Well, La Herradura to be precise, and sunny only in patches! A relatively still day for my first real solo swim in the sea, no-one waiting on land to wave assurance to, just myself to rely on. I set bitesize goals for myself to prevent the feeling of swimming endlessly, ‘up to the coloured bouys’, 100 strokes more, up to the yellow tent, white van, they all helped, and yet I still found I played games with myself, ‘It must be time to take a breather, the tent is within spitting distance, that counts’, I had to give myself a talking to ‘its ok, only a few more strokes, its your word’..
I wonder why it is that with this particular skill i am building that I do that, perhaps because its all so conscious, there is little that excites me about putting my face into salty water, although fortunately there was azure blue sea with pretty coloured fish to watch and take my mind off the ‘chatter’. I swam for 40 minutes I reckon, with a few breather stops for no more than a minute,but it is the ONLY sport i have ever done that this elusive hour haunts me, normally I am wishing time would slow down.
Maybe time slows down a bit when we connect more to the experience we are having, savouring the life we live, noticing the smells, the tastes, the sounds, and most of all our feelings, I am noticing my fear and being kind to myself (well, maybe the odd ‘don’t be ridiculous’ still slips out), but what a great lesson, to put ourselves in the way of something that brings up these incredible emotions and valuing them for what they are ‘a way of keeping us safe/ noticing something is wrong’ rather than judging them.
Remember that old book “ Feel the fear and do it anyway”, maybe its time for me to read that again....
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