S1:E18: Surfing Is In Your Blood

My first semi-solo trip to the hamptons where I learned to surf, be at peace in solitude, and return to myself.

Transcript

Intro:
Welcome to Mental Breakthrough, a memoir podcast about owning our most vulnerable stories so we can live a life of authenticity.

I’m Maryann Samreth, the woman behind the pen name, Sincerely Miss Mary. Together, I take you through my healing journey as I share stories of moving through pain to get to the other side where the light shines again.

In this season, I carry you moment to moment, starting with a tumultuous breakup, then multiple breakdowns, and eventually a breakthrough.

I share stories of how my gift of writing guided me through the darkest moments of my life, leading me to reconnect with my Cambodian ancestors and break the cycle of generational trauma.

There is power in storytelling and sharing our vulnerabilities with the world. It opens doors to cultivate deeper connections with others on the same journey so we can heal as a collective.

By sharing my truths, I pave the way for others to feel safe sharing theirs. We all have a story to tell. Stories that can be someone’s silver lining. Stories of hope.

Episode Intro:
In this episode, I talk about one of my favorite self-love/self-discovery/semi solo trips to the Hamptons. This was part of my journey of deepening a relationship with myself, dating myself, falling in love with myself, and doing things for the first time alone like take a private surfing lesson and hitchhiking in the Hamptons. In moments of solititude we discover who we are.

Episode 18

When you’re recently single after the end of a long-term relationship, you go through a phase of spontaneity…this happens after you start to recognize the freedom of being in solitude…and how everyone was wrong about being single. Being single is fucking amazing, fun, and freeing, and very important in learning how to love yourself.

Self-love is a very important journey to take, and for me it was necessary after my catastrophic breakup with a man who had high narcissistic, sociopathic, and psychopathic traits.

If you’re now just tuning into this episode, here’s a quick highlight reel of my breakup.

In episode 1, You’re So Vain You Made My Sexual Assault About You, I tell the story of how my ex left me after I publicly condemned his best friend for sexually assaulting me, followed by the mass rejection of his friends and family which I talk about in episode 3, the blessing of rejection.

And we can’t forget about my last episode of him stalking me by running the same half-marathon as me, which I tell in episode 17, No One Believes You When Your Ex Stalks You

Trauma after trauma after trauma…It took me a long time to admit the actions of my former partner of 5 years were psychologically violent and abusive…

At the peak of my single season, where I truly fell in love with my own company, I also started to heal from the breakup. I started to see the power of making decisions for my life. I was so codependent, I terrified to do things alone, but once I started, I couldn’t stop. 

My rose colored glasses were broken and my vision of self-love was 20/20. After a summer of crying, raging, and feeling betrayed that my ex was now with the women he cheated on me with, which I talk about in episode 15, Honor the Pain of Cheating & Betrayal, I began to explore the relationship with myself.

Every day I started to challenge myself On what I could do alone. I went to weddings alone. I went to movies. I went to brunch alone. I was now ready to go on a trip alone. So when the opportunity came to spend a weekend in the Hamptons with my two friends who were selling their fashion products at a bougie Artisanal fair in Sag Harbor, I tagged along…proudly wearing my singleness on my sleeve. 

My friends would be spending all day selling their products, so I would basically be on my own in the Hamptons. I’ve been living in NYC for 8 years and still had yet to see what the hype was all about at the Hamptons. I was ready to take it all in. Semi-solo.

Day 1 was amazing. I shopped until I dropped hitting every shop in Sag Harbor with my corporate credit card…I was still working in fashion at the time. And one of the biggest perks was buying handbags as inspiration samples for your designs on the company card. 

Being alone, shopping, making decisions by myself without anyone judging me…was a fantasy I never knew I wanted.

On Day 2 of the Hamptons, I impulsivity booked private surf lessons. I had surfed once or twice in my life and was terrible. But I was addicted to the sport. I wanted to get better, and I wanted to stand on my board. I’ve never been able to successfully.

So my friend dropped me off at the surf hut in South Hampton, and I was off to my lesson.

My instructor was a very attuned dude. Before we even got into the ocean, he taught me how to read the ocean.

“Move with the ocean. Not against. Don’t fight it. Don’t hesitate. Just move with it.”

Sounds easy enough to me. He taught me how to position my stance from laying on the board to propping myself up quickly in a squat, basically warrior 2…and then we were off to test the waters..pun intended.

