After getting held under water a bit too long by the enormous waves at surf camp, one of the goals that emerged from our group discussions was developing the ability to hold our breath longer and maintaining our composure in challenging situations. Toni found us a class that did just that with Waterlogged. We spent an evening at a local high school swimming pool to learn to breathe more efficiently and stay calm under water. Once again, the girls and I dived into the place where fear and courage meet, seeking to grow, and we did it with joy and enthusiasm.
We swam some laps to warm up and learned that many of us need basic swimming lessons (and to get a lot more fit)! While shocking at first to me, this basic fact increases my admiration for my sisters enormously. How could we possibly have surfed together for over a year and not known that everyone didn't know exactly how to swim??!! How badass do you have to be to go surfing in the ocean without massive confidence in how to swim? Part of what helps me to feel comfortable in the water is that I had swimming lessons from when I was a little kid. Year after year of swimming lessons, along with swimming in the Great Lakes throughout my childhood, helps me to believe that I can handle these conditions. In this respect, my life experiences help me feel confident. I didn't know what to expect from this Waterlogged experience, but I knew I could swim. My hope for this night was that my sisters would feel more confident in their abilities after taking on these challenges, and I would learn something about my abilities -- but I wasn't sure what, as I am the least physically fit person in our group. (And we are doing swimming lessons ASAP!)
The big goal of the night was rock running -- maybe you've seen surfers train by carrying rocks under water? That was the ultimate goal. We began by learning how to duck dive from the surface one step at a time: make our bodies float like a pancake, make Frankenstein arms (not Thriller arms), tuck fetal position, then dolphin dive. (More passion! More energy!) Then bob back up to the surface like bottles thrown in the ocean, legs straight, working on our under water balance. We then learned how to equalize the pressure in our sinuses as we climbed down a rope to the bottom of the deep end. Finally, we used the equalizing and diving skills to grab weights at the bottom of the pool (seven-foot deep section, not the deep end) and "run" with them along the bottom. As always with the Sisterhood, we had a blast while doing challenging things. Turns out, one big barrier to controlling your breathing is laughing too hard to get a breath!
Learning to keep our composure under water is a skill that depends in part on understanding the process our bodies take when we cannot breathe normally. I didn't know that it's the build up of carbon dioxide that triggers the body to want to breathe, not a lack of oxygen. I didn't know that there are very predictable stages that occur when the body is struggling to breathe and strategies to mitigate those stages as you go through them. For example, when you hold your breath for a few seconds, you almost immediately feel a sense of discomfort and urge to breathe. You can hang on for a few more seconds and that passes. Another stage is when you think exhaling just a little bit will help, so you are VERY tempted to let out just a few bubbles. Our instructor, Morgan, said that does make you feel better in the short term, but not the long term, so hang on some more! They also mentioned that your diaphragm might contract or spasm in an effort to make you breathe, which looked very scary, but even that passes. Acceptance of these stages promotes our ability to remain calm.
It was also really important to listen to the body. In the activity where we climbed down the rope to the bottom of the deep end, we practiced equalizing the pressure in our sinuses. It was important to pay attention and notice when there was pain in our ears, so we knew to stop and equalize. In the picture, you can see me hanging on to the rope with one arm while the other hand is free to hold my nose while I exhale and feel my ears fill up. Even in only 12-13 feet of water, our ears could get damaged by the pressure. So listening to our bodies helped us navigate the challenge.
Once we know those stages, then we can learn to expect them and practice riding them out. From one of the handouts Waterlogged gave us, "The best part is that, the more we dive and hold our breath, the more our bodies know what to expect." Just like how therapy teaches me to ride my emotional waves, and the surf instructors taught me how to paddle outside the impact zone with specific skills, dealing with the discomfort of not being able to breathe normally is something I can adapt to and overcome. More training allows for more carbon dioxide tolerance. The urge to breathe will never go away, but it will take longer to get to uncomfortable, and uncomfortable will get less and less intense. The more I practice these skills, the more my body and mind learn that I can handle them. I can keep my composure for longer and discover new experiences and abilities. As Surf Sister Katy said in the water today, we are getting better at tolerating discomfort. (Hi Katy!!) And really cool stuff is on the other side of discomfort. As she wrote in an Insta post, "A pal asked, 'Have you been having fun?' True fun, yes...like 5% of the time so far. The other 95% is not necessarily fun, but it is...adventure...beauty...growth...gratitude...and peeing in my suit to self-soothe. #teamyellow"
Morgan said that the big problem is our brain. As the handout they shared says, "Your mind can be your best friend...or worst enemy." This is what insight meditation and mindfulness is all about -- learning to work with our minds. Morgan shared that the body can live without breath for at least five full minutes on its own. It's our mind that starts to panic. Morgan discussed this diagram, calling our comfort zone "Type 1 Fun." Type 1 fun is fun in the moment, normal fun. The stretch zone is "Type 2 Fun," or fun we feel when the challenge is over and we realize we've survived. I think many of us had Type 2 Fun on this night. And then there's panic. No fun at all. We can grow our stretch zone into our comfort zone with positive experiences, and push that panic further and further out.
