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

Lesson four: ‘To go fast is to go alone to go far is to go together’ (African Proverb).

Just like the proverb I found I could sometimes swim faster on my own, I could find my own rhythm and keep swimming. However, this meant that I would be on my own out in the big blue, where I might have a brush with a jellyfish or something in the unknown kicks my imagination into overdrive -making me quickly lose my ventral vagal state , my sense of ease. My breath would get faster, my muscles tightening and stress hormones start coursing through my veins. Stephen Porges talks about the power of co-regulation, if you are out in the big blue and you find yourself getting ‘activated’ you can connect with one of your sea swimmer family and their calmness and can help you return to ease and vice versa. So even though it might feel a little frustrating sometimes to be adjusting your stroke to keep pace with the group, or having a different of opinion of direction you should be swimming to account for the tidal flow and conditions etc (as is often the case with my sister and me), it is worth it.

You can go further together, you can feed and nurture each others capacity and ease. There are also the days when you really don’t feel like getting in and the only thing that makes you is your commitment to others to meet them for a swim. The same way in work sometime the co-creative process can be frustrating as we have to adapt to people having different ways of working but we can go further together.