair Thompson: Wherever I've gone, we can't run away from it.

Alastair Thompson: We can't run away from ourselves. And I think that's essentially what we're doing when we run. And even, you know, even running into My naked, you know, the naked ladies that I used as a distraction, you can't run forever there too.

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

Alastair Thompson: You got it when you travel you've got to stop and come you know face 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 of putting you into places where you have to you have to step up you have

Alastair Thompson: to grow up you have to look at yourself. You have to own your shit.

Alastair Thompson: 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 ocean threw at me.

Alastair Thompson: I started to see parallels in my life.

Alastair Thompson: 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.

Alastair Thompson: You know, we're always being asked a question, being on a podcast, ask the question, crossing the street, asks a question.

Alastair Thompson: 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?

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. Yeah. I love it. The, the ocean surfing.

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

Kevin Lowe: Maybe that first trip to the ocean, the first time seeing somebody surf.

Kevin Lowe: I mean, do you have that memory?

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

Alastair Thompson: And I've always loved the ocean.

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

Alastair Thompson: 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 that getting to the ocean being near the ocean just watching the ocean was always it 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.

Alastair Thompson: And maybe that's what I was running from too. But it was only in my 30s that 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.

Alastair Thompson: 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.

Alastair Thompson: Why do we surf? But for me, 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 to learn and started to open myself up to who I was. I don't, I don't know how to explain it, Kevin.

Alastair Thompson: I guess we've all got our place and that was mine.

Kevin Lowe: 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 they were, were talking about, I think they were talking about hunting.

Kevin Lowe: And first experiences, hunting as kids.

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

Kevin Lowe: 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.

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

Kevin Lowe: Well, 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.

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

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

Kevin Lowe: It's cooking on the campfire stove.

Kevin Lowe: 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 and nature.

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

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

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

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

Alastair Thompson: Yeah, Kevin, thanks for sharing about the hunting. I mean, it is.

Alastair Thompson: It's the whole experience. I don't remember, like you say, you don't remember pulling the trigger, but you remember...

Alastair Thompson: And you remember the moments I remember, you know, I surf, my son is 15 now, and we surf together.

Alastair Thompson: And it's special just sitting out there.

Alastair Thompson: You know, you'll see a dolphin swim past. The sun is, you know, the sun is rising, the moon rising.

Alastair Thompson: You know, they're 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.

Alastair Thompson: 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.

Alastair Thompson: I mean, it is what we do it for, but the whole activity is beautiful.

Alastair Thompson: And that, I think you touched on that. That's life.

Alastair Thompson: You know, the whole activity is beautiful.

Alastair Thompson: We live for the individual moments, the perfect job, the perfect whatever, the getting somewhere. But it's not about getting somewhere.

Alastair Thompson: It's about being somewhere. It took me a long time to learn that.

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

Kevin Lowe: And so let's take surfing, for instance.

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

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

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

Kevin Lowe: How am I able to paddle out through these waves?

Kevin Lowe: You're sitting there on the board. You're tipping over. You're looking like an idiot.

Kevin Lowe: Let alone, they are thinking you're going to catch a wave. And so I'm curious for you is...

Kevin Lowe: Surfing, you know, when you first started, how did you not let those moments?

Kevin Lowe: Because I'm sure you had those moments of being like, what the heck am I doing?

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

Alastair Thompson: 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 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 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.

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

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

Alastair Thompson: I don't know where it comes from.

Alastair Thompson: This part of you that says, hell no.

Alastair Thompson: It was like, fuck this. I am getting this done.

Alastair Thompson: And just pushing through because...

Alastair Thompson: The alternative is unbearable. It's not unbearable, but it's, I'm going to do this.

Alastair Thompson: And I joke, underwater, no one can hear you scream.

Alastair Thompson: You know, when 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 going to drag you back further than you've paddled these last five minutes and what are you going to 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 really is there's something inside us inside us Kevin I

Alastair Thompson: don't know something inside me that for a long time I ran away from doing what was hard and surfing was a place that helped me to see that yeah there was a certain amount of judgment required you know there's some some Some oceans you cannot paddle out into, but there are other oceans where it will take work, but it's worth it.

Alastair Thompson: And making that choice, giving back in yourself, that was something I learned from the ocean.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. Yeah. I love it. So I'm kind of curious, I guess, is what was the point, in your story when things started to change?

Kevin Lowe: Let's stick with the metaphor of surfing.

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

Alastair Thompson: All right. Going back to the hard questions, huh?

Kevin Lowe: Yes.

Alastair Thompson: Thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. I remember you talk about that first wave.

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

Alastair Thompson: It was, I'd been surfing for probably five years, maybe not that, four, five years.

Alastair Thompson: And I'd been out there and I paddled into a wave and I stood up on the wave and there was something in this wave. There was this power.

Alastair Thompson: It's like this raw energy. And it wasn't, I didn't catch the huge barrel.

Alastair Thompson: It wasn't perfect. It was just something in the wave picked me up and carried me.

Alastair Thompson: 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.

Alastair Thompson: It was bigger than anything I had imagined before that was possible.

