Floating (Swimming Lessons)

When I was eight years old, I took swimming lessons early in the mornings one summer.  The water was freezing when I got in.  After a while I didn’t notice.   The first two things we learned in swimming lessons, I believe, may be two of the most important things to know in Life – how to breathe, and how to float.

Blowing bubbles was sort of fun.

Floating was a little tough; I recall the instinct to struggle to hold myself up in the water.  It seemed counter intuitive to just relax completely and let the water hold me up.  I’ve had that sensation at other times too (out of the water) and still find it difficult, at times, to let go.

On my vision board, one important image for me is one of a woman floating on her back in the ocean.  For me, this image means surrender.

Sometimes it is the hardest thing to do, to let go, and to let it flow.

We have such an obsession it seems, in the West, with striving.  When it comes to self discovery, this can be complicated.  What is the goal of striving?  Is it to get somewhere that you are not?  It can become almost a neurotic impulse, to strive, to move away, to struggle, to fight.

Perhaps there are times when that is completely appropriate.  I don’t see being completely submissive at all times as being aligned to how life functions on this planet.  For example, our immune systems are constantly fighting off microbes that might otherwise make our bodies very ill.  There are even times when perhaps physical defense is a correct action.

But what about when it is not appropriate, and does not serve us to fight, to struggle, to try so hard?  There is a wisdom and power to “trying easy,” to letting go, to being willing to float, to be held, to be guided, to be comfortable not knowing, just To Be, in silence, and see what is experienced if we can give up, for even a moment, being the star and director and audience / critic of our own story.

Perhaps, an insight will come, if it’s welcomed, without expectation, in silence.  Perhaps an uncomfortable feeling will come into conscious awareness, welcomed, held, without judgement or fixing or sending away.  For me, the most sublime feeling is just feeling what Is, feeling Life, myself as part of a connection, of a flow of conscious awareness from which there has never been separation.  I call this being held.

Being willing to be held is to trust, and to not have to feel small and separate and in charge.

In such a moment, perhaps it is not words that come, but a feeling which can be investigated. Can you fall into being held?  Then anything you feel called to do after is guided by that silent awareness, is empowered by it, and enlivened by it.

Give yourself permission to be weightless (waitless?).   Be here, now, floating in not having to do anything.  It’s so nourishing.