Learning to swim
Katerina Pavlakis 
The moment when you realise you can float...
Do you remember any big 'a-ha!' moments you've had?
Maybe even from waaaay back, when still a kid? Like realising you can actually read? (I clearly remember this moment!) Or learning to ride a bike? (somehow I don't remember this one).
But most vividly, I remember the day I learned to swim.
I would have been 4 or 5 years old, and spending the Greek summer on the island. It was a very hot summer afternoon, the kind of heat that sits on the landscape and makes everything go still... but for the deafening grate of the cicadas. It was siesta time so nobody was out and about, just me and my mum going to the beach alone (not something we would normally do at that time of day, and I have no idea why we did that day).
I remember getting in the water and lying on my back, with my mum holding me up so I could float. And then she took one hand away, and then her other hand... and to my amazement I was still floating! All on my own without any support at all. I realised that I didn't have to do anything special to float, just lie there flat and still and the water would hold me up. I still remember the feeling of amazement and elation!
This
was all I needed to know 'to get' the idea of swimming. From there,
with time, I easily learned to move my arms and legs to move along in
the water, then I picked up some proper swimming technique, and a few
years after that I even had a stint of training for competitive
swimming.
But it all started with that one moment, when I realised that I could float on my own.
This memory came up this week because I got some really nice messages from a couple of you this week... sharing how you went past that hurdle of holding back your cooking intuition. Telling me of that one moment when you dared to just pick some ingredients from your kitchen and make a meal with them, just like that. And realising that it tasted surprisingly delicious.
That
moment of getting past the fear of doing it 'wrong' and allowing
yourself to cook by gut feeling, is just like the moment I realised I
could float. From here, and with time, you can improve your technique,
add to your experience and pick up more tips and tricks.
But that will be all easy, because you are now past that barrier that tells you that you can't cook without somebody else's instructions (aka a recipe). Yay to that!
So how do you get to that point?
One
thing is sure: Like you can't learn to swim without getting in the
water, you can't unleash your inner chef without getting your pans
dirty.
I can help you with that: join me for one of my workshops for a 90min shortcut through the learning process.
Categories: (RE)THINK
