Interview: Lena G

Interview Transcript

My name is Maia Dery.

This episode is part of a series called the Waves to Wisdom Interviews.

The project is a simple one. I seek out people I admire, surfers with what look to me to be ocean-centered wisdom practices. I ask them if they’d be willing to share a surf session or two, and then, after we’ve ridden some waves together, talk to me about their oceanic habits, surfing, work, meaning, and anything else that comes up.

What would give you the courage to quit a good job, one you had worked hard to get, and always thought you wanted but discovered maybe wasn’t very good for you? And what happens when a German structural engineer reaches for surfing to help heal a broken heart and discovers an altogether healthier way of seeing and her living life?

Lena: Oh my god, I remember these wipe-outs, I thought I could never do it, and then after two hours, so hard work, then you catch a wave and you’re standing on your surfboard and you think like, “Oh my god, I can do it! It’s possible.” and you just have to believe in it and don’t give up and this is the same in life now when I have moments where I’m struggling, like the bad things happen, I’m so sad, I’m lost and I remember surfing, and I know, no, it’s gonna be good, there will be, don’t, don’t look to the broken wave, to the whitewater, look, look to the horizon, in the ocean and there will be more, so many more green beautiful clean waves coming for you and you just have to wait and be patient

Lena and I found one another by accident, in the waves of Nosara, Costa Rica. We developed the sort of fast, thrilling friendship that comes from sharing passion for a beloved activity and intense experiences, both beautiful and challenging. The time we spent getting to know one another trading and often sharing waves in the gentle Pacific swells of that idyllic tropical surf break was inspiring and Lena’s story of crafting balance in her body and life taught me a great deal. I hope you learn something valuable as well.

Maia: If you are comfortable with it you tell us your name and your age and how long you’ve been surfing.

Lena: OK, my name is Lena, I’m now 33 years old I’m a Pisces, I think that’s why I love water and I am surfing since 6 years.

Maia: 6 years, OK and you are from Germany?

Lena: I am from Germany, yeah.

Maia: And we are speaking, we’re having this beautiful conversation in a magical setting [oh my goodness, yeah], will you tell whoever’s listening a little bit about where we are?

Lena: Yeah, so right now we’re sitting, actually, in the jungle, the sun is shining the temperature, sometimes I forget that it’s the middle of January, it’s so cold right now in Germany and we’re sitting, we’re almost don’t wear, like, anything it’s hot but it just feels wonderful on your skin and when I look up, like I see the sun shining through all this lush nature, it’s a simple place, it’s a little juice bar in the jungle and it just feels wonderful, it’s paradise.

Maia: It is paradise, isn’t it? Um, okay and this morning we surfed for quite a good session.

Lena: Oh my goodness, I didn’t expect that, like I was walking in the beach, I love to walk on the beach in the morning, it’s so peaceful, like when you walk outside, it’s warm, like 6 o’clock there is like the first sunlight and you walk to the beach and you see the sun rise and yeah, it was windy the morning but when you paddle out it was, the wave was small but so much fun.

Maia: It was so much fun.

Lena: Oh my goodness, and it just got better and better and so nice too, that we share this moment.

Maia: It really was, wasn’t it? And the moment we just shared I think bears repeating which is that I’ve been fiddling with this audio equipment for a minute and I swore I was putting the record setting on the right thing but I just couldn’t figure out why couldn’t hear anything through these headphones and you said, “Are those headphones plugged in?” In fact, they weren’t! Which is maybe a good time to talk what you do for a living.

Lena: Yeah um, actually that was a coincidence because I don’t know much about technique.

Maia: Yes, but there is something about, are the pieces fitting together right this year like a good introduction to the rest of your life when you’re not surfing.

Lena: Absolutely, I am a structural engineer at home, so I have a very serious job yeah, I love my job it’s a lot of calculation and math and right now I don’t think much about it but I know when I get home I will enjoy it again. So my life is completely different in Germany but I love to have this balance in my life.

Maia: You are here for how long?

Lena: I’m here for 4 month, so it’s just the best time to escape the cold winter in Germany. I don’t mind the cold so much but it’s so dark, yeah it’s dark and cold and rainy, so I decided to live during the winter here in Costa Rica for 4 months.

Maia: And how many years have you done that?

Lena: I started, you know it was a process. I came here the first, it’s my fifth time to Nosara, Costa Rica, I came here the first time 6 years ago only for vacation, for two weeks, and I fell in love with surfing and this place, so I came back a second time, only for two weeks, and then a third time for two and a half months, and now last season for four month, and this season for four month, and I want to keep doing this.

