Don’t Worry About The Depth Of The Sea. Just Learn How To Swim
As humans, we can’t swim when we are born, so we have to take lessons and learn to do it independently.
Life is the same, and some of us can struggle to keep our heads above water. There are waves of emotions hitting us. We tread waters of stress, anxiety, and burnout. We can be thrown into the deep end, and to survive, we have no choice but to learn how to swim. In July 2014, I got into a swimming pool and could not swim.
It was not the fear of the water itself but of being unable to breathe, but I had not been breathing for years. I was suffocating, drowning in my pool of self-pity and denial. Within ten minutes, my swimming coach had me breathing under the water. I knew it would be okay when I came up for my next breath of air. Five months later, I got into the open water to swim in the sea for the first time.
I had started living. I was staying afloat.
In my work, I often hear people describe their situations as feeling like they are drowning.
My response is:
“What would it feel like if you came up for air?”
You cannot swim for new horizons until you have courage to lose sight of the shore.” William Faulkner
