Swim

Swim

As a restorative practice, it is the great sensuality of water that we want to emphasize. As a practice for helping ease us back into the body, ease us back into pleasure, ease us back into the language of feeling, water is unparalleled. Water is the great mystery, the ocean, the ocean within. All of us develop embryonically as swimmers. To find our way back into water, into the sea, into the pool, is to find ourselves back in the landscape of feeling. When you swim, restoratively, we invite you to bring deep attention to the caress of the water on your skin; to attend to sensation in the body. To the change in temperature, to the enveloping feel of water. To treat it as a sensory mindfulness practice. Water eases us back into the feeling of safe embrace. And the swimming, to move through the water, rhythmically, this is a kind of meditation. To exercise in water provides a no-impact environment. To swim we have to learn to breathe, to regulate our breathing, to synchronize it with movement. When you swim allow the mind to empty, tune into the senses, the rhythm of the stroke, the rhythm of the breath. Find your way back into the grace of the waters.

Swimming is also an important practice in down-shifting fight energy. Because it is cardio-vascular exercise, and because most strokes utilize the arms (the crawl and butterfly in particular), which are particularly activated with the fight response, and because water is cooling, it is a nearly perfect exercise for down-shifting fight/ anger responses. If you are swimming for this reason, consider wearing goggles with a blue tint. This adds another dimension of visual input that is cooling.