Biz Lessons Learned from Open Water Swimming

Every Sunday… 

Well pretty much every Sunday… 

I swim around the wharf in Santa Cruz.

Here’s the truth: 

I never feel like swimming around the wharf. When I first put my face in that Bay Area California water… It feels like I’m sticking my face into a bowl full of ice cubes. I can barely breathe and my chest tightens up.

I take a deep breath.
I tell myself I’m not going to die.
I embrace the discomfort. 

I slowly place my face in the water and then turn my head to the side to catch my breath.

Over the next couple of minutes, my body temperature starts to regulate and merge with the cold mama ocean…

The wharf is about a half mile long, which means the swim is about a mile.

At the end of the wharf, the water always gets choppier and sea lions come to check me out.

As I swim, my thoughts begin to flow toward one of the highest vibrations of creativity I’ve ever known.

Being immersed in the ocean in this way merges me with the divine… and I always get ideas and clarity that amaze me.

When I am done, I feel like I could do anything. I feel strong, grounded, calm and expansive.

I find it amazing that…I pretty much never want to swim around the wharf when I wake up on Sunday morning and then 45 minutes after I begin, I feel one with the most blissful state I can imagine.

This metaphor for life doesn’t actually surprise me though… How often do we turn things that feel hard into an unnecessary struggle in our minds, rather than focusing on the self love that lives on the other side?

So this week, sister, my blessing is for you to take all the things that feel scary or even hard… and dress up your fear in a delightful disguise that reminds you there is SO MUCH GOOD waiting on the other side of everything that feels hard and scary.

Let’s ROCK this week, beauty!

Let’s do this thing…together.

Love,
Sage