Maia: So, how does your life allow you, you are a structural engineer and I don’t know if you have this stereotype in Germany but in America we often think of surfers as bums [yeah] and structural engineers, we don’t think of as bums so how do you work out that balance?
Lena: Yeah, it was like it came to me, it was, I always, I enjoyed studying engineering a lot, a lot and then I started working for this company I always wanted to work for and I finally made it to work for this company but then I just found I’m working nonstop. I’m so, so hard with myself so, I forced, I wanted, I want to be good like, I always wanted to be perfect and do things perfect, but then I found after awhile, you know this is not healthy, so I need some balance in my life and I worked for this company three years and then I felt, everyone did that in Germany so it’s like common if you work really hard, so all of the people around me did the same, so they work really hard, um there was a lot of competition in my office and I felt a lot of pressure that I didn’t realize that it’s wrong, I just thought it’s normal to live like that. And then, just, things happened I, I was in a relationship for 11 years, and we broke up and then I got laid off from my job so…

Maia: All at the same time?

Lena: All in one year [within one year] that was such a hard time for me. I was so sad at I remember it was winter, it was cold and I, I cried for I think for three months, like I remember was taking my bicycle to work, and cried and at work I distracted myself and, and then at night I woke up, it was like a nightmare, it was, I didn’t know what, what’s happening next in my life, my life just changed in one second and I lost everything.

Maia: It’s the worst thing, so disorienting

Lena: I was so sad and by this time I felt because I have surfed before and I knew how I felt like being in the water and oh my god, surfing just made me so happy, on these two trips before with my ex-boyfriend to Costa Rica and the first thing I did, like, I booked a flight to Morocco, in the sun to go surfing and when I was sitting in the plane I remember when I felt so much happiness I was sitting in the water and in this week I didn’t cry all. I sent my ex-boyfriend a message that I am just so happy because, of course, at the break up was he left me, but it was also hard for, for him to see me being so sad because of course he still felt love for me [of course] so I send him the message, you know, don’t worry about me, I’m surfing and I just feel so much happiness and I even like, I’m thankful for all the time we had together and he brought me into surfing. So, I’m just thankful for the amazing 11 years we had together and it’s ok now I will make it and I knew I felt so much strength, like sitting in the water, and it was like the moment when okay surfing now is part of my life, I need it in my life so I came back from Morocco, I booked my second flight to Morocco and this year I went all my vacation I went like always surfing, I went six times, 10 days surfing, I spent a lot of money but I didn’t care. And then I went to my boss and I told him I just have hard time right now and I need this time off, I need to go surfing because it’s so good for my soul and because I lost everything I was so brave I felt, I was like okay, I’ll just do it, and he was, because this is really not common in Germany, he didn’t understand this like, “Why? You’re such a good engineer and you work so hard why do you do this you don’t need this.” and I remember yeah, because he has big passion with this Harley, with riding a Harley Davison so I told him, “When someone takes my surfboard it’s the same when someone takes your Harley”, so he’s like, “Ok, do it and go for two and a half month and find your happiness.” and, yeah, then I came back to Costa Rica because that’s the place where I learned surfing and I knew I have friends here, and I traveled through Costa Rica, and then I spent the last four weeks here at this place where we’re sitting right now. And the last days I was sitting on the beach, I remember just like it was yesterday, I was sitting there and I was like, watching the waves, I was watching the sunset, it was the last sunset in Costa Rica, and I thought, “I live the simple life here, surfing and eating healthy and I don’t do much I, I rest in a hammock, and I was sitting there, and I was like I don’t need more.” This is like, I felt so happy if I have would have to wish that, I didn’t know what I would have at that point, it just felt perfect.

Maia: You had everything you needed and everything you wanted.

Lena: Everything, everything, yeah. So I took the flight back to Germany and on this flight I decided I will come here again and this time I want to live like this I want to spend like the next winter here in Costa Rica again surfing. So I went back. I, I waited four weeks until I talked to my boss and then I told him, um, that I have to come back and that I will do this again and he was upset. He said, like, “No, not again, like…” yeah. I didn’t, he really didn’t understand and he told me, yeah, if you want to do this again you have to quit and then I said “OK then I quit!”

