Get Uncomfortable and Change Your Life

"Hey Dad, can you take us into the deep end?" That one question changed my life.

It was the summer of 1999 and my wife and I took our two children to the Jersey shore for a weekend trip. The place where we stayed had a pool which had a deep end of six feet. When our eight year old daughter Amanda asked that question on behalf of herself and her four year old brother Jonathan my only response was

"Sorry sweetie, Dad can't swim. Mom can take you two into the deep end.

My wife Lori did indeed take the kids into the deep end. They splashed and had a good time. I watched and felt sorry for myself since I was unable to play with my children in a small pool with six feet of water. As I sat there watching and unable to participate I asked myself one simple question: why am I so afraid of water? The mere thought of going into any level of water gave me great anxiety and panic. As my family played I sat on the edge of the pool with my feet in the water and started to think about my fear of water.

Growing up in Philadelphia we had access to city pools but I never learned to swim. In high school and college I tried a few times to learn but each time I failed to overcome my anxiety in even three feet of water.

As far as I could tell my fear of water was the result of never committing myself to working through how uncomfortable I was in water. Sitting there watching my family I realized I could have easily blamed my parents for not teaching me how to swim but that seemed so unproductive. To be productive I needed a commitment to myself to work through my high level of anxiety and panic in water. As I helped the kids out of the pool and wrapped towels around them I vowed to never feel like a helpless father around water again.

When we returned home I called several local pools and arranged to take my first lesson. There is a Buddhist proverb "When the student is ready, the teacher appears" that perfectly fits my relationship with my swim coach. I was ready to learn how to swim and Tracy appeared. Of all the pools I called she was the only coach to call back and make arrangements for me to visit her pool.

Tracy had a good deal of experience teaching children to swim. She informed me that the rule of thumb in teaching someone to swim is to instruct them on water safety first. For the first few lessons she tried to get me to float, doggie paddle and tread water to no avail. Although frustrated at my lack of progress I was determined to never watch my kids play in the pool without me so I continued my lessons believing in my coach.

After one frustrating lesson Tracy told me that she was going to do something completely different with me. She realized that my fear of water was so intense that I would never be able to float, tread or doggie paddle unless I understood how to swim first. So she decided to teach me in the completely opposite way she had taught everyone else.

For the next few weeks she went over every single body movement related to swimming the front crawl. I had to learn to move my head, arm, hand, hips and legs in unison while breathing moving forward. It was exhausting. After almost two months of work I swam an entire length of the pool!

Despite the progress my fear was still real. I needed to overcome my fear of deep water so Tracy moved us into a pool with a deep end of eight feet. The first time we went in I held on to her for dear life. I was so humiliated and embarrassed. Tracy never gave up on me and within a few more weeks had me jumping into deep water and swimming across to the other side of the pool.

After a while I was in the pool by myself building up my endurance and experiencing water for the first time like a child. For two years I worked to overcome my fear of water. Lifeguards at the different pools would tell me how much progress they had seen me make. Indeed I was making progress as a swimmer but there was progress to be made on being a father.

During those years my wife and children would often accompany me to the pool. And one day, when I was ready, it was my turn to ask the question "Hey kids, want to go into the deep end with Dad?"

-Michael Edmondson

Questions To Ask Yourself

• Michael worked through being uncomfortable in water; have you figured out a way to work through what you are uncomfortable doing?
  What makes you uncomfortable? Why is this so?
• Do you believe that being uncomfortable is stopping you from accomplishing your goals?
• Is the way you think preventing you from achieving the results you want for yourself?
• Do you control your life or have you let others control it for you?
• Is your business, school or community creating its dream or has it allowed someone else to get in the way?
• Has your business, school or community identified what makes it uncomfortable and then a plan to work through that?