There were lots of techniques to improve our breathing, like diaphragmatic breathing, which increases our ability to take in oxygen and expands our lungs. When children breathe, their bellies go up and down -- there's a wonderful meditation exercise for kids called "belly breathing." Kids do diaphragmatic breathing naturally. Over time, our adult lives filled with stress, we take sips of breath, which moves our breathing into our chests and away from our bellies. We lose the ability to breathe deeply, but we can regain that ability with practice. There was also pranayama breathing. There are many forms and methods for pranayama breathing, but the one Waterlogged suggested for the "breathe up" before the dive was: inhale, hold for 2 counts, exhale for 8 counts, hold for 2 counts, then inhale again. Repeat that for about 5 minutes. Also helps to hiss on the exhale -- blow out through your teeth. Your heart rate slows with the controlled breath.
They talked about the Mammalian Dive Reflex and how our bodies react with superhuman abilities when we hold our breath for really long periods of time. Our bodies know what to do in these situations. When we can learn to trust our bodies and deal with our minds, magical things happen. Our heart rates slow and we use less oxygen. The body pulls blood from the extremities and directs it to the brain and heart. Even the spleen gets in on it! Squeezing more red blood cells into your system. And we pee; the body expels waste. (TEAM YELLOW for the win!) It's amazing what we can do when we can just trust the system. And we can build up our trust in the system little by little through practice.
The parallels between this evening's lessons and meditation write themselves: breathing to regulate my emotions, grounding in the body, learning the contours of my mind so I can better navigate it, increasing my affect tolerance by riding all kinds of waves until the end, so I can see what happens after the intensity passes. The more I ride it out, the more my body and mind know what to expect, the calmer I get and the more patience I have. I continue to work on riding my emotional waves in more complex situations. It has been amazing to me to observe how quickly I get uncomfortable and want to bail on any given emotion, and how quickly I've been able to make progress tolerating such discomfort. Specific knowledge and skills help this process immensely. Practice shows me over and over again that I can do this.
Having specific knowledge and a great therapist is so important, because for me, tolerating discomfort is tricky. I've kept myself in very uncomfortable situations through denial, codependency, and trauma responses for years, so understanding how a healthy process works is key to gaining a sense of balance. In this respect, my life experiences undermine my confidence. I was denying the messages my body was telling me as well as the deeper messages of my mind for a very long time in order to cope. Now, I'm not denying my actual experience when I work to withstand uncomfortable emotions; I'm recognizing them and breathing through them. I'm making a choice to stick with what I can stick with to see what happens on the other side. And if I need to bail, then I bail -- I work the edges, try to expand. As I practice this more, I find so far that there really is nothing to fear. I get braver every time I practice.
Though some waves are still too big for my skill level, I'm getting better and better, less and less afraid. I have so many limiting beliefs knocking around in my head. My mind has told me stories for years and those stories aren't true. I just never had emotionally intelligent guidance for how to handle my emotions and don't remember ever being soothed in a way that allowed me to integrate every day difficulties or larger traumatic experiences in a healthy way. From Robert Stolorow's Trauma and Human Experience, "Pain is not pathology. It is the absence of adequate attunement and responsiveness to the child’s painful emotional reactions that renders them unendurable and thus a source of traumatic states and psychopathology.” No one taught me how to handle pain, likely because no one taught them how to handle pain. Our generational traumas just get passed down and down until someone finally gets help. Much of therapy is reparenting myself -- and how quickly a little kindness works to heal this body that couldn't breathe for so many years. Self-compassion is THE go-to strategy for healing.
