Ok gang - I’m going a little rogue this month and stepping away from the calendar schedule.

I know this month is the exhale trail and I will be staying lightly with this theme - but something happened this morning that I wanted to capture and share.

At the start of this year I began cold water swimming in the sea - taking a break over the summer (I mean that’s just swimming isn’t it).

September came and I was all excited to get back in the water - yay here we go!

Getting back was harder than I thought - I seemed to have lost my mojo a bit with it.

Instead of exhilaration as I was expecting - I was more - oh man this is cccccooooolllllllddd!

It seemed a ridiculous thing to do (like normal people think) and this was only September - how was I going to do this in January?

A sneaky sadness was coming in that I was losing a thing I loved - a thing that had got me through this year - that had anchored me and got me centred to practise my art and develop my coaching and to be a nice human (ish).

I would shiver in the water and feel put off - I would come home tired - hard to get warm - needing to sleep - man this wasn’t what it was.

Then this morning happened!

It was a MISERABLE day outside.

The clouds were in full mode and it was bucketing down.

I had agreed to go - so I was going to go - I’m a crazy person - I was thinking to myself.

As I dropped off the children - fought with my son about why a coat is a good idea in torrential rain - sipped my coffee and looked out the window as the wiper blades madly did their thing - this weird creature inside me came - she started to smile…like a smile with a whole body feeling…the weather was making her utterly gleeful - this is a ridiculous day to go swimming she was saying and then I could almost hear her hearty/cackle (a weird mix I know) of a laugh.

Who is this fabulous person?

Well that fabulous person came for a swim with me today and she LOVED it.

There was no tranquil light coming across the water - there was nothing distinctly beautiful about the moment (except the fact that the west coast always has a certain beauty). The water was choppy and a bit murky as we pushed off into the cold - our heads were being bobbed against the waves, we had to move in a funny way to stop being constantly face-splashed.

Sometimes we would be splashed - cold - salty water splashing into our eyes, our mouth’s.

People huddled in their coats - walking their dogs in the rain pelt, on the shore.

The smiling would not stop - I couldn’t stop breaking out into laughter with my swim buddy.

I felt the lightest I had felt in a long time - the worry weight had definitely shifted - I could feel the layer gone.

“I bloody love this!”

I called to my friend.

“This is what I have been looking for.”

And my friend - while being bobbed and splashed by cold, salty water smiled at me and said:

“I think you have a little bit of wild in you.”

Wild?

Me?

Wild is not a word that would ever have described me.

I am a nice cuppa tea.

I am a slow and steady.

I am a blanket and a cozy night.

I am a quiet space to think.

I am all these things and yet…

I think my friend was right.

There was a wild woman in there who was finally having her time.

The ridiculous, the extreme, the unusual of what we were doing was thrilling her.

I could almost hear her - while I was drying off - saying thank you - I needed that.

I had never known this side of myself.

This felt like a first meeting.

But I was delighted to meet her acquaintance - and hope I can have some fun with her again soon.

We are a mix, aren’t we, of it all.

There is space for everyone inside us - even the fun ones.

So cuppa tea and blanket Caz is happy and snug…but wild woman would love a little shot too.

How thrillingly, terrifying…and she loves that!

Wishing you a little connection with your wild self too.