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The Legend of Mai Te Pora



Mai Te Pora is the ancient name given to the island of Bora Bora in French Polynesia. That ancient name translates directly to “Created by The Gods”.

Most of you know about Bora Bora and its exquisite beauty. The Island is a lush green atoll surrounded by an absolutely stunningly beautiful turquoise lagoon which is filled with all sorts of amazing sea life.

This absolutely beautiful place is sitting there in the middle of the ocean in literally the middle of nowhere. When you fly in the beauty of the island and lagoon starts to catch your eye and the amazing beauty just blows you away.

So here in the middle of the Pacific Ocean stands the Creation of the Gods, The Pearl of the Pacific as it is also known.

Right now we are on holiday here and so while I was sitting here in this place of paradise, I was thinking about this island and the other South Pacific Islands. And I suddenly thought this island is a great analogy for our lives.

Bora Bora was not always so beautiful.

If we go back a few million years, there was nothing here. But below the ocean floor there was a lot of activity that was happening. Below the surface of the seemingly calm and beautiful Pacific Ocean was a mass of energy stirring up and ready to erupt.

Eventually this below the surface activity turned extremely violent and lava spewed to the surface creating these islands. After the eruption of the volcano everything settled and what was left was a big black lifeless “mass” of hardened volcano lava.

But eventually over time life began to appear and the island evolved into what it is now. Lush life on land with beautiful flowers and fruits, surrounded by coral reefs teeming with gorgeous sea life, amazing azure blue and turquoise lagoons and powder white sands.

Without the hugely powerful disturbance that erupted violently none of this would have been possible.

And so I wanted to use this analogy in our own lives. So I want to share with you some tips that I learnt from Mai Te Pora (Bora Bora):

The calm - often we are cruising through life and everything seems just perfect for us. Life is just right and we are so excited about our future and what we can achieve. We just want everything to stay the same as it is right now. This is a place of comfort.

The disturbance - during this time of calm we might from time to time get warnings signs that a disturbance is below the surface and something just doesn’t seem right. But we carry on and act as if we can just suppress that disturbance, hoping it will go away.

The eruption - out of the blue we erupt. In some cases it is a complete shock to us as there are no warning signs and other times despite the warning signs, we carry on like we we were and try to ignore them.

The shock - after the shock of the eruption we are sometimes left confused, angry, worried, fearful, and jilted. Why did this happen to me? How did this happen to me? Am I unlucky? Am I bad person?

The transition - This is the period of real growth, in the same way the island starts to morph from black lava rock to start the creation of new life forms. The same thing happens to us. The transition takes time and seems like it goes on forever. We try to force things along and speed it up, but we can’t.

This is the time when we have to trust the process and allow ourselves to evolve. Even if we are looking around and everything still seems barren and hopeless with very little results.

The pearl arises - over time we wake up and suddenly our true beauty has now emerged. We are the shining pearl as we have grown so much and evolved into something amazing.

People start to compliment you and come to you for guidance and help. Your true self begins to shine through.

However none of this growth and change would have been possible without the huge disturbance to cause that change and period of extreme growth.

Sometimes growth and change are not possible without a huge disturbance. @hayleyhobson (Click to Tweet!)

When we start to look at life this way, we realize that life is all about us evolving over time and that we should understand that periods of disturbance, transition and change are good for us and will help us become the best versions of ourselves.

I hope you enjoyed this post as much as I enjoyed writing it. Let me know your thoughts.

XO
Hayley

 


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