Maia: LAUGH

Lena: I will quit. He was like, “No, no! Ok if you really, if you think this is the thing you want to do, everyone needs to follow his dreams.” And so I did it again and I worked these 8 months and I enjoy my job so much more than before. The first three years in my first job I was so stressed and after surfing it was like, no like work is not everything, and whatever happens there will be a way, yeah. In in Germany no one understands it’s so funny because yeah, here I am that serious structural engineer, at home people think I’m crazy and I’m the hippy breaking out of the society and it’s so funny.

Maia: The extreme in both communities.

Lena: Yeah, really it feels so funny for me, yeah, before like three years ago I would have never done this my job was like, I was so stuck in my job, like I was like no, I need to work and this is like the most important part of my life after, surfing no my job was not the most important part of my life anymore it was like, surfing, still of course I need to make money and… yeah after I got into surfing my job didn’t have this value anymore this big and I think that’s, this big meaning, because I think this is the most important thing what I learned in life to have a balance, if I would be only, if I would only surf the whole time I would, it wouldn’t be that magical anymore, you need like different things in your life in my work, I was like, this is the only thing I have so I got like stuck in this but if you have something else in life that makes you happy, you’re more relaxed about each part because if you lose one you have another.

Maia: And I just want to say that this no one can see you but that was such a beautiful embodiment of those expressions when you’re talking about only having the one thing and your fists are clenched and then you’re talking about freedom and balance your hands are open and receptive, yeah.

Lena: Yeah, I felt this for a couple of years, I was so tired and now I feel, oh my god, I’m, I’m ready for everything, nothing can scare me anymore.

Maia: And do you think that surfing has helped you with courage?
Lena: Oh yeah, a lot, a lot, oh my God all these wipe outs, you’re sitting in the water and sometimes it is so peaceful and quiet and the water’s so soft and this is like the perfect idea of surfing when the water is soft, it’s beautiful, no wind, the waves are glassy and you catch a wave and it feels like flying and, but then there are days, oh my goodness, it’s stormy, there’s a lot of current you have so many waves crashing on you, it’s so hard to paddle out. You, the waves are so hard to catch and you have all these bad wipeouts and you feel like sometimes you’re drowning especially when you’re learning, you’re like, oh my god, I remember these wipe-outs, I thought I could never do it, and then after two hours, so hard work, then you catch a wave and you’re standing on your surfboard and you think like, “Oh my god, I can do it! It’s possible.” and you just have to believe in it and don’t give up and this is the same in life now when I have moments where I’m struggling, like bad things happen, I’m so sad, I’m lost and I remember surfing, and I know, no, it’s gonna be good, there will be, don’t, don’t look to the broken wave, to the whitewater, look, look to the horizon, in the ocean and there will be more, so many more green beautiful clean waves coming for you and you just have to wait and be patient. And I had this in the beginning a lot, I had this one wave that made me happy the rest of the day, I forgot about these two hours struggling, it was just this couple of seconds, it’s so crazy, it made me so happy that it was like, I couldn’t stop smiling the whole day I was like walking around, I thought like, people think I’m crazy but, they don’t know why I am smiling. (19:20)

Maia: it’s really true isn’t it [It’s so true] that this pure joy that’s so difficult to translate to people who don’t share it

Lena: So difficult. I was, I was here, I had weeks at the hostel I share this room with five other girls, and I couldn’t sleep at night because I was so excited for the next day to go surfing. I was laying in bed, I couldn’t, because I did this amazing sunrise surfs in the morning and then at night the sunset, I was sitting in the water until it was dark, I couldn’t see anything any more, I was, “Okay I can’t see I have to go out now there will be another day.” and then I went back, I had dinner and was so tired, I went to bed at 7 or 8 o’clock and then I couldn’t sleep because I was so excited. It was like being a child, like before Christmas, like the morning when you are allowed to open the presents, and I had this for a week. And the next morning I was so tired, it was like, “You need to sleep.” and then I went to paddle out again, I had these amazing waves.

Maia: So this is now your 5th year as a surfer

Lena: My sixth year

Maia: 6^th year

Lena: Yeah but as a surfer I would say my 3^rd year because before I just, I tried surfing yeah but yes it

Maia: So there was a transition… Can you describe the transition from “I went surfing.” to “I became a surfer?”

Lena: In the beginning I went for vacation, to go surfing. It was just an activity to do, like ok let’s go to Costa Rica to try surfing, but then there was this moment in my life where surfing became a part of me. It was like I realized, okay now I cannot live without surfing any more, I cannot imagine to live without surfing anymore. This happiness, I never felt before–it became such a big part in my life.

