What Is The Fear That Holds You Back?

I thought I’d do a video for you this morning about fear and reality and it’s going to be a guided walk along the beach because I want to tell you about a swimming experience I had and it’s easier to get the story if you see where it was that I come to swim.

So, I love swimming in the ocean. I adore swimming in the ocean. I love swimming. I’m not a great swimmer. I’m an average swimmer. I’ve learned how to swim, but I didn’t learn to crawl until I was in my 40s.

So, I’m better than many, but not as good as some and I don’t regard myself as a strong swimmer, but I do love ocean swimming.

Now we’ve had a tropical storm go through here and I’ve managed to convince myself for the past week actually that it’s too windy. It’s too stormy. It’s too rough. It’s too dangerous for me to do what I love and go in the ocean.

Today it’s Sunday morning and we’ve got a little bit of time off. I came down and I thought I’d have a look. It’s windy so there are a lot of waves. They seem to have died down a little bit now, but there were a lot of waves and I was not really keen on going in the ocean.

The bit where you can see those people standing, that’s where I normally walk into the water. And you can see there’s quite a bit of splash. So, I wasn’t about to get in.

And then I looked and there were one or two people in the water. That’s another thing. I don’t swim in the dark and I don’t swim if there’s nobody else around. I’m not strong enough.

I saw there were a couple of people in the water and I looked at where they were swimming and where they were swimming was just nearby here and I realized that if I walked into the water here, which is not my usual spot for walking into this particular piece of ocean, the waves were almost absent.

I could walk in easily. I wasn’t going to get knocked over.

Actually, I know this water well enough to know that you can go quite a long way out and still be in your depth. You don’t have to go out of depth. The tricky bit is coming back in because sometimes the waves can really carry you and you can get slammed over.

So I decided to take the plunge and I’ve just had the most wonderful swim. I mean look at it. It’s beautiful.

Sure, there are waves. Sure, especially further down the beach they can slam you, but once you’re out there, once you’re out away from the edge, once you’re just on the edge where the bottom drops away, you can swim safely and comfortably.

It’s all about overcoming the fear.

And I don’t know about you, but it’s certainly a pattern in my life that I will know the conditions, I will know that it’s possible, I will know that it’s safe in my heart, but my head, that little monkey mind goes, “Oh no, you’re not safe. “Oh, you could get knocked over. “Oh, you could get out of your depth.”

It’s really difficult to get out of your depth here, really, really difficult. You’ve got to go out to probably about where that woman is over there if you can see her, tiny little blob over there, and that will be out of depth.

So, my lesson to you, my offer to you today, is to feel the fear and question the reality.

When you feel that fear, is it real? Are you following old patterns? Are you doing the same thing that you always did? And if you did it that tiniest, weeniest, little bit different, you could actually have a different experience.

That’s my offering for the day. Again, I hope you’ve enjoyed the beach view, the beach talk. Oops, my legs are getting wet now. And I’ll speak to you again very, very soon.

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