Relationships require good anchors, not good ships

​She held up her anchor. She asked us to focus on the ocean she'd drawn at the bottom of it. She said, I drew an ocean because I want my person to know I'll go deep with them. No matter how choppy or rough things get, I'm going to keep going deep with them through all the hard stuff.

All the way to the bottom of the ocean if I have to.

I took part in a teen summit yesterday. During the summit, my friend and colleague Marrin led teens through an activity that asked them to explore how they anchor themselves, and what makes them a good anchor for one another.

She handed each of the teens a blank paper anchor. Then, she asked them to draw or write or be creative with the anchor in a way that would help them tell the story about what it means for them personally to be an anchor for someone.

I won't soon forget what I felt when that young high school senior pointed to her ocean and opened my eyes to what will forever now be my definition of an anchor.

The willingness to go deep.

Forever I have viewed the anchor as something you simply toss over the side of the boat to steady that boat. I suppose it is, but that grossly underappreciates the story of all an anchor might have to go through before it finds the bottom of the lake.

Or ocean.

I couldn't help but think about how many relationships fail because people don't know what it looks like to be anchors for one another. They climb into the boat of a relationship without considering there will come a day when they may have to go to the bottom of the ocean just to keep their ship afloat.

It's then and there when they often discover they have no idea how to be an anchor, or that they have no desire to be an anchor that has to go that deep.

I signed up to ride the ship; not be the ship's anchor.

Meaningful relationships rely on good anchors, not good ships. The best of ships will always be in trouble in stormy waters without an anchor. The best of anchors will always steady a ship no matter how stormy the waters get.

I can't deny this teen had me reflecting on the stormy relationships of my own life.

But this same teen gave me a kind of hope for our teens I haven't experienced in a while.

The storms of our teens lives are giant right now. Giant and relentless. But yesterday, I listened to teens talk with great insight and great clarity and great confidence about what it means to be anchors for one another.

I'm not sure us adults always know how to be anchors for our teens, but teens have a pretty good idea how to do that.

They have a long way to go, for sure. But maybe not as far as I have to go, and I find that promising.

For them, and thanks to one particular teen, for me as well.