Swimming in the Ocean

of Recovering - in any shape of the word

Photo by Todd Quackenbush on Unsplash

“Recovery is an ocean and I’m learning to swim it.”

~Amy Griffin

I like this metaphor and how it can apply to so many aspects of recovery and a healing journey.

For Amy Griffin, in her book, the Tell, her recovery was from sexual abuse from a middle school teacher.

But, I think it also applies to most trauma, abuse, addiction, or even death/loss in life -

Again, applying David Kessler’s definition of grief to mean - any loss.

We also spend time trying to recover from that.

Even though, the real boggle is that - we never quite do recovery- we don’t arrive, or get there.

But we still have to try.

So, it’s a life-long process.

It’s learning to swim - despite whatever life throws at you - much like the waves and the storms and the temperament of the ocean. Susceptible to the whim of the weather.

I also think about this in correlation with the non-linear process of healing and grief and recovery from trauma and sobriety/recovery from addition - so many different examples apply.

People want things to be neat, tidy, linear, even things as messy as grief and trauma -

But they’re not.

Healing really isn’t.

I know we’re taught that it should be - with the five stages of grief. We get confused it ought to look like a nice, neat progression from one stage to another.

It’s like that with trauma - there are high tides and low, under tows, that catch you off balance, just when you thought it was safe - you venture out and let your guard down, but the force of the water, your hard thing you’re healing from— it brings you to your knees.

We crave linear progression because we are taught that things have a process, a model, a step by step formula to follow -

We crave certainty and order -

And western knowledges like things like that - identity categories, groupings, stages, steps to follow, a model or template -

We like to have that presented to us and to believe that it works, that it’ll follow that neatly.

But it doesn’t.

So, we learn to swim, in however it all shifts, on any given day -

We can surf when the waves are right.

We can wade when it’s calm and comfortable, and perhaps snorkel.

Other times, when the tide is high and the waves crashing, we just must remember and believe in ourselves, that-

We know how to swim -

This too shall pass -

And if we have gotten or made use of our resources, by way of constructing a little boat or raft we’ve created - we can use that, clinging to them as we would to our lifejacket.

I think I also like this metaphor because it acknowledges the inevitability of the ocean - the storms, the waves, the tides, the currents and undertows —

And that we can’t control that - We just have to navigate through it.

So much of humanity and this painful, wonderful life, is all that happens to us and to our loves ones—things we cannot control.

All we can control is what we do with it.

If we overly fixate on changing the ocean, we cannot - the ocean is the ocean, and it will always do what it wants.

But, living with trauma or grief, we better learn to respond to its waves and, ironically, its unpredictable nature, and we learn more to trust ourselves -

That we have survived storms before, and that —hopefully, for many of us—we have harnessed the power of resources to work to help ourselves heal - we have prepared for the inevitable, unpredictable changes - so we can bring out equipment or adjust ourselves when the storm of life hit.

Sometimes we can swim, sometimes even conditions are perfect enough to surf -

And sometimes we can’t or shouldn’t fight the condition of the ocean.

We, instead, have to hold tight to a more stable structure—our coping mechanisms or counselors of friends or family or medication or other support systems, and wait for it to pass—

We just have to wait it out and go through it -

Much like grief and trauma and assaults, and the hard work of healing that must follow.

Finally, we can always learn to swim - better.

We can improve our form, our strokes, -

We have our favorite methods but sometimes conditions or weather call for a different approach -

Sometimes we just need to tread water or float, and shouldn’t plunge full force ahead if the tides and winds and weather do not call for it; if they are not ideal conditions.

So, I do find it a very fitting and appropriate metaphor, for so many of us -

Who are on a healing journey.