Water as Therapy
A Story of Shower Power
As a young teen, my mom (a true Aquarius and lover of long baths) would often tell me to "go have a quick shower", promising that "you will feel better afterwards". There didn't have to be some remarkable event or anything specifically negative or overwhelming to draw her attention to my physical or emotional discomfort.
Sometimes her "Shower is Power'' instruction would come to me as a surprise in the moment, yet every time my response was an unequivocal YES, a why-didn't-I-think-of-that moment. There was no force, no coercion, just an intuitive mom who understands how water is a tool for healing...everything, almost. Thinking back to those moments I imagine that in some fantastical way my mom could see my stress or anxiety, fatigue or restlessness on my person, a physical representation of chaos like when my 2 year old has finished eating an ice-cream; and that the remedy for any of these feelings is water.
In these instances and many others like them, to this very day, I take a shower not to clean myself but rather to take a few minutes to myself, to restart and to recuperate in a low stimulating environment, and to use the running water as a tool to help me to think clearer when I feel overwhelmed. Why not take a bath? Perhaps because when I shower the water washes over me, having a clear path through and away. In the waves of heavy emotion tears have no time to linger before they wash away, and a body of water cannot collect like dirt and hold negative emotion because in this instance I don't have room in me for reflection. I love taking baths but they serve me a different purpose - they are still a tool, a water-therapy, but here showers are my power.
So what am I trying to say? What is my message other than sharing water-based anecdotes from my childhood (and there are many)?
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Adults, Parents - go take a shower!
Take a few minutes for yourself, during the day, to give a boost to your mind and body. Especially now, when we all waiver between a state of mourning and ongoing terror, water can be a tool for dealing with this overload of emotions like feeling angry, helpless, scared and drained of much needed hope.
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I often tell parents in our swim lessons together that when we enter water we become like juice concentrate in the sense that whatever we are feeling be it good, bad, tense, fatigued, anxious (the list is endless), all these emotions we hold dilute in the water, in 2 profound ways: 1. the water relieves the intensity of our emotions and merges into the larger body of water; 2. whomever is floating with us, they too are exposed to how we feel - this is especially true of our babies and children who cling to us like baby koalas during swim lessons or water time. So at the same time, there is relief but also a responsibility to support our kids in navigating these waters. In order to help them we need to look after ourselves, and a brief shower, today, can be that one small thing that makes the difference.
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Kids - send them to shower!
Any type of water-play can give us emotional uplift and regulates feelings (and senses). Water can offer them (just as it does us adults) a "safe space" to unload their feelings - without being observed, to feel free to emote how they choose - whether in silence or talking to themselves, or through the incredible vehicle of play.
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