Maia: It’s the magic of surfing

Lena: The magic of surfing, no one understands if you’re not a surfer.

Maia: At home people asked me what are you doing the whole day and and then “You are not like bored after four months?” and I’m like, “No every moment in the water is so different, so different and I get up at 5 o’clock it’s still dark and I’m so excited to start my day.

 

Maia: Being excited to start your day sounds like one way to describe, not just a great surf trip, but a good life. I know so many people who feel trapped by jobs instead of feeling fulfilled by meaningful, purposeful work. I wondered about the set of circumstances that had allowed Lena to craft this existence for herself in which she had important work but she also understood how crucial it is to get away from it.

 

Lena: I quit my job, I came back here for four months and I was so sure, I was like not worried about to find a job again because actually if you start doing this you realize that this is possible like, yeah before you’re scared because no one does it and but if you try and if you lose this fear and with surfing, I really lost the fear, you realize, yeah, everything is possible. So I came back here and in this year another guy did contact me and he asked me, “Hey Lena” I knew him from the, my first job, he was like “Lena I just open a new office, you want to work for me?”

And I was like, “No, right now I am in Costa Rica surfing. I quit my job but I really like this office and I know they will hire me again.” I remember like this moment it was like almost exactly one year ago. It’s so amazing because we’re sitting like here now in this juice bar. At this time I was laying in the hammock at the hostel, where I’m living and because this guy kept contacting me, I thought no, I’m happy with my old job, I will, I’m sure I can go back there so I just gonna try something and I sent, I wrote a really, really long email where I was completely honest about myself, I was honest to myself. I applied for a job but I didn’t pretend to be someone, I just was myself and was like I started with the sentence that part of my life is like surfing. And I talk about myself, the person I actually am because, when I’m in my job I’m really focused, I’m concentrated, I love my job, and but I need this balance in my life and I’m only good in a job or in something if it has the balance and I tried, I told him, yeah, “If you want to hire me you have to trust me and I will, I need surfing in my life so you have to let me go during the winter four months.”

And really this is like not common at all in Germany it’s like I was writing this email and I thought like if he gets, reads the email he thinks I’m crazy. So, but I just took the risk because I was sure I can come back to my other job any time. And, I know, because I learned this over the years, like when you work too hard you get sick and you get exhausted and you don’t have the energy anymore and if you take this break sometimes in your life you you, you can, it’s like, like a plant it needs like water and, and sun to grow, you need this rest in your life.

So, I wrote this email and when I send this and I remember this, oh god, okay even if he thinks I’m cra… I don’t know if this working but I’m just gonna send this email now. And then I was in a rush because I was, I met friends here at this place in the Juice Bar at Harmony Hotel and I was sitting here and it was 50 minutes after I sent the email and I checked my emails and I didn’t expect it but I got an email from him and the two other bosses and they said, “Lena, we are so happy to hire you. Of course we accept everything you’re asking for. We’re like, we will send you the contract right away just sign it and then the rest we manage in Germany. And I really almost cried. It was like a moment in my life where I thought “Oh my god, I really, I was so honest. I just asked for what I wanted 100% and I got it. And this is possible. And now I can live the life I really want to live.” And I, I spent the rest of the time here, the last day I was sitting on the beach watching the sunset and I went home, I was flying home, and I was not sad because I knew I can come back and I started my new job three days later like I never enjoyed my work before, that much like I did like last year with this like freedom now. It’s amazing [wow] it all came through surfing, really all of all of it

Maia: Can you talk about because this is a recurrent theme in in all of the cultural artifacts and literature of surfing that I could find is this way that surfing gives you a sense of freedom [yeah, yeah]. Can you talk about that a little bit?

Lena: Yeah, it’s how can I describe it? Like the, like surfing is itself, it’s freedom. Like, you’re sitting in the water, you feel the power of nature, especially here, you feel the warm water on your body. It’s like meditation, you look to the ocean, you forget everything, you forget everything: what is important, what bothers you, what makes you sad. And you look at all the waves coming, you’re sitting a lot when you’re surfing, you’re sitting a lot it’s not that you’re like surfing a waves all the time. You meet like, you see people like yourself, and with your friends, you smile at, everyone seems to be so happy in the lineup and then you finally, you work so hard and this is like the part that describes the freedom that you sometimes you, you have to work hard for something, but then you catch a wave, and you’re flying, and you know you can make it and, am, yeah, to be to be free means you have to be you have to be bold, you have to be brave and, and that’s what surfing really gives you, like yeah. That’s like freedom.