Another strategy that really helps is developing the ability to listen to my body. I know my body never lies, but for a long time, I ignored its signals. Stolorow again, “Lacking a holding context in which painful affect can live and become integrated, the traumatized child... must dissociate painful emotions from his or her ongoing experiencing, often resulting in psychosomatic states or in splits between the subjectively experienced mind and body.” Reconnecting to my body is a great way to deal with trauma in my past and with challenging circumstances moving forward. This Waterlogged lesson was another step on that path. One of the many ways surfing helps me heal is to connect me with my body. I'm not surprised that my biggest surfing days came on the heels of big breakthroughs in therapy. The body-mind connection is real.
I am learning to navigate the borders between healthy and unhealthy. A book BTG suggested the other day is Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet by Roshi Joan Halifax. She talks about "edge states" -- places where even the highest, most positive qualities of humankind can go wrong. Can we be purely altruistic or is there always something in it for us when we do good? How can empathy be treacherous? What are the perils within the promise of integrity, respect, and engagement? Understanding the edgy complexity of these strengths is one way to enter the challenge of living authentically. There are no easy answers and humans are just messy. Getting comfortable with our discomfort and learning to handle it — the strategies of equalizing our ears when the pain starts, knowing the stages of CO2 overload, and calmly recognizing them so we can keep going mirror the strategies for handling the edges of human complexity: ongoing meditation practice, grounding in the body, and awareness of our thoughts and emotions. Most of life is terribly complicated, full of different and conflicting emotions. Navigating those edges is hard, so having skillful strategies helps me through difficult situations.
Just like Morgan told us to pay attention to the pain in our ears in order to know when to equalize, Roshi Joan advocates attention to the body, too. “Through sensing into the body, we can also learn what it feels like physically when we are going over the edge: the paralyzing tightness in the gut or chest; tension around the heart, throat, eyes, or head; jitteriness, tingling, or pain; cold hands, sweating, feet moving as if we want to flee; or feeling dissociated from the body as we watch ourselves do things we don’t really want to do. We may be able to rationalize our behavior in our minds, but the sinking feeling or tension in the body will give the truth away. If we shift our attention to the breath and body, we can bear witness to what the body is saying, and we might avoid falling off the edge.” I now listen to my body and act on its advice when I'm considering an ethical issue, the kind of engagement I want to pursue, or really anything involving other humans. Discerning natural responses and fear-based responses in my body will take time, but I'm working the edges.
Ongoing meditation practice gives me practice in noticing what I'm thinking and feeling, observing thoughts and emotions with some detachment, and letting them go, breathing to regulate myself. Holding our thoughts and feelings lightly allows more space for a wise response. Awareness of my thoughts and emotions gives me clues to my underlying (potentially harmful and limiting) beliefs and my values. Anyone who has seen Inside Out knows that our emotions are information. Every emotion serves a purpose and helps us understand our values. These practices support a growing confidence and trust in my ability to handle what I previously couldn't handle -- or handled by shutting down or closing off whole parts of myself. Above water, I can breathe through lots of difficult situations now that would have previously sent me into a panic. I can meet my own suffering and the suffering of others more directly now, moving my stretch zone into my comfort zone, and that allows me to find more freedom.
Like surfing at the beach, the edge of the continent, I can work at the edge where fear meets courage. I can expand what I can tolerate and my life will get fuller, more complete, more real. Equalizing my life means to accept it all and work with it -- the full human experience, denying nothing. Roshi Joan again, "I have come to see the profound value of taking in the whole landscape of life and not rejecting or denying what we are given. I have also learned that our waywardness, difficulties, and 'crises' might not be terminal obstacles. They can actually be gateways to wider, richer internal and external landscapes. If we willingly investigate our difficulties, we can fold them into a view of reality that is more courageous, inclusive, emergent, and wise—as have many others who have fallen over the edge."
I'm so glad to have fallen in with this group of women. For me, the edge is psychological and emotional. For my surf sisters in the pool, it's psychological and physical. I'm so grateful and not a little proud to be a part of a group who noticed their fear and decided to let it teach them. The San O Campers were afraid every day -- not once did they leave. They stuck it out and worked with their fear. When we got home, they reflected on it. Instead of that reflection resulting in something like, "I'm never doing that again," they decided we needed to work on the fear -- turn it into a skill. At Waterlogged, there was a lot of fear. Not once did anyone say, "I'm out." They did what they could do; they worked their edges in order to expand. They met their suffering directly in order to gain more freedom. This is one of the thousand ways these women help to heal me: I am so inspired by their courage. Roshi Joan writes, "Here at the edge, there is the possibility of destruction, suffering -- and boundless promise." I can't wait to see what we do next.
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