Alastair Thompson: And I still remember that wave clearly. As you asked the question, that wave here in Brazil almost...

Alastair Thompson: 20, 30 years ago, 25, 30 years ago.

Alastair Thompson: And what was 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.

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

Alastair Thompson: 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.

Alastair Thompson: I got this. I got this. I stopped thinking that.

Alastair Thompson: 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.

Alastair Thompson: And I was just getting pushed back and pushed back and pushed back.

Alastair Thompson: My relationships were empty. My children were distant. I was distant from them.

Alastair Thompson: My marriage had fallen apart.

Alastair Thompson: And that pushing through wasn't working.

Alastair Thompson: Anymore. But I knew that there was a way somehow to get out.

Alastair Thompson: And I started listening.

Alastair Thompson: 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.

Alastair Thompson: So the paddling became easier and working with the ocean instead of against the ocean again maybe i've sidestepped your 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 going to work it wasn't working and hadn't worked for a long time and the ocean was probably the clearest manifestation of that

Kevin Lowe: 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 in understanding, where you're supposed to be, what you're supposed to be doing, while balancing that with life in terms of career, with being a husband, with being a father.

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

Alastair Thompson: 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.

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

Alastair Thompson: The ocean is the ocean. I have zero control over the ocean.

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

Alastair Thompson: So, I guess what I do is I manage, I try and manage what I can, what is mine, Kevin. So, I have children. I have a responsibility to pay their bills.

Alastair Thompson: So, I need to find a way to do that that is aligned with my values, of course, and my life.

Alastair Thompson: To pay their bills, to own my responsibilities as a father.

Alastair Thompson: As a husband, what are my responsibilities? So I have certain obligations, things that I must do, and I get to decide what they are.

Alastair Thompson: Do I want to be a husband? Yes, I do. Do I want to be a good husband?

Alastair Thompson: Yes, I do. So what does that entail?

Alastair Thompson: 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.

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

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

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

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

Alastair Thompson: But now stepping up where I have to step up, you know, that's it, Kevin. I mean, we play the cards we dealt, to use a poker analogy, right?

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

Alastair Thompson: I could be surfing a classic wave. I could be surfing a perfect wave.

Alastair Thompson: I could be surfing in warm water. The sun could be shining.

Alastair Thompson: 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.

Alastair Thompson: 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 surface guide to enlightenment is about being at peace with the way things are.

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

Alastair Thompson: Oh, Kevin, your questions are great. Yes, until that guy in the pickup cuts me off in traffic and then I just do my shit,

Kevin Lowe: You know?

Kevin Lowe: Yes, yes, yes. There's always life to contend with.

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

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

Alastair Thompson: It's just, that's just life.

Alastair Thompson: You know, and we're going to, 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.

Alastair Thompson: Okay. And this life is going to show me something even more beautiful and even more exciting tomorrow. Maybe right now is beautiful and exciting and amazing and wonderful. Okay.

Alastair Thompson: Maybe it'll get hot tomorrow and that'll be even better. I don't know that. Yeah. You know, it's.

Kevin Lowe: 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 to be honest with you, I don't even know where, where it will go, what will come from it.

Kevin Lowe: But I just I can't fail to bring emphasis to something you said earlier about surfing.

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

Kevin Lowe: When the waves are small, you grab your longboard. That seems completely opposite.

Kevin Lowe: It 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 got to 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.

Alastair Thompson: You're right kevin 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 short board long board analogy is is really different surfers surf different boards so there's some people who

Alastair Thompson: 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 way we express ourselves. It's not necessarily any relation.

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

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

Alastair Thompson: And I think that talks a lot about adversity, Kevin, in that it requires a lot of courage to step up and overcome adversity. I mean, it's easy to Fall into a place of pity and say, nah, this isn't for me.

Alastair Thompson: I'm going to go sit on the beach and watch other people do it.

Alastair Thompson: Kevin, 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.

Alastair Thompson: 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.

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

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

Alastair Thompson: You know, our waves, however they come, are ours, you know, and how we deal with them.

Alastair Thompson: I think our internal resources are far more important than the external tools that we may use.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Alistair, your book, A Surfer's Guide to Enlightenment, when did you come up with the idea that you wanted to write this book?

Alastair Thompson: Yeah, thanks, Kevin. The book, I remember when I started traveling, I remember writing down, one day I want to be a writer and I want to teach.

Alastair Thompson: And I have a teaching qualification. I've taught all sorts of crazy things.

Alastair Thompson: But writing, I wrote. I wrote for travel publications. I wrote a lot of different things. But the book, Surfer's Guide to Enlightenment, probably took 30 years to write.

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

Alastair Thompson: 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.

Alastair Thompson: You know, two or three seconds is a bit of it. So we spend a lot of time sitting and I, I, I enjoy surfing by myself. And I'd spent a lot of time sitting on the ocean and reflecting on what was going on in my life.

Alastair Thompson: And then the ocean became this parallel, this metaphor, you know, the waves suck today. Life is hard.

Alastair Thompson: The waves are heavy today. Yeah, life can be challenging.