 

Maia: So do you have a background as an athlete as a child? Were you athletic?

Lena: Not at all, not at all. I was not sporty at all I hated sport. It was just friends who said, ”Oh, come running with me.” And it was exhausting, I didn’t have fun in the beginning and then my body felt like something was changing and my body started to need it and this time when I think back I didn’t eat healthy I didn’t do any sport, I was sitting, I wasted so much time in front of the computer, in front of the TV. I thought I didn’t know there was something else I didn’t know about it because I never tried. It was like, no doing sport is too exhausting and don’t want to do it. And there’s not a moment where you feel like now it’s changing it’s like I can’t even tell when it changed. But my body needed exercise and I tried surfing and you are successful even if you’re not sporty you, you have this big board, it’s like a boat, and the surf instructor pushes you in a wave and you crawl up, you stand up but then you feel like this, “Wow, I can do it!” and then you are starting to surf and you feel you’re getting tired so fast. So then I started thinking about it. I wanted to, I want to do more surfing and for this I need to eat healthy and I need to do more sport and then I though, “What is good like to be better at surfing?” and then I thought, “Okay swimming is really good!” and my dad tried to get me into swimming since years. He always bought me the season pass for my birthday and I never used it but when I start surfing it was like now I gonna learn on how to swim freestyle. Like crawling style and I could never do that. So I started watching YouTube videos, so funny I learned swimming by watching YouTube videos [wow]. So I went to the pool every day and try and try and then I learned it and then I realized no it’s not that I’m, I cannot do it. Everyone can do it even, like I was 25 at this time in and

Maia: And you had not felt strong as a child?
Lena: Not at all I had back problems I got sick a lot so I always went to this um physiotherapist and I had to do this boring exercise, I hated it but when I started surfing I had so much motivation. I started doing yoga. The first half a year I hated yoga I was like “Oh, this is like so exhausting, it’s so hard but I want to keep doing it because I want to be better at surfing.” so I kept like doing it and then my body like changed and my back was suddenly so strong, I felt so much healthier, now I’m 32 I feel so much healthier than, so much stronger than when I was 22 and when I was 22 I thought like, “Oh my God when I’m 30 I will be old, I will be sad and will be not sporty at all” and now I feel so fit, I changed my diet. And so my body learned so much, like here, I ate all these fruits like really cheap simple basic food but it makes you feel much better. I felt something changing in the body and like through yoga and surfing I felt so much more my body. I listen to it and I realized, now I feel so bad what I did to my body like 15 years ago in this age you don’t think about it, you think your body is like, you only have one body and everything you put in your body is what you are made out of.

Now, since I’m surfing I don’t get sick anymore since it’s like, the whole combination, it’s like also this balance in my job that I’m not, I don’t have stress anymore, even if I have the stress but it doesn’t feel like stress anymore.

 

Maia: This idea: stress that doesn’t feel like stress, seems crucial to Lena’s story. Her job is still demanding, still time sensitive and, like most jobs, performance based,. I asked her to explain how surfing had helped her transform work stress from a negative experience into something else.

 

When you’re surfing you, you follow a lot your intuitions. You don’t have much time to think about. You are in this moment, a wave is coming, everything is moving and you have to decide in this moment and you have to trust yourself and you feel this fear and if you don’t go for it you will never catch a wave. And when I’m at home and I was an engineer I was like okay I have so much time to think about anything when I was for example when I was writing an email to an important client I was thinking about this email so many times. I wrote it again I changed it, it was like I was so scared to do something wrong and since I’m surfing, I’m so much faster with my decisions and this makes it so much more efficient my work. With surfing I learned, no just relax breathe in breathe out and just go for it and take the risk maybe you do mistakes now but if you panic it doesn’t help you, you don’t improve. And I felt so much more efficient since I work like that and I have so much more success. Yeah mistakes happen but you never reach 100% perfection it’s not even possible and in surfing also you will you have to, like you wipe out you do this mistake, sometimes you, you take the wrong wave, but in surfing you learn that if you do mistakes it’s not they’re not mistakes you just learn. When you panic you wipe out [every time whether you are in the water or not] exactly

Lena: One guy told me if you are scared just breathe in really slowly and really deep and breathe out and then be committed and go for it and if you’re 100% committed you make, you do it, and it feels so easy, you to just have to trust yourself a lot when you’re surfing [you really do, don’t you] Oh my goodness. [Yes] Oh my goodness.

