The Monday Project Link-Up: Fearless Price | The Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans LLC

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Happy Friday, sisters and a few dudes! Have you done this week’s Monday Project? (Even if you didn’t, don’t go away! You can at least see mine! And maybe you’ll be inspired to do next week’s!)

Today we’re linking up and telling the story of our fears and how we conquered something within ourselves this week. Was there anything you’re afraid of that you faced head on? Was it a piece of gym equipment that mocked you? Was it stepping foot inside a gym for the first time? Was it going faster or farther or doing something different?

Since last summer, I have been on a journey to conquer my fear of open water swimming. I have come a long way since then, (I used to be reduced to bobbing in the ocean, but now I keep going, I just flip over on my back for a little bit) but either way, that little itty bitty voice still haunts me in my brain when I get into the ocean, saying mocking things like, “What the hell are you doing? Are you crazy?? What kind of lunatic does these things anyway? You should just give up and grab a kayak so we can head home and go back to bed!!”

No doubt you’ve already heard me yammer on about this for post after post, because honestly, it really is something I just want to get over already and it’s taking a little longer than I had hoped.

The reason I chose fear this week is because Sunday I’m doing an olympic distance triathlon which includes a nearly one-mile swim. I can actually swim the distance and have done a lot more open water swimming recently, but last Sunday we went out to practice at the little section of Tampa Bay where the triathlon will be and well, it didn’t go so well. It gets super duper ooper schmooper deep, it’s real green and icky and it just sort of grosses me out. It’s not like the pretty beach where I have been swimming lately.

I mean, I guess if I look back at it in honesty, it’s not that the swim didn’t go so well, it just didn’t go so well for me. In my own head. I did swim about 800 meters in the murk, the pouring rain and the waves (it was kind of choppy). But I was freaking out the whole time. And honestly, my goal is to one day get through a swim without freaking out the whole time. Yes, I have and do and will complete it. Yes, I eventually find it in myself to turn off the damn voice and keep going. But I never attack the waves with the viciousness that I know I have inside me from the get-go. I go through the waves like a coward. And I don’t want to be her. Not anymore.

So I spent the entire week preparing my brain. By reading, finding inspiration and just overall, going into my happy place, remembering things like the rush of crossing a finish line, thinking about how far I have come, digging into quotes and reading articles about other people’s amazing and even fearful experiences, getting so much wonderful advice from all of you about that voice in my head and what to do with her, but mostly, I spent a lot of time clearing my head and just listening to music.

That’s what gave me the idea to give my “fear” voice a British accent, by the way. You know, if she’s to speak at all, I’d rather it make me laugh or make me feel comfortable or something. Maybe have her offer me some tea and crumpets while I’m swimming. 

Well, today I did my last swim before the race on Sunday, a short pool swim, and what I found myself doing today was singing, the whole way. Siiiiiiing sing sing, with every stroke, even singing out loud under water while exhaling. It was such a wonderful cleansing swim and right now I feel so calm. I feel so collected. I feel as if Sunday is coming at me quickly, but I’m just standing on the platform waiting patiently for it to arrive and ready to embrace it and all its ugly green murkiness. I suppose I have to mention here that at the last swim, a group of swimmers swam over a ginormous eagle ray. I should be all excited about that but I’m not.

In sum, there is a swim on Sunday and it’s asking for me. When I get about 200 meters in and that panicky voice comes on over my loudspeaker, I will demand it speak in a British accent or go away. Then I will swim into its waves, where I will be singing Death Cab for Cutie.

“I want to live where soul meets body And let the sun wrap its arms around me And bathe my skin in water cool and cleansing

And feel, feel what its like to be new…”