Reach, pull, breathe… reach, pull, breathe.
That’s been my mantra for the past few months as I’ve been working to heal my back. Everything seems to aggravate it except swimming. So swim I did. I hadn’t been swimming in a long while, but after a few weeks, it became effortless, second nature. I could just swim and swim and not think about work or family issues or my own aging body. I could simply float and glide and for that span of time, I transcended my worries shrouded in weightless silence. It was heaven.
To my chagrin, swimming laps for 40 - 60 min every day for weeks exacted a price. When a new pain in my left hip developed, I examined my routines and discovered that I favor my left side when I swim, meaning that’s the side I breathe on. Reach, pull, breathe… reach, pull, breathe. I decided that the solution would be to learn to come up on the right to breathe, thereby ostensibly creating better balance in my body. After one lap of breathing on my right I felt like a cartoon character popping up out of the water holding up 3 fingers. Granted, the pool I swim in is less than 5 feet deep, but it was so difficult to make this change that I was sure I would drown from sheer disorientation. (Follow the bubbles… follow the bubbles.)
Every once in a while I would switch back to the left, if only to remind myself of the rhythm I keep, or of the angle of my head when I lift it for air. Left side, no effort at all; right side a mess. I couldn’t swim straight, I kept getting water up my nose, and when I tried to flip-turn I completely missed the wall about half the time-when I didn't flat-out smash into it.
I knew how to swim, and I didn’t know how to swim at all.
My mind and my body had learned that things work in a certain way when I am propelling myself from one end of the pool to the other, and they operated automatically and precisely. When I interrupted that, the process became cumbersome, unnatural, and anything but graceful. That’s what it’s like for me when I try to interrupt a trauma trigger. There are certain situations in which I behave without effort or thought.
When I do this autopilot thing in response to a current-day situation that emotionally mimics a past traumatic event, it’s known as a trigger. Automatic responses to trauma triggers perpetuate dysfunction in my life, and reinforce my childhood worldview, keeping me stuck.
One of my triggers is being in a closed group with lots of people interacting. Could be a party, could be a virtual family meeting. I don’t experience it in stores or theaters, but only in places where there is an assumed intimacy among a large group of people in a defined space. I get anxious, I shrink, I feel defensive.
For example, my daughter-in-law comes from a big, beautiful, expressive Italian family. Often, when I attend a party for one of the kids where both sides of the family are there, I find myself plastered to the wall. I withdraw, I clam up, I feel left out. I don’t do it intentionally, and half the time I don’t even realize it’s happening until it’s over.
I grew up (or at least I tried to) in a large, overbearing, Italian family. Most of the time I was either ignored or bullied. Family didn’t mean to me what it means to some people, and home wasn’t a safe place for me. It wasn’t a place where I felt valued or loved.
When I was small I felt alternately anonymous and afraid. Either I was lost in a sea of faces and rules and chaos, or I was being targeted and blamed, or caught in the crossfire of familial strife. So I protected myself by retreating and withdrawing into solitary activities. I would often sit on my bed for hours with my guitar and Bacharach & David songbook teaching myself to play and sing, “Come Saturday Morning,” and “What’s it All About, Alfie?” Or I would take long walks alone, or write in my little diary with the fake lock. Writing and singing became my friends, a way for me to get the intimacy I craved without the risks that terrified me.
In my adult life I’m sure other people interpret my withdrawal as standoffish, or that I am unsociable, or worse - that I am sitting in judgment or criticism. None of those are true. Large, noisy, intimate groups trigger me; withdrawal happens automatically.
Reach, pull, breathe… reach, pull, breathe.
When I began to teach myself to breathe on the right, I wondered also how I could apply those principles to teach myself to interrupt a trigger. In swimming, I had to first recognize the problem and then make the decision to change. Next, I had to break the movements down and consciously think about each one. If I wanted healing and restoration, swimming couldn’t be automatic anymore.
I had to risk my sense of safety in the water in order to become actually safe in the water.
As I think through how I can change my response to being in large intimate groups, I suppose the first step is to recognize when my next opportunity will be. Then I’ll have to break down the movements and consciously think about each one.
Smile, open up, mingle… smile, open up, mingle.
The minute I find myself feeling left out or anxious, threatened or rejected, I will need to remind myself that I am safe in shallow water and any sense to the contrary is not coming from a place of love, but of fear. I need remain awake to what I am doing and why so that I don’t revert to my default response and behaviors.
These are the strokes and kicks of building life and relationships that are not discolored by ingrained responses of past events and deeply buried injuries. I can understand my triggers and recognize their root and the way they drive me to behavior that isn’t helpful or useful to me, but until I can put that information into practice in my life, I won’t see healing. In fact, I will be worse off than ever before. Ignorance is the only excuse for allowing past trauma to drive present behavior. Once I become aware, ignorance is lost and I must begin the work of changing my behavior or become forever a victim of the ghosts and shadows of my past.
It took me about a week to gain any kind of competence at all in taking my breath on the right. I had to practice it hundreds of times. This morning when I got into the pool, I noticed a greater sense of ease and strength. I considered how I could take advantage of this newly developed skill. Maybe I could swim 10 laps to the right, 10 laps to the left. Maybe I could alternate each lap, or each day.
And then it hit me: If I just took a breath every third stroke instead of every other stroke, I could breathe on both sides all the time. So I tried it.
Reach, pull, reach, pull, breathe… reach, pull, reach, pull, breathe.
It was fabulous. I now had the strength and wisdom of my body and mind working together to accomplish the goal of gliding through the water with power and grace. By adding one newly cultivated skill I opened up a whole array of possibilities that hadn’t even occurred to me. Couldn't have occurred to me.
I didn’t just learn to breathe on my right. I finally learned to swim.
This gives me hope. Perhaps if I can learn how to respond differently to one trigger, it will begin to deflate this flimsy raft of delusion which would keep me stuck in false powerlessness and fear. Saint Paul’s words come to mind, “When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
Let’s put away some childish things.
I mean, grab your swimmies if you need them, then come on in; the water’s fine.
🕊 & ❤️
Julie
Julie Scipioni is the co-author of the bestselling novel series for women, "Iris & Lily," and author of "Taking the Stairs: My Journal of Healing and Self-Discovery.” Julie’s debut solo novel, “downward facing dogs” is also now available on Amazon. For more information and to order, see Julie’s Amazon Author page.