Maia: It seems like, it still feels to me as though miracles happen all the time for example last night it was, the waves were not big for here, but they seemed big to me because I took out a very small board for myself, I’m trying to learn how to ride a short board, because there are some days I prefer long boarding but there some days that are not conducive to longboarding and I don’t want to miss any days. So, I’m trying to learn short boarding and and so I have this tiny, what to me as this tiny little board out there and there were a couple of times when I just decided I was going to go for it and I still can’t predict what is gonna be a good wave or not and I, I run pretty frightened by nature, I’m a fearful person so I, I think I, I miss a lot of waves that could work out because they look impossible, [same for me] so but last night I took off on a couple of waves that I was pretty sure were close-outs where the wave breaks all once and there’s nowhere to go, I almost always wipe out those, and I, it was the strangest thing because I went from this moment of, “OK, I’m probably going to die” to “What just happened? That worked!” and in between was this and I, blank is not the right word but it’s it’s almost as though there’s this emptiness [yeah, exactly] where your body is just doing these things and you’re beholden to it in a beautiful way, it’s got this capacity, and it’s it’s in tune with this force in a way that doesn’t even feel like you’re driving the car is just sort of happens.

 

Lena: Yeah, exactly. I want to say something about this being committed in a wave, that you go for it and that I have these, I had actually my the best waves together with friends. I want to talk about friends like surfing together with friends because this makes surfing so special. Surfing alone can be, like, boring, you want to share moments with friends and this is like also in your life you want to share your life with someone and I have these moments where a big wave was coming and I wouldn’t have gone alone and, actually, I went alone, it was just the person, the friend beside me who said, “Go, Girl! Go for it! Go girl.” and I went for it and I didn’t think it would be possible. Alone I would have definitely pulled back and then I took the wave and I made it and I was like, “Oh my God. I can do it.” and when you’re alone, when you are paddling for a wave and you know you have to be, you have to be, you have to be bold, have to be brave to go for the waves to catch the wave and you make it sometimes. But it’s so good if you have company and you support, they support you, and in this moment you trust them. You, you think like, “Alone, I would have never gone for this wave” but because you have this friend who’s telling you, Go, and you trust this person 100% because the moment when you take a big waves is scary and you have the feeling of, okay I’m gonna die or I’m gonna make it and it’s so crazy how you can trust people and this is so amazing.

Maia: It really is I’ve had that experience multiple times myself I have a friend I often surface at home who I trust in in all the ways just an utterly trustworthy, honorable beautiful human being and I will frequently ask her when a big wave is coming, “Do you think I can make this?” and I would even asked the question if she weren’t there I just would think, “I can’t make this.” But if she says yes, I’m willing to give it a shot, yeah.

Lena: And then you make it.

Maia: And then you make it, Yeah it’s just, or even if you don’t it’s okay you know you could have because she’s right, yeah, just something happened.

Lena: It’s just so amazing, it’s so special, you you you you think you have these limits but then you try, you, you pass the limit, and you know, you realize you can do it you can do. And it is the same in life and you work at your job if you are a team so much more is possible.

Maia: Would you, would you mind telling the story on tape about the complicated drawing and plan he found the mistake in?

Lena: Okay, yeah actually it’s like I’m, I’m working as a proof engineer and that means a regular engineer does all the calculations of the building that is designed by an architect and if we have a public building in Germany, a proof engineer has to check the calculations of the engineer and I got this calculation, it was like a big folder, like the engineer I know he worked four weeks to do the calculation of this really complicated building with a lot of walls and he built a 3D model and I got this big folder and I was like, Oh my goodness this is so much!” It was like too much information and I had to check this, these calculations. Couple of years ago I would have built the same model in my computer but I thought, “No just lean back think about it first.” And I completely simplified the building in my mind. I thought okay I’ll just delete all these little walls that won’t get much load and I focus on the three important walls and I made my calculation to check these calculations on only two pages. I think he gave me 200. And I did this calculation in one day by first thinking about it, simplifying the model, and I found a really big mistake and this building would have collapsed if I wouldn’t have found this mistake. Sometimes you think, too complicated if you have the time if you have the time you make life so complicated and you have all these little walls you you want to consider in your life and but no focus on the basic important things that make you happy and you don’t need much more.

