Smashing Limiting Beliefs

This is a story I have told myself since I was a little girl: I hate swimming in cold water.

I am a strong swimmer, thanks to my mother, who never learned to swim, requiring that I take swimming lessons through Junior Life Savers.

But I was always freezing cold.

A little girl without body fat, my knees knocked, my teeth chattered as I sat hunched beneath my tiny no-nonsense towel on foggy Bay Area mornings to get into an unheated pool.

It became part of my identity: “I’m not a cold-water girl.”

I was a strong swimming who didn't really love the water.

But recently that story changed.

Wearing my red bathing suit, I waded into the Mediterranean Sea.

Everyone around me was swimming with ease and joy.

But the water was cold. My heart rate quickened. My breathing grew shallow.

I resolutely marched out of the water to find my big plush towel.

“I don't have to get in the water if I don't want to,” I said to myself. “Now I'm a grown up and I get to say No. I have nothing to prove.”

Lucky me, my very own life coach Leonid Frolov was there, co-leading the Good Life Retreat with Karen Makkes van der Deijl.

These two masterful coaches both love the sea.

Even the word "sea" sounds so much gentler than ocean -- which as a Northern California native conjures up crashing, freezing waves and the memory of picnics with driftwood smoke burning my eyes and sand peppering my sandwich.

I don't really know how Leonid did it but somehow, he coaxed me back into the water, talking to me about how the cold was really all "mental", something we all laughed about the rest of retreat.

He talked to me as I waded deeper into the cold water as if this thing that for years had been my enemy, was somehow my friend.

When my breath grew short, Leonid was there guiding me to notice the cold without letting it overtake me, reminding me that it was just my perception.

He began to narrate what I was doing in a calm, steady voice. "There," he said, "you're moving your arms, feeling the water. It feels good."

I noticed that it did feel good. I became aware of details – something you can’t do when you’re in a panic; how the surface of the water was warmer than the deeper part.

Soon, I was swimming, feeling the heavy saltwater buoying me up, the cool water moving over my skin.

The next day, the same thing began to happen. I waded in and decided to get right back out. This time the Karen, who was already drying off from her dip.

"Oh, wait," she said, "aren't you getting in?"

"It's cold," I said.

"Maybe you just need a companion," she said cheerfully. "Come on. I'll go with you!"

Karen took my hand and we walked into the sea like two fearless children, for whom the whole world is wondrous.

Leonid joined us, too, pointing out how the water sparkled and how I could swim toward the sparkles. It was spellbinding. I could feel the cold and warm variations, the way the water held me.

No one was forcing me. But encouraged by trustworthy friends, I exposed and dismantled an old story. This is healing. This is how we grow.

Being a grown up is not just about getting to say No. It’s also about getting to say Yes.

We get to change the story, change our minds, try again.

I got to re-write a self-limiting story I'd been telling myself.

I’m not quite ready to say I love cold water and I may need a little persuasion to do it again.

But I wonder:

How many things that I've been saying No to? What are the beliefs I’ve held without challenge, carried over from childhood?

What have I been telling myself about my likes and dislikes – and beyond, about what sort of person I am or not?

What have you been saying No to? What are you ready to say Yes to. I'd love to hear.