Lessons from the Sea: Musings of an Accidental Sea Swimmer (part one of four)

Ten years ago, I was having a treatment on my back when I got what I can only describe as a longing from deep within me to start sea swimming. It was akin to the food cravings I had experienced when I was pregnant. It found a home in me in and my logical mind did not understand why. I had loved to swim has a child but I had not made much time for swimming in my adult year up to this point. I would forget about this yearning for a while and then I would be reminded, some part of me was not letting it go.

I was living in Donegal at the time and I figured sea swimming as a novice was not a solo endeavor, so some part of me began to seek out sea swimmers. At the time there was only one group I found, they happened to be ‘serious sea swimmers’ training to do a 5km sea swim across the Lough Swilly. So it came to pass, that I joined them and became an accidental 5 km sea swimmer too.

It strikes me that if this had happened today, with so many sea swimming groups, I am sure I would of gravitated to a group of dippers but that was not meant to be.

At the start, I could not put my face in the water and I was not a very strong swimmer. Have you ever found yourself saying words and you are not sure where they are coming from? Well that was my experience when I found myself having a conversation with Mary (one of the swimmers) over a glass of wine at a party “could I join them and did I need to learn to swim with my face in the water?” Yes was the answer to both questions and so my journey began.

It started in the pool- I joined their winter training session and as we swam in lanes I realised that I was in way out of my depth (pardon the pun). I huffed and puffed up and down the pool as I failed to convince my body that I was not going to die and could not figure out how to relax with my face in the water. I was a red as a beetroot when I got out from both exhaustion and embarrassment. Six weeks of frustration then followed as I found myself trying to give up on the whole thing as a bad idea, trying to convince myself that it didn’t matter anyway, although deep down, to some part of me it really did.

Lesson one- Hero’s journey- feeling like giving up is often part of the experience before we achieve something

I don’t think I would of ever gone back to the training if it were not for lesson one- hero’s journey. A good friend of mine happened to be studying the wonderful work of Joseph Campbell. She shared his model with me, which says that there are different stages we go though when we get ‘a call to adventure,’ we set out on our path and we then you meet a threshold where you feel you are not up the job- you ‘go to ground’ and you feel like giving up. Reading this reignited my drive to give it another go, it was so helpful to think about ‘my giving up’ as a stage in a process which could eventually leads to success. So I found myself brushing myself down, finding my length, donning goggle and my swim suit again and getting back in the pool.

I can’t tell you how many time in life since then, reflecting on the stages of the hero’s journey has spurred me on with a new idea when I find myself at the ‘going to ground’ phase. In child birth this is called the transition stage, it often occurs around 8 cms dilation- you can find you feel that you can’t carry on and the baby will just have to stay there. It is at this point we need a birthing partner or a kind midwife to guide us through with their encouragement. In the same way when we are ‘birthing a new idea or a new aspect of ourselves’ we often need the encouragement of others to help us get past this phase. I love Hafiz’s poem on this concept:

How did the rose ever open its heart and give this world all of its beauty? It felt the encouragement of light against its being, otherwise we all remain too frightened. Hafiz

So perhaps the next time when you hear a call from your soul, something deep within you that wants more life and you set out on your journey and then you feel like giving up, perhaps you too might remind yourself of the heros’ journey, remind yourself this is part of the process and stay close to your encouragers.

Perhaps you could ask yourself the question:

What would I do if I knew that this was part of the process of getting to where I want to go?