A Way Back To My Heart

Yesterday was the first time I really understood swimming. I’ve loved to swim ever since I was a little girl, and I’ve always known the power of water, but as I got older, swimming started to mean laps: going from one side of the pool to the next, counting my achievements in numbers.

But that morning, I woke up with unbearable, intrusive thoughts, which I couldn’t get rid of with any of my usual tools. (And believe me, I have a lot of tools in my toolbox!) At one point, the thoughts got so bad that I started to have a panic attack. I took a freezing-cold shower, but that also didn’t help. I don’t know how I managed to get dressed, but I somehow got myself to the local pool, my morbid thoughts growing and taking me over.

As soon as I arrived, I threw myself in the water. “I only have energy for two laps,” I told myself. As I crossed the pool, however, something started to happen. I could hear my breath as though someone else were breathing it, and the sounds of my bubbles sparked my own curiosity. I was exhausted, so my breaths were slow and deep. Within my second lap, I entered a place where time didn’t matter, my thoughts didn’t matter. All that mattered was that I was a being who was breathing, who still had life in her lungs.

An hour later, I was still swimming. I didn’t want my time with my breath and body to end. There’s so much love here! I thought. I could feel my own love for myself, and the love of so many who have been there for me. I could even sense the love of those who have hurt me, and how much love they too have buried away somewhere. This is the secret of breathwork, I realized: not just a tool for relaxation, but a way back to my own heart.