The Cold, Hard Facts
How a dip in frigid waters pushed me further down the path of mastering difficult things.
ROVANIEMI, Finland
Three nights ago, as a cold November wind blew through the streets of Helsinki, I dunked myself into the icy waters of the Baltic Sea wearing only a swimsuit and neoprene swim shoes.
I did this willingly. And I did it despite a lifetime as a dedicated heat-seeker.
I spent three years in Bangkok joyfully soaking up the tropical heat, avoiding air conditioning whenever possible. I break out sweaters before August ends. I do not ski, and I required an astonishing number of layers of wool and fleece to survive my undergrad at Cornell University, where I took in the beauty of the frozen gorges of Ithaca, N.Y., but still counted the days until the spring thaw’s merciful arrival.
Yet here I was, four weeks after turning 55, lowering myself down a metal ladder into the cold, clear waters of Finland’s coastline. I did not do it once. I did not do it twice, or even three times. Across two hours, I did this deeply uncomfortable thing a half-dozen times.
It did not, as was advertised, get much easier each time. I managed to approach the water’s edge only by repeating to myself, over and over, a single mantra: I can do hard things.
I can do hard things.
Ihad come to Finland for a work conference. I attempted this cold water plunge because a colleague, who is also a friend, told me that on the final day of the conference she was going to try the quintessential Finnish experience: “winter swimming.”
Dipping themselves in icy water is one of the ways Finns express their “sisu,” which doesn’t quite have an English translation. Essentially, it is the belief that you can do hard things and the habit of doing them even when it’s difficult, and in the process extending the boundaries of what’s possible in your life.
I am hungrier than ever to grow those boundaries. Each day that I grow older, that hunger gets more powerful.
So though I could feel fear and discomfort rising in my belly from the moment she invited me along, I knew: This was something I couldn’t possibly miss.
We’d been preheating ourselves in a public sauna for 30 minutes before it was time to step out into the cold. Steam poured off our bodies. I could see children in snowsuits in a playground nearby, and their parents bundled in thick coats and hats. My swimsuit, slick with sweat from the sauna where I’d been safe a moment ago, was already beginning to cool.
The key to winter swimming, I’d been told, is to accept that your decision to do it has already been made. Focus on the doing, not how it’s going to feel or whether you’ll be able to handle it.
After three years of therapy and countless hours trying to make meditation part of my daily life, I know that’s not just the best approach to winter swimming; it’s the secret sauce I wish I’d learned much earlier than I have. And it’s a way of living that I am finally, slowly, in awkward fits and starts, making central to my existence.
I watched my friends go in first — they’d invited me, after all. I distracted myself with the view across the Gulf of Finland to keep from noticing how effectively my fear was waging battle with my desire to do this hard thing. A moment later, I was gripping the top of the ladder, swinging myself around and beginning to step down toward the water.
The frigid water swallowed my feet, then my ankles. Sooner than I’d anticipated, every alarm bell in my mind was ringing. I kept telling my nervous system I wasn’t under threat, and though I was sure this desperate negotiation with my fear was happening entirely in my head, I heard myself say the quiet part loud: I’m just going to keep on going.
One step down, then another — my hips, my belly and finally my heart slammed by the cold — and suddenly I was fully in the water. I tried to swim — was sure I would swim for at least a moment — but it was shockingly hard to breathe. My body couldn’t seem to listen to anything I was telling it. I grew up near a beach and have been swimming all my life, but I had the powerful sensation that my past experiences couldn’t help me navigate this situation. The instinctive ability to stay afloat that I used for hours last summer hanging out in the waves off Fire Island with my sisters was utterly out of reach.
I was in uncharted territory.
Deep water. Unfamiliar waters. Drowning in the significance of these metaphors while trying not to drown for real, I calmed my brain enough to paddle madly back to the ladder, relying on strength I hadn’t tested before and finding ways to use old skills in unfamiliar circumstances.
I willed my shaking arms and legs to follow my instructions and lifted myself up the ladder to solid ground, greedily pulling in air as my lungs remembered how to expand. Then a wave of elation knocked my fear sideways.
I stood soaking wet in the cold air, my skin warmed by a rush of adrenaline. I looked once more at the clear, wind-whipped water below. If only for a few seconds, I’d done this hard thing.
