The Deep End of the Pool

Remember in your childhood when you went to the swimming pool and you were very frightened, but also really curious about the deep end of the pool? Come join me in this episode as we talk about the deep and shallow parts of the pool...and also of our lives. 

Transcript

Laura Wakefield: 0:00

Remember in your childhood when you went to the swimming pool and you were very frightened, but also really curious about the deep end of the pool? Welcome to The Joyfulicity Podcast. I'm your host, Laura Wakefield. It's almost summer. It's time to be thinking again about going back to the swimming pool. But do you remember being a kid at the pool or watching your own children as they were learning to swim? A little scared at first, sitting on the edge, but too afraid to actually get into the water. Eventually, brave enough to maybe venture onto the steps and blow some bubbles or cling to the side, wanting so much to splash and play like the other kids, but also terrified of drowning. With inflatable armbands bouying up your body and your confidence, finally you got to where you could paddle around in the shallow end. It was so much fun there, frolicking and laughing. Maybe you even got bold enough, to the point of jumping off of the side into your parents' arms. You felt safe, knowing it was only three or four feet deep and the stairs were close by. But always there in the corner of your eye and your mind. was the deep end of the pool, that mysterious place where the older kids got to go. You wanted to go down there, but you've been warned of the perils of going near the deep waters until you knew how to swim well, so you avoided it with nervous respect. But you'd glance over there often with curiosity, too. The diving board was down at that end. You saw the teenagers doing their flips and their tricks. It looked so fun. But you thought maybe you needed to be an expert swimmer already before heading over there. I mean, that was the danger zone. The truth is, though, and what you ultimately discovered, was that it wasn't until you finally summoned the courage to test those deeper waters that you actually learned to really swim. It was a combination, somehow, of the depth and the space and the maturity that came from facing those fears that led to the freedom. So you honed your skills at dog paddling and floating until the day that you were finally ready to swim freely. If you haven't caught on yet, I'm not just talking about the swimming pool. This is life. I'm talking about the progressions of life. And with that in mind... Let's go back to the pool imagery for just a minute.

Laura Wakefield: 2:51

Have you ever sat back and noticed that as people age, their pool behavior tends to go in reverse? After working so hard to earn your right to hang out down in the deep end and having the time of your life down there for a few years, if you observe closely, you'll see that most people begin to migrate back into the shallow end and often back out of the water altogether. Pool time for adults becomes more and more about wading in hip-deep water or sitting on the side, dipping in only your feet. Sometimes it's because we're chasing our own kids around at this point, trying to keep them safe. But even when not... the older people are often manifesting as more inhibited than the little ones. Maybe just standing back drinking a beer at a pool party or sunbathing in chairs watching other people swim and worrying about your tan. Of course, this isn't true for everyone, but if you pay attention and sit back and watch, you'll see what I mean. Check it out next time you're at the pool. Why in the world do we stop swimming? Some might tell themselves it's because they just don't like it as much as they get older, that swimming with abandon and running around like that at the pool is just for kids, and they've outgrown it. But I don't think that this is usually why, actually. When we get older, we're not usually worried about drowning anymore. But as we age, other, even more powerful and frightening fears emerge. Suddenly, It matters very much to us what others think of us, and if we're coming across as cool. Body insecurities crop up in force. We aren't always comfortable in our own uniqueness, so we just model what everybody else seems to be doing. There's a level of naked exposure at the pool, in the actual sense, of course, that we wear less clothing there, but also being childlike and playful can feel intensely vulnerable, revealing parts of us that are closest to our natural and genuine state. The more pains and rejections that we've encountered, the more guarded we become, returning to the shallow to protect our hearts from even the chance of getting hurt. In the shallow end or up on the deck, we can cover up, literally and figuratively, to project the images that we want to convey, so it just feels safer there. It's not surprising, then, that people often retreat to the shallow sides of their personalities for protection, too. It's scary over on the deep side of life. That's where all of those powerful emotions reside. Maybe we've been hurt before. Or maybe we've seen loved ones who have been, or both. So we develop fears that somehow we are not enough. That others won't find us beautiful. or capable, or worthy, or lovable. When we go shallow, so to speak, we can convince ourselves that we don't care, so it doesn't matter, and therefore can't hurt us. Aloofness becomes like armor that helps us to feel bulletproof. Like the player that sleeps around rather than taking a chance at falling in love, and possibly being abandoned or rejected. Or the person that focuses on the pursuit of money or accomplishments in lieu of close personal relationships. Money isn't as likely to have a direct negative effect on us. Now, the pursuit of money can sometimes, but money itself brings us usually immediate rewards. We earn money and we can go buy the things that we want. So that feels like it's almost always a positive reward, whereas a personal relationship sometimes is much more complicated. Or what about those people that become obsessed with their image or their personal appearance to keep life and other people at a safe, superficial distance? It's much easier, say, on a social media profile to curate your image. You can choose exactly what pictures, from what angles. You can slap filters on there. Let's not even get started talking about all these AI images that aren't even entirely us at all. But we can feel like we have a lot more control about how we are coming across to other people than we can in person. In person, they're going to see more of the real us. Maybe we can curate that to some degree, but they're going to see more of the real us, and that can feel a lot scarier. Or what about the people that stay at a secure, steady job that they despise, instead of reaching for a vocation that calls to them, or a dream that they've had for a long time, in case they might ultimately fail? Failure doesn't crush us quite as hard if we never cared much in the first place. So, for instance, if I'm doing something that I don't care that much about, like, say, mini golf. Mini golf is fun, but if I'm not good at it, it's not really going to affect my life that much. I don't care. That compared to, say, the dream that I have of writing a book someday, well, that's much scarier because if I put my heart and soul onto the paper and put that out there for the world, and that's rejected, nobody likes it, or I get bad reviews, that's going to cut to the heart in a way that failing at mini golf isn't. So I might be braver to go out mini golfing with abandon, but I might run away from that dream to protect myself from maybe getting hurt or maybe failing.

