I’ve been thinking a lot lately. I haven’t had this much time to myself for many years. It’s both good and bad. Without a “regular” job to consume just about every waking moment of your life, your mind starts to wander. You get introspective, and all those things you continually push away in your mind suddenly get very cozy peaking into your consciousness. So mood swings are bound to ensue. But I think it’s very good to let those things manifest, and to accept them. I think many of us spend our lives pushing these thoughts away and wake up one day and wonder just what happened.
Up until recently I’ve been swimming a lot. I started swimming underwater at the pool after I got sick of just doing breast stroke laps for exercise. I started to notice how good I felt underwater. The lights produces pleasing patterns that dance on the bottom of the pool and there is a silence there that fills your body. Somehow when you dive down to six feet or deeper, the pressure and silence forces your thoughts inward. You can hear your heart beat like a hammer, you notice every small movement of your body. The more I started going under, the longer I wanted to stay there, have my mind there.
I started practicing breath holding and at the same time relaxation techniques. It quickly became a kind of meditation. The focusing of your mind on a single thing like this brings clarity, all of your other thoughts drop away and you are calm. At first I could hardly make it half way across the pool before feeling like I need to gasp for air, but slowly I could go farther and farther. I’ve made it two full lengths of the pool now. It feels so good, not how far I made it, but how my mind and body feel afterwards.
I’m trying to find that same kind of clarity now out of the water.