Maia: Could you talk a little bit about how your relationship to possessions has changed

Lena: I see this a lot in Stuttgart because the city I’m from there is a lot of is a lot of consume like a lot of [consumerism?] consumerism. There’s a lot of big industry like fancy cars, Mercedes and Porsche in Germany in Stuttgart so you see a lot of fancy cars driving around and you are in, I lived in this world where you work hard and then you have like this little spare time where you spend a lot of money to spoil yourself actually you think like, Okay, now I have like one hour time so I’m going to this fancy restaurant and I wanna spoil myself. I spend all this money I buy these things that make that make me happy and I want to drive a fancy car and I was the same I spent a lot of money for things I actually don’t need to impress people I don’t like. It’s so funny because my friends they don’t care how I look like, what I wear, they just like to spend time with me. I don’t have to impress them at all. And since I have more time I live different. Since I have this part-time job, I make this money but the interesting thing is the end of the year I don’t have less money. When I’m at home taking my bicycle, I don’t have a car, I’m so lucky that is possible in Stuttgart I can go grocery shopping on my bicycle. And I enjoy it, I hate sitting in a car. It’s such a waste of time! And like I save money and I enjoy it more and I had this job offer from Porsche for being a project manager. I thought in this moment it is way too much challenging for me and this guy said “When you get this job you we offer you a Porsche car!” And I looked at him and said, “No I don’t want to drive this car. I see all these Porsche cars stuck in traffic every day on the way to work. I take my bicycle through the park and meet all these other people on bicycles who wave at me, who smile at me, the atmosphere in the park in the morning is so nice I breathe in this fresh air, I don’t want to sit in this car in the traffic.” And he started laughing because I think I was the first person he met who didn’t want to have a Porsche car in Stuttgart.

 

Maia: One of the things that I have noticed about surfing and one of the really one of the reasons that I wanted to start this project is that I believe that being in the water together, that sharing that love in that, it’s an inherently intimate setting to be in the water like that, that it allows people to form bonds so rapidly. You really can get close very quickly if you are of a mind to and you find somebody you like and are inspired by and whose company you enjoy and that certainly I feel like that happened for us and I’m so grateful [yeah] really quite good.

Lena: We are just sitting there and looking at each other and you don’t have to say anything, you just feel it and, it’s like you can’t explain it.

I remember exactly when I met you– it’s such an unbelievable feeling to meet someone new in the water and share this feeling and a wave is coming in between so you catch a wave and then paddle back out and you sit together and talk about this moment. You’re so in the moment. I don’t know sometimes when you’re sitting in a café and meet someone you’re so distracted of things around you. But if you’re in the water you’re really like in this moment so much more. It feels like more intense like meeting someone in the water.

Maia: It does, doesn’t it? Yes I think you are absolutely right that it’s easier to bring your full attention to that moment, in part because the wave demands it, and so you’re, even in that short span of time you’re, you’re practicing– careful attention so you don’t get hurt, and you have a good experience, and then you bring that to hopefully to the other relationships that you have in the water

and certainly that’s not true for everybody there’re plenty of people who don’t, don’t practice mindfulness when it comes to the other folks in the water and that’s that’s one of the things that makes meeting somebody like you so special is that we don’t all, even in the water we don’t all wear our heart on out sleeve, on our little lycra or neoprene sleeves in that way.

Lena: Exactly and there are different kind of surfers and of course there are a lot of young guys, young kids around us who are totally focused on surfing and they don’t care, they don’t want to talk, there are different kind of surfers for sure and some they just want to go out there for an hour and catch as many waves as possible I really enjoy like being with people in the water and of course because you are a woman you are, yeah, there are not that many women your age I have.

Maia: Yeah, there aren’t.

Lena: Yeah, it’s true. This is like my biggest dream I always admire women that are older than me because I want to keep surfing until I die.

Maia: The interesting part of the aging process for me is that surfing has just dissolved all of the lines of the boxes and the categories and it’s, not as though age is meaningless it’s profoundly meaningful and I have as I’ve gotten closer to death than to birth it focuses your mind I think Jung was right when you round a corner and you begin to realize that death is did you do realize that it becomes this real thing is kind of confabulation – comes to staying with his just if you’re doing things in a way that is right for you, what it does is it re-minds you, it puts your mind back in your body over and over again and for me at least it’s real that this body is not forever you are not forever you become more mindful of the and in that process you begin to understand, if you’re lucky and you have the opportunity, you begin to understand how much choice you have and the thing that gave me the opportunity to realize that is surfing. You realize, ok, yes I’m, I’m relatively old, I’m probably not going to live to be a hundred and that doesn’t mean any of the things that I thought it meant, none of that, it doesn’t mean things in my mind, it doesn’t mean the things in my life, and it sure as heck doesn’t mean things in my body, that I thought it was gonna mean and… there’s this famous surfer Jerry Lopez, Mr. Pipeline, who’s older than I am, 10-15 years I’m not sure exactly when he was born and he was quoted in this popular documentary about surfing called Step into Liquid and he said “The real journey as a surfer doesn’t begin until the second 20 years, the first 20 years is just figuring out whether or not you like it.” And I heard that and I got it. I have it in my marrow like this, this 20 years is to learn the language, the second 20 years, which for me will begin at 60, that’s about writing the poetry [yeah] and I think when you begin to engage in any form of, of expression, or ritual, or worship or all of the things that surfing isn’t quite but it but it somehow approximates, when you start late in life it’s different than if you just grow up with it. It has different lessons to teach and I’m so grateful, although if I had a choice I would start earlier, because I would be a more beautiful surfer you too?