Laura Wakefield: 9:03

The walls that we build around ourselves, though, they create these pools of shallow waters that, while they are possibly safer in some ways. They also keep us perpetually existing in a shallow way of living, even though we always sense and crave more. We know it's out there, but we're uncertain how to access it. Here's the thing about deeper waters, though. They are where the best swimming can be found. One of the most beautiful afternoons of my entire life was spent swimming in the open sea off of the coast of Mykonos. Far enough from the crowds to feel the majesty of the water and the world at large, I just floated there. Communing with nature, the water was warm. It was exceptionally freeing and very peaceful. I found myself in a state of mind that that I don't think I could have achieved had I remained closer to the shore where everybody else was. The same can be said of deep connections and deep pursuits as well. They are where the best of what life has to offer begins. Only the courage to reach beyond the shallow will lead us to lasting love and friendship, to a life of true passion and purpose, to spiritual centering and peace. Is there potential for pain in these areas? Well, of course. In fact, I would say that suffering is almost guaranteed. We're not perfect people. None of us are. So when we try new things, it's almost certain that we'll have stumbles and falls. Sometimes we fail altogether. We feel that a lot in interpersonal relationships. In dating, it can become very discouraging to go on dates and end up getting little micro rejections all the time to where we feel like, I don't even want to try that anymore. Or when we try new hobbies, for instance, that we aren't proficient at yet, it feels better sometimes to stick with the stuff that we already know how to do well. But when we're trying anything new, whether it's relationship or goal setting or anything that we are new at or that we haven't gained the skills for, it's going to feel very awkward at first. And we are almost guaranteed to fail on some level. That's actually part of reaching for success. You sort of fail forward, so to speak. I love that phrase. I've heard that before. But there's a lot of truth to be found in that phrase. that you don't move forward sometimes without failing along the way. So if we can learn to embrace that and to celebrate it, then how much further along are we toward just simply enjoying the journey?

Laura Wakefield: 12:11

So reaching beyond the shallow and having the courage to swim there is also the key to the most exquisite joy. It's worth the risk, the effort, and the baring of the soul to brave the deep, and then not retreat from it the moment it feels a little scary. Because remember, safety isn't really safe at all if it becomes the thief of a life fully expressed. So keep swimming. Just keep right on swimming.

Laura Wakefield: 12:54

Thank you for joining me today on The Joy fulicity podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please like and share and come follow me on all major social media sites at Joy fulicity or on my website, joyfulicity.com. You can follow the link in the description for this episode to all of the places that we can connect. Have a great day, everybody. And remember, dare to dream, plan to play, live to learn.