The first couple of tries of standing on the board, I immediately fell and got smacked around by the wave. I was always nervous after I stood up on the board and that’s why I kept falling down. I was so focused on trying to not fall, I kept falling, and I would get so frustrated…but I wasn’t ready to give up.

I was going to stand on this board today.

My instructor called out my anxiety and how it affected my body movement. I was resistance the waves instead of allowing it to take me where it wanted to.

“Stop looking at the board once you standup. Instead look towards the shore, the direction you are moving towards. Trust your board is going there.” He said.

I’m a huge control freak and surfing is all about surrendering to the process. The ocean is uncontrollable, just like life, and you either move with the waves, or you crash against it, very much like life.

So I got up back on my board…and calmed down my anxiety and my need for control. I trusted the ocean and surrendered to the movements.

A wave comes up, I start paddling, I stand up on the board as the wave is about to break, and I just look towards the shore. No fighting. No wondering how the wave was carrying my board. I just looked at the shore, until I arrived to it.

Holy Shit. I just surfed this wave without falling. I trusted the process. I surrendered to the ocean and allowed myself to trust that I was moving in the direction of the shore.

This moment ran parallel to my life. Breakup recover specifically abuse recovery is absolutely a journey…a hard one..but for me even though I had hard and heavy days, I always saw the silver linging of where I wanted to be. I knew inherently my life was better without my ex…I even knew that when I was still with him..but now I was fully moving in the direction towards the person I was becoming…I surrending to the healing journey and what this feels like is hopeful.

For the remainder of the lesson, I stood up on the board everytime. I was a surfer and I was owning this journey. 

After my lesson, the plan was to call an uber to go back to bougie artist fair in Sag Harbor because my friends were working their booth.

However, this plan back fired because I had no cell reception in South Hampton. Dear Hamptons, you need to work on that.

Because I was in my surfer’s high…I decided to deal with this problem later and order a giant lobster salad at the seafood shack and eat my 3rd world problems away.

I was eating my lunch on the patio outside, when a nice middle aged lady sat across me and we started chatting about how amazing our salad was, the weather, and the vibe. She told me this was one of the best seafood shacks in the Hamptons and she was coming from Sag Harbor. She started talking about how she wanted to check out the bougie artist fair and I told her my 2 friends were working a jewelry and clothing booth there.

My impulsive brain blurted out, “If you go, can I have a ride, my uber app is not getting cell service?”

She pauses, very confused, “Are you serious?” She says bewildered “Okay sure, I can give you a ride.”

That’s how I hitch hiked in the most bougie in the Hamptons. On the ride back to Sag Harbor she told me name, Linda. Linda was a photographer that use to be a nurse in NYC. She used to live in the city but now lives in the Hamptons.

When I told her I was just taking private surf lessons and trying to get better at it.

She looks at me and without hesitation says, “Surfing Is in your blood, I could tell.”

I knew in this moment, I was surfer, and was going to find a way to continue doing despite living in New York City. I’ll find a way to the beach again and as much as possible that summer.

Linda dropped me off in front of the fair, and I walked over to my friends and told them my story of getting a ride from a stranger.

Both of my friends were both super shocked and hysterically laughing at my spontaneity.

My friend Chelsea, “Wow, you’re really enjoying your single season. Congrats on your breakup.”

I was enjoying my single season because I was building a deepening relationship with myself. It was the first timing give myself the love I gave to the wrong person. The love for myself is without conditions because everywhere I go, there I am. I can’t escape me, so all there really is to do is just love who I am, where I’m at right now, and look forward with hope to the person I become when I’m done grieving my breakup.

If you’re currently going through a breakup I want you to remember this.

You are not broken. 

You were never broken.

What is broken is your belief systems.

Belief systems that were your Bible to love, happiness, and success.

What is broken is your view of the world.

What is broken was necessary for you to evolve because you were never meant to stay where you are.

You were meant to live a life of purpose.

Rise up, my dear.

Rise up.

You are about to begin the journey of healing. 

Outro:
Thank you for listening to this episode. If you’re in a single season i hope you’re enjoying the journey of returning to yourself.

If you liked this episode please follow me on Apple Podcasts or Spotify and leave me a review.

You can also follow me on IG and TikTok at Sincerely Miss Mary.

I will talk to you all next week!