I was floating, on my stomach in the middle of the ocean. With each wave my body rose and fell. The gentle motion of the ocean allowed me to find a sense of flow that I hadn’t experienced in a long time.
Out deep in the middle of the ocean without land in sight I felt a brief shot of adrenaline. I tried to calm myself, recognizing that my breathing and heart rate were both too fast. I could sense and feel the energy of animals deep below me. The water was dark and if I allowed myself to focus on the fear of the dark I could feel absolute terror building up inside of me.
I closed my eyes tightly. Salt water washed into my mouth and I spit it out while feeling the sensation of choking on the water. My body started to thrash rather than gently and peacefully float. I recognized that I was allowing my brain to lead me down a path of fear that wasn’t serving me.
“How do I stop the fear” I asked.
“You either trust, or you don’t” he replied back.
It was that simple, right? So, I tried to trust. What a ridiculous thing, I can’t try, it doesn’t work like this. I felt frustrated. Trust is something that you feel, how do you make yourself feel something. As much as I tried, the ball of anxiety was still present in my chest and stomach.
“How” I asked.
“You either trust, or you don’t” he replied back with a calm and gentle, yet forceful voice.
I took a deep breath in and a slow exhale out. Each time I had trusted in the past, it worked out in my highest good. So, I went back to floating and felt the security of the universe holding me, physically and metaphorically. Within seconds, my awareness was brought to my skin and the sensation of the sun on it. I felt my body relax into the water. I slowly melted into the ocean no longer feeling the separation between us, but sensing the oneness of us together. I was no longer separate from the ocean, I was the ocean, I belonged in the ocean and the ocean belonged in me. And, almost as quickly as the wholeness and oneness came I was launched back into my body, back onto my kitchen floor, back into my Tuesday morning where the same calm, gentle and forceful voice suggested what I would do professionally in the next phase of my business.
I smiled as I grounded back into my body. I pushed up onto my elbows and raised my head from the hard, cold, wooden floor that I had been lying facedown on. His words echoed in my ears, “you either trust, or you don’t”.
