Finding Your Flow: How Therapy is Like Swimming

Imagine you’re in the water ready to swim. Maybe you’re comfortable in the water, having spent years refining your stroke. Or maybe the water feels foreign, unpredictable, and even a little scary. Either way, the rules of swimming remain the same: the more you fight the water, the harder it becomes. The more you thrash, tense up, or push with brute force, the more you sink. Swimming, like therapy—and like life—isn’t just about effort. It’s about awareness, presence, and learning to move with the current instead of against it.

The Struggle Against the Water

Many people approach life’s challenges the way a beginner might approach swimming: with a lot of force and little awareness. The instinct to fight, to push harder and to control every movement can make things more difficult. When we experience stress, anxiety, or emotional pain, our first reaction is often resistance—clenching our muscles, holding our breath, or speeding up to rush past the experience. But just as in the water, these strategies don’t help us stay afloat, they exhaust us.

Mindfulness and Presence: The Key to Staying Afloat

Swimming efficiently requires mindfulness. You have to be present with your breath, aware of your body position, and intentional about your movements. Therapy encourages the same skills. Rather than rushing to “fix” things or force change, therapy invites you to slow down, tune in, and develop a deeper awareness of yourself. It asks you to notice the way emotions move through you, how your body responds to stress, and where your mind resists.

Technique Over Speed

In swimming, speed without technique is inefficient—you burn energy without covering much ground. Similarly, in life, rushing toward solutions without understanding the root of your experiences often leads to frustration. Therapy can help you refine your “technique” for navigating challenges. Instead of simply trying to move faster, therapy teaches you to move with greater self-awareness and balance.

Learning to Trust the Water

As someone who has spent a lifetime in the water, I’ve learned firsthand how important it is to trust the process with gentleness. I’m an open water swimmer, regularly training in pools and open bodies of water, and I’ve competed in endurance events that require patience, resilience, and adaptability. Trusting the water to support you, trusting your breath to guide your rhythm, and trusting that stillness can be just as powerful as movement—these are lessons I am continually learning and re-learning, not just as a swimmer but as a therapist. Therapy asks us to develop a similar trust in ourselves and in the gradual process of growth. Healing isn’t about controlling every wave or predicting every current—it’s about learning to respond with flexibility, self-compassion, and presence.

Finding Your Own Flow

Both swimming and therapy are journeys of self-discovery. They require patience, practice, and a willingness to let go of the illusion of control. Whether in the pool or in life, real progress happens when we stop fighting so hard and instead learn to work with what’s already there.