A dear friend, Lisa Gates, shared with me this 3 minute YouTube video clip of poet Andrea Gibson performing a piece entitled, “Dive”.
(contains strong language)
“The only way to survive is to breath deep and dive.”
Compelling words indeed.
The last two months has been an entrepreneurial awakening for me. I feel I have breathed deep and dived, but that having survived and starting to reach a comfortable place I am on the verge of wanting, dare I say, needing, to dive again.
I see myself diving and returning to the surface before diving again, rather than diving ever deeper.
I take a lot of pleasure from visualising my feelings and as I write these words the scene playing out is coming into focus:
My boys (4 and 6) love nothing better than flinging themselves off the side into the swimming pool, rising to the surface with a big gasp and then swimming to me, an island of safety in a pool where they are both out of their depth, before swimming back to the side and jumping in again and again. My boys repeat these actions with such confidence, huge grins and with deep breaths that have become just a subconscious part of the preparation to jump.
Seeing this picture play over and over in my mind gives me confidence in my entrepreneurial future.
Taking a breath, diving then returning to the surface. Taking a breath, diving then returning to the surface. Taking a breath, diving then returning to the surface….
I love the exhilaration of the jump, the feeling of weightlessness, the comforting sense of the water all around me, natural buoyancy returning me to the surface, smooth strokes back to the wall, emerging from the water and standing ready to jump again.
Perhaps next time that I am standing, thinking about jumping I will remember this scene and know that the best bits are yet to come. Perhaps if I do then I will stop thinking and just dive. Perhaps, with enough repetition, my deep breath with become subconscious too.