Alastair Thompson: Wow, it's beautiful out here. Yes, life has these amazing, beautiful moments.

Alastair Thompson: And it sat in my head for a I tried to write it two or three times and I almost had complete books and they just weren't right.

Alastair Thompson: I remember rereading something and thinking, wait a minute, this is it.

Alastair Thompson: Started writing and it felt right. All of those hours in the ocean, they got condensed into these short little chapters on, they were literally on loss, on death, on happiness, on the things I'd been thinking about in my life, you know, 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 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

Alastair Thompson: the ocean became that metaphor that a pathway to transition there was a catharsis there and it all came out in the in the book

Kevin Lowe: 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 What do you feel like that person is that you really hope reads your book?

Alastair Thompson: The person who needs to read it, I was 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.

Alastair Thompson: It's short, concise chapters on fear, on sharing, on abundance, on perfection, on acceptance.

Alastair Thompson: Short chapters on these concepts that are part of our life.

Alastair Thompson: It's for somebody who's looking for something.

Alastair Thompson: And it doesn't necessarily need to be enlightenment. Maybe we've lost someone.

Alastair Thompson: Maybe we're struggling with a change.

Alastair Thompson: Yes, if you surf, read the book.

Alastair Thompson: If you're thinking of surfing, read the book. If you love the ocean, read the book.

Alastair Thompson: But if you climb mountains, 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.

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

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

Alastair Thompson: 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 liminous space transforming in the process of transformation who need to hear something maybe it's maybe it's in there yeah yeah

Kevin Lowe: 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.

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

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

Kevin Lowe: It's just, it's a piece of us.

Kevin Lowe: And so that's what I think is so powerful about this is how it truly can be for everyone.

Alastair Thompson: Yeah. You know, we're, what do they say, 70% water. We are the ocean. We are salt and water.

Alastair Thompson: 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 the 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.

Alastair Thompson: So I think everybody can relate to it. You know, our thing is to find our thing, right?

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

Kevin Lowe: 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?

Alastair Thompson: Oh, Kevin, I love your questions, man.

Alastair Thompson: That's a hard one. I think it was, I mean, it's fairly recent, but it's knowing that accepting myself, accepting the reality, letting go of the illusion, the fantasy you know I'm just a guy who likes to surf and that is enough And I will share the best part of myself.

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

Alastair Thompson: 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.

Alastair Thompson: I think that was when I stopped running was saying I'm enough for me. All right.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah.

Alastair Thompson: And that is good enough now. And it doesn't mean I'm going to stop trying to do some cool and amazing things. It doesn't mean I'm going to stop challenging myself. It doesn't mean I'm going to not, I'm going to sit on the beach.

Alastair Thompson: It means I'm going to paddle out there.

Alastair Thompson: I'm still going to put myself out there. But it's putting myself out there from a place of peace.

Alastair Thompson: I'm okay if I paddle out tomorrow and the wavelengths of my head.

Alastair Thompson: That is what it is. But I'm still going to paddle out there the best way I can.

Alastair Thompson: And I think that's, that peace means I don't have to run anymore.

Alastair Thompson: 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, whatever that is. Yeah.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. And that's a beautiful place to be.

Alastair Thompson: It is, right? It is. It is what it is supposed to be because that is the way it is.

Alastair Thompson: You know, that is enough. And 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.

Alastair Thompson: But what I can change, it is my responsibility to step up and make that change.

Kevin Lowe: Absolutely. Absolutely. Alistair, for somebody who's interested in diving deeper into your story, into your book, where can they find a copy of your book?

Alastair Thompson: All right. So right now it's on Amazon. Amazon.com.

Alastair Thompson: You can get it there. If you don't like Amazon, if you're looking for it somewhere else, you can reach out to me.

Alastair Thompson: AlistairThompson.com. You can find me and reach out. If you can't get the book, I'll send you a copy.

Alastair Thompson: Always happy to help. That's where I am. I'm excited to be to be doing this really I am writing I am my story if it somehow helps somebody out there if they read just a paragraph that they need to read if they hear something they need to hear I am exceptionally grateful 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.

Kevin Lowe: Oh, man, dude, this has been absolutely amazing. I've enjoyed this so much.

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

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

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

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

Kevin Lowe: Alistair, my man, today's been truly incredible.

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

Kevin Lowe: And I guess just more so just...

Kevin Lowe: I guess I'm coming away at the end of our conversation today with just, a renewed and fresh just perspective on life.

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

Kevin Lowe: And some days are a struggle. Some days are good.

Kevin Lowe: And again, I keep thinking back, though, to this metaphor of the ocean, of it's just like the ocean. It's just like a day out surfing.

Kevin Lowe: Some days are good. Some days are bad.

Kevin Lowe: But you keep showing up. You keep paddling out.

Kevin Lowe: All because you know it's just all worth it in the end.

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

Alastair Thompson: 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.

Kevin Lowe: Yeah. Well, thank you. And for you listening, I thank you, as always, for being here.

Kevin Lowe: I hope that you have enjoyed today's conversation with Alistair Thompson.

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

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