A day earlier, staring at my online reservation and wondering why I’d jumped at the chance to do this, I’d imagined I would race back into the comforting heat of the sauna as soon as I emerged from the water. But it wasn’t like that. I didn’t want the moment to end. I stayed outside, willing this unfamiliar rush of strength to become a permanent part of me.
I’ve had epiphanies before and been sure they’d leave a mile-deep groove in my psyche, shaking me out of old habits and limiting beliefs. Most often, those hard-won grooves stayed deep for only so long. Sometimes they vanished entirely. This discomfort that I was having the privilege to choose in Finland— and the epic, fired-up feeling that these piercingly cold moments were stoking in me — could easily vanish, too.
So I stayed outside. The wind blew. The water dripping from my swimsuit got icier. The sight of children in snowsuits and their parka-clad parents made me shiver. Still I stayed outside.
When I couldn’t stand it any longer, and I’d wrung all the awareness that I could out of that first trip down the ladder, I went back into the sauna to warm up again. And when I was ready to emerge, I did it all over again.
And again. And again.
During the previous four days in Helsinki, I’d asked people at the innovation conference I attended if they’d tried winter swimming. If so, did they like it? Was it fabulous, awful or both?
I was told that the second time down the ladder is just a bit easier than the first. I understand now what they meant, but that doesn’t exactly quite describe what I found. Physically, the water felt just as cold and the breath left my lungs just as fast. And in a way, the mental game was slightly harder. I couldn’t convince myself to let go of the ladder the second time, because I remembered the flash of panic I’d felt while struggling to breathe and control my arms and legs.
I knew how painfully cold the water would feel once my whole body was encased in it and I knew the fear of drowning would rattle around in my brain. But I also wanted to keep mining this experience, drawing it into my psyche so I can call on it the next time I need to do hard things. I didn’t want this to be another epiphany that lost its impact — another opportunity for massive growth that I only leveraged partially, its power siphoned away once the routine of my daily life swallowed up my attention again.
I don’t know how many years I’ll get during this life. There’s no more time for half measures.
So on that second trip outside, I walked toward the ladder with even more focus on my internal conversation. Instead of reacting to the fear as though it was valuable information, I brought awareness to the fear and considered it. I tried to talk myself through it and remind myself that I had gotten through this before and could again.
This was why I’d come: I wanted to work through my fear and practice managing it — not eliminating it or avoiding it, but interrogating it and reminding it that though it may be present, it doesn’t have to rule the day.
It’s taken me years to understand that the single most important strength a person can build is the ability to handle one’s own emotions and manage one’s own fears, avoidance and limiting beliefs. I wish I’d known sooner how important it is to get comfortable with internal discomfort. But at least I know now and I have the chance to build this strength and teach it to my nearly-grown children.
So much of that was filling my brain during that second walk toward the ladder that it crowded out much of my fear as I hit the water. My second dip was totally invigorating, as were my third and fourth and fifth.
By my sixth plunge, the sky was fully dark and the water an inky black. The air seemed even colder than before. But our two-hour window for winter swimming was nearly up, and I wanted to make the most of it. So I was ready when a friend — one who never fails to see possibility and encourage people to surprise themselves — asked whether I’d dunked my head yet. He was already swimming as I descended the ladder. It’s a really wild experience, he said. You don’t want to miss it.
His words hung in the frosty air as I reached the bottom of the ladder.
Before fear could stop me, I plunged my head under the black surface of the water. Then I burst up and forced a gulp of air into my immobile lungs. I was up the ladder within half a heartbeat, feeling cold and warm and scared and fearless.
And incredibly happy.
The morning after my winter swimming adventure, I left Helsinki by train and traveled alone eight hours north to the edge of the Arctic Circle.
I remain a devoted heat-seeker. I suppose I always will be. But yesterday I took an hour-long walk from my hotel in the woods to a nearby town because I felt too hungry for new experiences to take a taxi. I can do that when I get back to New York.
These chances to push outside my comfort zone have been a gift and a privilege, and I will not take them for granted.
The temperature was 26 degrees Fahrenheit as I walked from the forest of Ounasvaara across a bridge into the town of Rovaniemi. At times the wind was unforgiving. But it was easy to feel cozy in my parka and boots, if only because my outfit was vastly warmer than a swimsuit.
After all, I can do hard things.
