This week a new swimmer arrived for lessons. A hot afternoon, he was clearly curious about the little pool. Cautiously clinging to his mom, he eyed me warily and said, “I can’t swim.”
“That’s why you’re here,” I beamed. “Come sit on the edge.”
Hiding behind his mom, he quieted and showed no signs of approaching the water.
Mom gently reminded him about other activities that he was hesitant about at first but now loved. He was still reluctant — but she guided him closer to the pool.
Getting in took time. At first, walking around the step in the pool, half clinging to the wall and his mom, was daunting. But upon completing his first lap, he proudly declared that he wanted to do it “again and again and again.”
He didn’t discover he could swim. He discovered that “I can’t” and “I’ve never done this before” aren’t always the same thing.
Watching young swimmers helps me catch myself and my adult swimmers in our stories. Children say it out loud. Adults tend to be more sophisticated.
“I’m not an athlete.”
“I’m too slow.”
“I don’t like murky water.”
We’re really just saying “I can’t” in a different way.
A swimmer I’ve been working with—preparing for a triathlon—felt water moving across her hands for the first time. She started swimming as an adult and has been at it for several years. The water didn’t change. Her hands didn’t change. But something in her capacity to be present with the experience had grown quietly, without her noticing, until suddenly it was just there.
It wasn’t really a new skill. It was deeper contact with something she’d been doing all along.
That’s what accumulated familiarity looks like.
So much of what we mistake for confidence, talent, or simply who we are is really just time spent with something that once felt foreign, until it didn’t anymore.
I keep thinking about that mom at the edge of the pool—gently reminding her son of the things that once felt impossible and now feel like home. That’s what a community does at its best. Not pushing. Just holding the longer view when you’ve lost it. Reminding you that unfamiliar is not the same as impossible.
That’s what we do together in The Water’s Edge.
Sometimes we simply borrow each other’s memory until our own catches up.
This month in The Water’s Edge we’ve been exploring capacity — not as doing more, but as expanding our ability to stay with something that once felt overwhelming. Because capacity isn’t fixed. It grows through contact. One breath. One attempt. One uncomfortable moment at a time.
Next week we’re sitting with that together — how the unfamiliar becomes familiar, and what that makes possible. If you’ve been carrying around an “I can’t,” or even just a quiet certainty that “that’s not me,” I’d love for you to join us. Let’s get curious about it together. Monday, June 29th at 11 AM Pacific / 2 PM Eastern. Free and open to anyone.
Until then, one question to sit with:
What might become possible if you gave yourself the same patience you’d offer a child at their very first swim lesson?
Swimming alongside you,
Shannon
