Learning how to float

As a kid, I always struggled to float.

I didn't know why my legs always sunk to the bottom of the pool, but no matter how hard I tried the very thing I thought was supposed to come natural to me didn't.

It's been this on-going joke when I'm in the lake with my family, "Mom can't float."

And sure enough, down go my legs and the rest of me within seconds of my attempts. 

It's no surprise that treading water and staying in perpetual motion has been a way of life for me on land and in the water.

But something shifted significantly in the last few years.

My business structure began to feel more buoyant.

My relationship with myself became steadier and my way of expressing my truth did too.

My work and my words and my way of relating began to feel more free-flowing and at ease across the board.

The other day after wrapping up a podcast interview, I slipped into my swimsuit and dove in the bath-like waters of late August in New Hampshire.

My family was still at the beach and it was so hot outside staying submerged felt best.

I paddled around for a bit and turned on my back to look up at the tops of trees and the blue sky.

I watched the birds flying overhead and kept my ears underneath the water just enough so I could hear my own breathing as I fluttered my feet gently and glided along the shore.

At one point, I started to slow myself and take deep breaths to fill up my chest.

I felt myself float up to the surface of the water and linger there without that familiar old sinking feeling I had become so accustomed to.

I played there a while longer and noticed that the sensation of floating was more fluid than I expected it to be.

No part of me was frozen in place, rather, I was being held up by living water. 

The more I relaxed here, the lighter I felt.

I thought about this moment all afternoon and it got me thinking about the currents of life and the ways in which we so desperately crave to reach the destination of our desires.

Yet, it seems that when we get there, things never feels exactly as we hoped they would.

It is not until we surrender to the stream of living that we are truly free to float. 

As I looked up at the trees, watching the sparrows pump their wings and tuck them in close to their bodies to bullet through the sky, I was reminded that this is what living into our calling feels like too.

When we find the courage to let ourselves be held by the current of life, everything begins to unfold before us.

Here's to finding our way to the surface.

xo
Amber