As I floated on my back in lake the other day, with the warm mid-summer sunshine on my face and the fresh water holding me, it felt both alien and so very familiar.
Laying right back with my head in the water, feeling the gentle ripples of the waves and the sunshine on my face, brought back deeply held memories and so many feelings.
For sure some of the remembering was about my summers as a kid floating in these same waters, off this very same dock. But it was more than that.
There was a remembering of spaciousness and curiosity,
a remembering of trust in being held,
trust in being still,
trust in the pause,
trust in being nothing but present.
Letting my ears sink under the water and my eyes drift from the clouds above to the insides of my closing eyelids and tuning out the world around yet tuning into it even more…
it felt safe and glorious and liberating…
and deeply unsettling all at once.
It felt like a vaguely familiar game of trust.
If I stopped moving, stopped swimming, stopped treading water, and just laid myself back into the embrace of the water would it hold me? Would it support me?
If I stopped working so hard to keep my head above water would I float? Or would I sink?
Spoiler alert, I floated. It felt both heavenly easeful AND agitating at the same time.
I wanted to lean into it AND I wanted to quickly pull back up and return to treading water. It was so unsettling to stay still. It took intentional devotion to overcome the gut reaction to return to the familiar effort to get upright and aware and to keep my head above water – even tho I wasn’t sinking.
With my ears muffled under the water the sounds of the world faded away, with my eyes turned to the sky it was just me and the clouds.
If I just stayed there not being able to see or hear what was going on around me, would something surprise me? Or would I be safe just floating in stillness and peace?
I could feel the palpable tension between the parts of me.
“Stay, float, lean into the float more fully. Trust it. Stay. This is magic. It can be like this.”
“Enough. Get up. Watch out. Check mark, you floated, done, let’s move on.”
We’re so weird, us humans.
We’ve forgotten how to float, to let ourselves be carried
We’re so conditioned to paddle hard, to swim, to do.
Floating requires you to just be, and to trust. And to stay with the stillness. Even when parts of you (those internalized voices of vigilance) are screaming at you to get up, look around, move, be vigilant, get on with it.
What would it be like to float on the foundations you’ve built- let them carry you just for a bit while you take a pause from all the doing?
Trust in your foundations, your team, your relationships, your systems, your supports. Trust in what you’ve already invested in.
Just for a bit, stay with the stillness, let yourself float.
Then when that first urge comes to exit the float and start to paddle…
don’t.
Trust it, stay with the stillness just a few moments longer and feel what it’s like to float.
It’s magic,
it’s irreplaceable,
it’s in your bones,
it’s crying out for you to remember.
I was left wondering what might happen if I let myself float in the water every chance I got. I bet I’d be able to relax there with more ease. Practice is what makes anything become second nature right?
Here’s the thing tho, it’s not something new I’ve got to learn. It’s not something new you’ve got to learn. It’s already in you, deep in your bones, just waiting to be remembered. Maybe the practicing is more about the unlearning of the stuff that’s getting in the way, rather than the learning of anything new.
And FLOATING is one thing that SUMMER invites us to remember.
I’m grateful for each season and everything each season invites us to remember.
For today, let’s play with remembering how to float….
ONLY in SUMMER
Here’s to Summer, to you leaning into what it has to offer and to perhaps dabbling with something that seems alien or ancient, yet might offer you just what you’re yearning for.
Big Love,
Tanis
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