Cheerful lessons of swimming superman
RoSS EdgLEY’S epic 157-day swim around great Britain has rightly been hailed as an incredible feat of physical endurance.
Immersed in salt water for up to 12 hours a day for a total of five months, his tongue began to disintegrate, he had ulcerating wounds on his feet, and chaffing on his neck developed into such deep, weeping sores that he’d wake to find the bed sheets stuck to them each morning.
He slept for no more than six hours a day and sometimes was in so much pain from jellyfish stings that he didn’t sleep at all.
The circumnavigation was 1,792 miles in total — the distance from London to Moscow. Quite how his body survived is beyond me. But ross, 33, says his greatest challenge was coping mentally.
He’s estimated that, if you tot it all up, he probably spent about a month on his own staring into the depths. Yes, he had a support boat and crew catering to his every need, but in the water he was alone with his task.
Forcing yourself to jump back in the sea, day in and day out, when it is freezing cold, raining, windy and choppy, when jellyfish surround you, when you’re in pain and you’re bone-achingly tired … How did he do it?
Well, apparently the secret lies in the writings of the ‘Philosopher Emperor’ Marcus Aurelius (121180 Ad) and his ‘Meditations’ on stoic philosophy which ross would read in his cabin between swims. This is a book that has influenced contemporary approaches to psychotherapy, and particularly Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT).
The roman emperor provided us with revealing insights into how we make our lives harder for ourselves by the way we think and behave. He accepted that life is often tough, but argued that it is the approach we take to tackling adversity that matters — and that this will determine our ultimate experience of life.
And the key to that, in modern parlance, is positivity.
ross came to realise that if he approached each day’s swim in an angry or aggressive frame of mind, he’d experience an initial burst of energy, but this would soon wain and he’d end up struggling. He concluded that the only way to endure his ordeal was to approach it with ‘lightness’ and joie de
vivre. He resolved to ‘swim with a smile’ whatever the conditions.
We could all learn a lot from ross Edgley’s approach, because isn’t his swim a bit like life in general? It’s a marathon, not a sprint, and we have to approach it with positivity or it will exhaust us.
LIFEis one big challenge: the relentless grind of another long day at work, the demands of family and friends, financial pressures, worries about our own health or of those close to us, divorce, disappointment etc.
Waking up each day and knowing that we have to do it all again, can be overwhelming and bleak if we choose to see it that way; if we allow it to swamp the fun and happiness that is part of life, too. Accepting our lot and deciding to smile regardless is the only way to get through it all. I’m not advocating we all turn into Pollyannas, pretending life is rosy when it patently isn’t. But I do believe that if we choose to smile even when we don’t much feel like it, then this will start to colour the way we view life.
I have witnessed this time and again with patients whose lives are far harder than I could ever imagine enduring — and yet there is a determination not to be beaten down by it, but to find some joy in the grimmest of circumstances.
I remember an elderly man, the sole carer for his wife who had dementia. He came into A&E with abdominal pain which turned out to be cancer. He was scared and worried about his wife, but his mantra was ‘ mustn’t complain’ and he’d give a little laugh. He was relentlessly upbeat.
I wanted to tell him that he was entitled to complain, but I came to see that his attitude was what enabled him to cope.
So my mantra will be to ‘ swim with a smile’ like ross did. It won’t change what’s happening, but it might make it more bearable.