It begins and ends with trust today...

‘You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf’. 

Jon Kabat-Zinn

The question that immediately came to mind was ‘what if you’re afraid of the water?’

I am a very poor swimmer. I believe I could swim a length of a small swimming pool (very small) though I have not been called on to test this out in many years. No one ever taught me to swim. As a matter of fact the only thing I remember being taught is that water, especially the ocean, is a force to be wary of, a force to be frightened of and treated with the utmost respect, that is, something to stay away from. Where did I learn this? I guess it was from my mother.

For the first years of my life my mum, dad, brother, aunt, uncle, cousins and I went to Far Rockaway for the summer.  Rockaway Peninsula is the only real oceanfront beach in New York. Each summer the women and children left the city to go to the beach and for the whole summer season we lived in these wooden shack-like bungalows. Everything was very basic. The women of the family spent lots of time cooking, gossiping and often letting us kids run riot. We were very close to the ocean.  I don’t once remember going swimming or seeing anyone else from my family swimming. The ocean seemed to be there as a source of cheap air conditioning.  A way of cooling down on a hot day was to sit near the water’s edge, staying far from the waves so as not to get wet. I have a vague memory of walking towards the ocean while holding my mother’s hand and her telling me stories about how people drown in the ocean!

So, in my house, it wasn’t a case of stopping the waves or learning to surf, it was more a case of when the waves come, run. No wonder I’m afraid of the water.

When I do venture into the water my swimming technique has parallels to the way I live my life. I make lots of movements, flap around, expend lots of energy and hardly move forward at all. Is this the way I go through my days, flapping, squawking, exhausting myself and hardly moving? Sad if it is, but I do see that I can do less and achieve more.  I exhaust myself in so many ways, I use up the energy that could be supporting me. I never just float.

Think about floating on your back in the water. What does it depend on? It doesn’t depend on how thin you are, how tall or short, how skilful you are – no. Floating, the ability to let go, relax and let the water carry you is entirely dependant on trust. There’s that word again. Trust. Knowing that the water will support you, carry you along while you can enjoy the peace and quiet of the sky above. I find this so difficult. I will allow myself to float for a few moments and then I inevitably stop the process and begin to sink. I would hate to think this is the story of my life.

For me where it begins is this:

“We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit.”

― E.E. Cummings

I guess I may have to learn to surf after all.