Upwelling Your Inner Energy
You will not find the boundaries of soul by travelling in any direction, so deep is the measure of it. — Heraclitus, fragment 45.
Since the pandemic started, I have gained some more weight. Too much time spent on the computer and not enough exercise. A terrible combination for staying healthy. Fortunately, I have recently started swimming again with some friends . We meet up three times a week at a beach near my town, Barranco.
Yuyos is one of those nice places for swimming, since the waters are not so deep, so you feel as if you were in a sort of natural swimming pool. This does not impede, however, that you can have some kind of small waves that are good enough for surfers to feel attracted to it.
So, there we are, every morning we visit Yuyos, we share the cold waters with the surfers. It is as if we were two different kinds of marine animals who try to thrive within that space. And certainly the beach has enough space for both of us.
But what is exactly the thing that Yuyos has to offer?
During all the time that followed the restrictions imposed for fighting against the coronavirus, I have had some times when I felt down, kind of depressed, and my sole way to deal with it was getting a couple of beers while working on the laptop. Little by little, though, I realized that this was not getting me anywhere. I needed to get my vitality back.
Around one month ago, after yielding to the proposals of my friend LOG to go back to swimming, I experienced something that I had forgotten for so long. I remembered once again how it feels to be more connected with nature. And ,although I actually introduced my friend LOG into swimming in the ocean many years ago, this time he was the one who introduced me into it. So, LOG, if you are reading this, thanks a lot, man! I really appreciate it.
So Yuyos is like a source of revitalization. It cleances my mind from all the negativity that I might bring with me. Every time I leave the waters, I feel as if I had visited the best therapist in the world! It just enables more mental space for anything you might need to do.
These previous ideas lead me to the main point I want to highlight regarding swimming in the ocean.
Three days ago I was reading about the reasons why sometimes the waters feel so damn cold. While researching in Google about it, I found an interesting term: upwelling.
According to what I found, upwelling is the name given to the process through which deep waters come to surface of the ocean. This process would sometimes makes us experience cold currents of water, since deep waters tend to have low temperatures. But the most interesting factor to me was when I read that upwelling is responsible that a lot of nutrients can be found in the surface of the ocean. In other words, this process brings those nutrients from the deep waters to the surface. This phenomenon enables that surface waters can be teeming with lots of life.
So what does upwelling might have to do with my experience in Yuyos?
Well, that certainly can be part of the explanation for the low temperatures that the waters have, but, besides that, I think this concept can be used as a sort of metaphor in order to understand the revitalizing effect that the water has on me.
We are always looking for something that might offer us what we may call well-beingness. In other words, we are constantly trying to find that which might be the source of authentic being, which amounts to say authentic happiness. Sometimes we look outside of us for finding something that might satisfy this essential need, but sooner or later we end up realizing that authentic being can only be found within us. That is, authentic happiness can only be found within our souls. So, if this is the case, in a similar fashion as the ocean takes care of bringing life to the surface waters, we also need to recreate the phenomenon of upwelling within ourselves. We need to learn how to find those vitalizing elements that we all hold within ourselves in order to bring that to the surface of ourselves. As many wise people and philosophers have claimed since ancient times, real happiness can only be achieved if we look within ouserlves. We need to bring those essential nutrients to our surface. Just in doing so we will live a more fulfilling life.
So, I hope that this experience and reflection can be of any help or inspiration if you’re going through hard times. Put into practice the upwelling within yourself. And, if you have the chance, try to do it while you swim in the ocean! Over there you can find many answers to your questions!
