There are no sharks in the pool

Fear is a check engine light. It’s a teacher. It’s a piece of lint on my sweater I keep trying to get rid of. It’s a dusty radio in the shop at the farm that’s always on. A noise I’ve grown used to trusting only because it’s familiar. I think I’m paying more attention lately to how many thoughts in my head are fear based. It’s more intense now in this season of change for me, but I think it’s been increasing gradually the more time I spend here on this spinning planet. And I’m trying to get a handle on that. I recently read something that brought me comfort I wanted to share some of my thoughts about it.

I’ve been working through this book called “Integrity” by Martha Beck. It’s pretty incredible and has been helpful to me in the journey I’m on as a newly independent artist, and work in progress human, getting back to my own center of truth. In one of the exercises, she asks her readers to think about a childhood fear you’ve outgrown. Something crazy. Something that bothered you in the past that doesn’t bother you anymore.

I laughed at myself as I immediately felt my memory transport me to the edge of the Grande Prairie Public Pool. Feet dangling in the deep end water. Probably seven years old. Growing up around the lake made me a pretty decent swimmer for my age, so I was the youngest in my little troop for swimming lessons. I had purple goggles that fit snugly around my french braided hair and I had some speed in the lanes. I was fast because I was convinced there were sharks lurking in the deep end of the pool. And that they were going to get me. The goggles were entirely pointless because I closed my eyes the entire time. I could not stand the sight of scanning the bottom of the pool as it started to decline into scarier depths about halfway through the lane, at the height of my increased tiny heart rate. I never told a soul about this fear because my logical second grade brain understood that it was unlikely for a shark to just appear in the indoor public pool. That salt water was far away from the nearly arctic prairies but my imagination didn’t care about that knowledge and had a much stronger pull. I was grateful they started teaching first aid in the lessons because it would come in real handy for anyone needing to survive a shark attack.

In the book, she asks you to imagine traveling in time as your current aged self, to visit the younger version of you struggling with the childhood fear. She says imagine yourself in a confident, comforting voice saying, “I am here from your future. I can tell you with one hundred percent certainty that this thing you fear won’t happen and you won’t always be afraid of it.”

So I imagined sitting beside my scared to death seven year old self on the edge of the pool, telling her that I know it felt scary right now, but that I was proof from the future that a shark attack wasn’t the way it wasn’t going to go down. Telling her there are no sharks in the pool. That she didn’t need to worry about that. I imagined the relief she’d feel in that moment. How much more fun she’d have. How much weight would be lifted off her mind that was holding her down and keeping her in an internally trembling, high alert, speedy swimming state.

The next part of the book says, what if a future version of you comes and sits next to where you are right now and says, “I am here from your future. I can tell you with one hundred percent certainty that you won’t always be afraid of what you fear right now.” That kind of just blew me away.

What a comforting thought. I imagine myself at sixty, with long silver hair, radiating an earned confidence and state of peace. She’s seen the other side of where I am right now. She knows it might not look the way I thought it would, but that it’s growing me and shaping me for the better. She’s telling me I don’t need to worry so much. That the fear of getting it wrong isn’t necessary and that it’s weighing me down. That I’m just going to make the next step, and then the next one after that, and that it’s going to be alright. And I can’t help but feel relief around that thought.

There are no sharks in the pool. Thank God.

If you’re also feeling like you’re facing fear in your mind right now, I hope the thought of a future you brings you comfort too. I definitely recommend this book. It’s been a helpful tool in my process of letting go lately.

From one wandering soul to another, I hope you know you’re loved as you are.

<3 T