Breathing Under Water and the Fine Art of Surrender
The Hardest Easy Thing to do
The panic is visceral. My brain is screaming at me… you are not safe! I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe! I hold my breath and I feel my eyes anxiously darting about. Must surface, must surface. My life is in peril!
But then I spot the instructor. He’s floating about off to my right and signals me with a thumbs up sign but underneath his mask, I see the query.
Are you all right?
Hell, no, I want to scream. But I can’t because, uh, there’s this great big mouthpiece in my pie hole. It’s blocking my breath! Air, I need air!
Involuntarily, I suck in a breath. Waaaaaat?
My god. What is the magic I have just experienced? I can actually breathe down here. The regulator works just fine and is bringing fresh, delicious, life-giving oxygen from the tank on my back and into my lungs.
But my skepticism remains. This is abnormal. One does NOT breathe under water.
Unless of course, you are taking an intro to scuba diving class. In a pool.
Given my lizard brain response, you’d think I was dropped in a pool of jellyfish with a Great White circling about. Maybe throw in some patrolling U-Boats from World War II just to amp up the fear even more.
But no. It is just me and my manufactured fears.
I draw another breath. Oxygen is flowing fine.
Look ma! I’m breathing under water!
How ridiculously unnatural. The tug of war between my rational brain (you are safe and have an oxygen tank full of air) and my lizard brain (RUN!!! Uh, rather SURFACE!!!) is real.
Perhaps it was the latest round of health funsies that had me reflecting on this. When your lung is swimming in fluid, you realize the power and glory of simply drawing a deep breath.
But I think even more so what prompted these musings was the unfolding revelation that the way through difficulties and grief is surrender.
Gah. I cringe a little every time I type the word grief. Fer-crying-out-loud, I used to be a HUMOR COLUMNIST. I tire of me. I tire of being tired. (Or as my spiritual director observed, “fucking tired.” Yes, she cusses too.)
I’d rather be generating laughs.
Has fun and frivolity fled this writer’s building?
How does one tap into fun and frivolity when one feels like they are stuck in a pool of molasses grief, sticky with painful memories and rife with imagined fears?
You breathe. You exhale slowly. You draw another breath. Repeat.
No matter the slog, you return to the breath. To the present moment.
You breathe underwater. It feels like drowning but for some inexplicable reason; you are still here.
Only instead of “surface!” your brain is screaming is things like, FIX THIS! Make this pain go away! Or a personal favorite-let’s outsource the pain and fear on someone or something else.
I think it was my favorite Franciscan, Richard Rohr, who said something like “We are fish seeking water.”
That which I am seeking is already here. True self, Peace, Source, God, if you will, is holding this emotional shitstorm together. It is a constant presence.
It is the ocean. I am a fish. Hmmmm, make that a cute smiley dolphin.
There is a standing invitation to enter into this peace. I both marvel and resist the simplicity of it.
Before I begin a coaching session, I invite my client to close their eyes, place a hand over heart and draw four deep breaths.
The results always bring a smile and a settling. Butt cheeks unclench. We also marvel. Natures built in opioids, if you will.
Why don’t we do this more?
I can only speak for myself. When I am in difficulty or pain my go to is to try to control. Fix it, make it go away, banish the offending asshole to the outer darkness.
And when I’m all finished working myself into a lather, I realize I have precious little control over many things. Nothing changes only now I’m exhausted and pissed.
It confounds my ego and thinking mind that I can’t just try harder to fix things.
Certainly, there is a time and place for trying harder. But as the Serenity Prayer acknowledges, we need wisdom to understand the difference between what I can fix and what I must carry.
Stepping into the space of acceptance of what is instead of generating the anguish of what if is key. Acknowledging that I have enough right now. I am enough.
All shall be well, all shall be well, all manner of thing shall be well, the mystic Teresa of Avila said.
I am not talking about naval gazing, lethargy and despair. It’s not learned helplessness either. Or parroting shallow memes like “like go and let god” that we never really believe, anyway.
Taking action on what we can act upon is important.
There is a distinction between action driven by fear and anger and action that is guided by peace, and yes, righteous anger when it is called for.
And good lawd, there is plenty of opportunity to look around and get hopping mad over the state of things. (I’m looking at you, groceries prices. You too, homelessness. It’s not right this is prevalent in such a wealthy country.)
If I allow my anger to drive my behavior, I am no different than the forehead-vein-popping, purple-faced, finger pointing rage-a-holics.
I become the very thing I resist and rage over.
I must return to the breath. To surrender. To breathing underwater and allowing life to be life-with all its inherent sorrows and joys.
Learning this is not unlike learning a new instrument. It takes practice and repetition. Certainly, life provides plenty of opportunity for practice, yes?
It’s addition through subtraction. It’s joy wrapped in suffering. Less becomes more.
Let go and…. oh, I am not going to say “let god” after that (You could feel that coming, couldn’t you?)
How about just let go?
(And besides when we add the “let god,” that opens up the possibilities to get pissed at God for not honoring our virtuous act of self-surrender and changing things to our liking.)
It’s that easy and that hard.
Surrender. This is the place where you discover that you too can breathe underwater.
Thanks so much for reading. You can find me around the internet at www.theresawinn.com, on Facebook, LinkedIn and Instagram.
