Focus on the Water, Not the Rock!

My husband, Pat, and I just had a wonderful 6 day white water rafting trip down the middle fork of the Salmon River in Idaho with Idaho River Adventures. The scenery is beautiful and wild. The staff was top notch and the other guests were unique, wonderful and full of life. It will definitely be a trip I won’t forget. As the Idaho River Adventures motto proclaims in Latin, “In the River is Truth”. I wanted to share a few pieces of truth I found on the river.

Truth #1 - No judgment where we are in the flotilla.

Our trip had a sweep boat that is basically the baggage carrier for the trip. It goes ahead of the rafts and two of the boatmen have the basics of camp set up before the guests arrive. Tents up, groover up (the porta pottie), etc.

Then, the flotilla consisted of four rafts and one paddle boat. The boatmen switch off captaining the paddle boat and rowing the rafts. One raft is always designated the safety boat and this boat is generally supposed to be the last boat in the flotilla. This makes sense as you want the boat caring the first aid kit and safety gear to be behind if any of the other boats have any trouble. Every once in a while, a boat would get out of position and the safety boat would pass it and then need to slow down to let the others go by again. There was no judgment on the part of the person rowing the safety boat as to being last or to having to slow down, etc. It was in the highest good of all for the safety boat to bring up the rear.

That was a piece of truth for me to remember when I get frustrated that I am not moving fast enough, or that I am in the “wrong” line at the grocery store. Looking at these situations from the perspective that we are all on the same team and that the goal of “making it to camp safely as a whole complete group” is what we are striving for, then the frustration level goes down and instead, you simply enjoy where you are and look at the scenery until everyone else is in position…flowing down the river, again.

Truth #2 - Cooperation

The biggest rule of healthy fun time on the river is cooperation. It was wonderful to see cooperation between people that until the first morning were more worried about cell phone coverage (which there isn’t) than helping a complete stranger to carry her pack, to bandage his wound or to help alleviate a sun induced migraine. Everyone was made to feel valuable and worthy. We all shared games, wisdom, sunscreen, song and wine. Everyone contributed based on their talents and proclivities. I would love to see more of this microcosmic group interaction in our macrocosmic family of humanity. Perhaps those of us on the trip will be able to hold this feeling of cooperation close to our hearts long enough to show it to others around us once we are back in our everyday lives.

Truth #3 – Focus on the Water, Not the Rock

There was one point in the trip where we were in a good place for it to be safe for a guest to try her hand at rowing the raft. The guest, Heidi, was doing a good job and the boatman, Scotty, was giving her some pointers. There was a decent sized rock coming up that Heidi was going to need to navigate around. The wisdom from Scotty was that the reason so many people hit the rock is because, instead of focusing where the boatman wants the boat to go, they focus on the rock. Definitely Truth #3. Energy follows intention! How sage is that? Most of us focus on what we don’t want to create instead of focusing on the true goal. Let us learn this wisdom from the river…focus on the water, not the rock!