Lena: Yeah, Me too. Like I wish I would have surfed earlier.

Maia: Absolutely and at the same time I know that I wouldn’t be learning the same things [yeah] and I wouldn’t have come at it the same way as when I began to learn how to surf it was such a slow physical process for me I couldn’t get enough hours in the water and have you to read all of the books [yeah]. What started for me as this, it felt like this selfish hunger you have just I just have to feed myself, I need more of this, has turned into this new it, it feels like a calling and I’m I am not you know, sort of a theistic religious person but it really does, I feel called by, and the closest thing I can say is the ocean, I feel called by the ocean to somehow take this incredible gift this, this profound gift this abundant experience that I get to partake of, I feel called to figure out ways to tell about it, to pass it on.

Lena: Exactly: this feeling what I have now I want everyone to feel like this I want everyone to feel like this I didn’t know either and no one knows who doesn’t surf, doesn’t know what feeling it gives you an it’s like when I see the people at home I want to take them and shake them and tell them everything about my life right now and inspire them.

Maia: As an educator I struggle to put my students in touch with how profoundly they can affect someone else by just being authentic to themselves but it it happens over and over again. You make a decision that’s right for you even though everybody else around you is pushing you in another direction and, and that somehow becomes its own form of service [yeah].

Lena: I worked in this company, it was the second job I had, I worked for them and everyone in this office went to, they took the car to get to the office, the train to get to the office and I started, I took my bicycle, and I did this exercise every morning actually I went on my way to work I took my bicycle to the swimming pool, I was swimming there some laps and took a shower and then I took my bicycle to work and I arrived at work with so much energy, happiness I arrived there, I didn’t need a coffee, I was full of energy to start my day, like Monday morning and my colleagues they just saw me being so happy and I saw in their face they were thinking about it, “What does she do it makes her so happy?” And they realized that, “She just takes a bicycle every morning to work.” so my colleagues started taking, they bought a bicycle for themselves and started taking their bicycle to work and I also, also I cook a lot at home I cook a lot of vegetables I feel like so much lighter in the afternoon, before in the past and I felt so tired and now since I eat healthier I have more energy during the day and they saw this and they started cooking and now we, then we start being a group of girls actually who took their bicycle to work started eating healthier and the other people saw it and they started copying it and one day one girl came to me and so I didn’t say anything but in the year she changed her life she had a lot of overweight and she came to me one day and she said, “Lena, I have to tell you something and I think, I feel like because of you you inspired me so much I lost in one year 30 pounds. [wow] She said I saw you, I saw you living this healthy life I saw your happiness and I realize I want to be like you and I have to change something in my life. And she also bought this bicycle and she drove to work and she said, “Lena, on rainy days when I really didn’t felt like biking I thought about you, I woke up in the morning I thought, I know Lena’s going to take a bicycle always goes in her bicycle so I will do it.’” That was an amazing moment for me. [wow] And I have all these… and I always start crying but it makes me so happy because I feel so happy with my life and I love to inspire people because I think everyone should be that happy and so it’s amazing to inspire people and I got inspired a lot to not that I am the person I’m now because I was just lazy and sporty girl sitting in front of the TV and I didn’t know that they are something else exist in this world.

Maia: And then you find it and you pass it on and nothing feels better, there’s nothing better in the world are so happy right now it’s just the most beautiful thing it really is.

 

Maia: Providing inspirational, transformative experiences is central to the mission of Waves to Wisdom. To learn more about our retreats where we use learning to surf as a means to guide you into a powerful capacity to envision and create, a more effective, fulfilled version of your self at work and in life visit wavestowisdom.com.