Learning to Surf

I love the quote by Jon Kabat-Zinn:“You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.”

I’ve been reflecting on this a lot lately as I’ve been preparing for our conference and sharing a series of talks on resilience called Learning to Surf.

This quote feels especially relevant right now. We are living in a time of real uncertainty in the wider world—politically, environmentally, economically.

And uncertainty also shows up much closer to home.

Our children grow up and move into their own lives. Our roles and relationships shift. Our bodies change in ways we didn’t quite expect. Some of us are navigating health challenges—our own or those of people we love. Even when life is full of beauty and meaning, there is often a steady undercurrent of not knowing what comes next.

This ongoing immersion in uncertainty can feel exhausting. At times, even destabilizing.

In A New Earth, Eckhart Tolle writes, “If uncertainty is unacceptable to you, it turns into fear. If it is perfectly acceptable, it turns into increased aliveness, alertness, and creativity.”

I love Eckhart’s teachings—he is one of my greatest teachers. And yet I’ll be honest: when I first read that quote recently, I couldn’t quite relate to it. I think I was simply feeling worn down by uncertainty in that moment.

But thankfully something has been shifting in me since then.

Not because life has become more certain—it hasn’t—but because I’ve started to soften my resistance to not knowing. And slowly, I can feel what Eckhart was pointing to: moments of aliveness again. A bit more alertness. A quiet return of creativity. Not all the time, but enough to notice the possibility is there.

One thing I’ve come to understand more deeply is that when uncertainty brings us to our knees, it also opens our hearts. There is something about not having control that softens us. It makes compassion more available—first for ourselves, because we are doing our best in real and sometimes difficult circumstances, and then for others, who are also carrying their own unknowns.

And from that place of compassion, something important begins to open.

When we stop fighting uncertainty and allow ourselves to be with it, we can find a different kind of grounding. Not in certainty itself, but in presence. And from that grounded place, creativity begins to return. We start to sense what is ours to do—what we are here to contribute in this moment. Sometimes it’s something big and visible. Often, it’s something simple and quietly powerful: kindness, listening, encouragement, presence, care.

We are the ones who were made for this time. Not because we have it all figured out, but because we are here. And something in us is capable and equipped to meet this moment.

And we are not meant to do it alone.

Underneath everything is our interconnectedness. We need each other—for grounding, for belonging, for reminding ourselves that we are not separate from life or from one another.

We find our resilience together in community.

As we move toward the 2026 Canadian New Thought Conference, Resilience in Times of Uncertainty in September this is the invitation: Don't try to stop the waves. Instead, let's learn, gently and imperfectly, how to surf them together.

I hope you will join us for 3 days of authenticity and connection as we build resilience in community.

Learn more about the conference

Much love,

Amanda Pope