Mike's Story-A life altering experience

From Beth:
Mike is someone who showed me just how little I knew about trauma. Fortunately, I knew enough to get him on the right track. Over the timeframe we've been working together--I've learned a great deal more about sensory sensitivity and mind/body disconnect. 

Since I was young I was always sensitive to any kind of sensory input. My relationship with water has always been difficult— until I started lessons. I was unable to get my face wet in the shower. I could not blow bubbles or submerge my head. The sound in my ears was like gunshots. The sensation of water on my face was like getting slapped. I have similar issues with light and sound. The effect on me is that I get very confused, dizzy, disoriented. I see stars and start to pass out.

In my early thirties I traveled to Japan by myself. I took a boat cruise up a river through a canyon. The boat was right down on the water, so I could look over the water and the more I looked at it, I really didn’t want to be on the boat--I wanted to be in the water! I felt inspired on that trip. When you are traveling it kind of shakes things up, you think about things you might not think about at home. In Japan, I felt I needed to do something, it had been too long and I wanted to learn how to swim. It was a culmination of attraction to water and good timing. 
As soon I got back to Colorado, I looked online for swim instructors. I knew that I needed a lot of extra personal attention from someone who had some background in working with adults who had some trauma in the water. I didn’t know exactly what I needed but when I ran across Beth’s website I thought this sounds like the person for me. I was very relieved when she agreed to take me on and it turned out to be the best decision I’ve made in probably my whole life.

During my first lesson with Beth, she just had me stand in the shallow end and walk towards the deep end. The deep end was probably only five feet. I was like, “Oh great I can do this.” I felt relieved that Beth was starting slow with something I could definitely do.

Well, I was wrong---I got halfway across the pool. Beth said I turned as white as a ghost. A vein started throbbing on my neck. I had this look of sheer terror and had broken out in a sweat. By the time I got to the deep end she said I was shaking. I don’t remember any of that. My sensation was like I was starting to pass out. I saw stars. Everything faded. I had tunnel vision. Everything went further away from me and I started to daydream. Beth had me get out of the water. We backtracked from there. 
Later that night, I reflected on and wrote about my experience as I had walked the length of the pool. The longer I walked, the more distracted I became. I was trying to concentrate on and enjoy the feeling of water swirling around my limbs as I moved, but my breath was becoming shallow. So I tried to deepen it, but it wasn’t smooth, it was like partway towards gasping. That made me a little bit frustrated, because I didn’t want to have to think about that. Also, I couldn’t stop reaching out with my hand to touch the side of the pool. I needed some comfort, even though I was being careful enough without tipping over. My eyes were darting around a bit, too, even though I didn’t want them to do that. What the hell? I am trying to enjoy myself here and this stuff is getting in the way. Beth had told me I was having a trauma response.

She sent me home with an assignment to blow bubbles in a bowl of water and to practice standing in shallow water. She also gave me the task of wearing my goggles in the shower, of putting my face under the water, calming myself as the water hit my face and remembering to exhale and not hold my breath [which I usually did]. I was able to push myself to get my face wet, but blowing bubbles in the water was very uncomfortable for me. Surprisingly, the most uncomfortable thing was the standing with blowing bubbles. Because standing was so difficult, she had me stand in a different way than I was used to with my knees slightly bent: a power stance while regulating my breathing. It seemed like something anyone could do—but I was overcome with panic.

At first, I didn’t know if learning to swim was going to work out, but the more I got a sense of Beth’s teaching style that doubt evaporated. Her style is if she sees that an exercise is not working, she changes it and breaks it down into even smaller parts. She thinks about what would it take—mentally or physically to get someone to a point where they are comfortable with the next step. Sometimes it’s like fooling your body into doing what she is trying to achieve with you. She never made me do that first drill again, walking from one end of the pool to the other. We approached it from a different angle entirely.

When I was eleven my mom enrolled me in a day camp. There was a swim outing. I fell into the pool. I remember being under the water and then I remember being out of the pool on my back with people all around me. I believe I passed out in the water. I asked my mom about this a couple of weeks ago and she said she was told that there had been an accident and that I was fine and to come get me. I already was uncomfortable around water, having not learned to swim, but that sealed the deal--I was not going to be swimming.

As an adult, I actually learned to be in the water very quickly. Even though I was encountering difficulties, I really wanted to learn to swim. I told myself, “It’s okay. It’s okay. Beth’s not going to let anything bad happen.”  At some point I would breathe the wrong way and take in some water and that would stymie me for five minutes, but Beth said, “When that happens you may need to stand up and reset.” I felt like no one is going to force me to stay in the water—just having that patience and empathy made me feel more comfortable—she didn’t have that Tough Love Approach. She tries very hard to be aware of what might be upsetting or disruptive to your learning. Her intention is not to trigger any kind of response.

In the process of learning how to swim, you will have stuff come up, issues that you didn’t know you had. There were other examples, mostly related to how I can get easily overwhelmed by the sensations of swimming—water splashing around my face, the feeling of buoyancy, the way my body moves around. Not every adult she teaches is the same, we all have our own issues.

After I got more comfortable in the water Beth started having me do breaststroke—I’m really glad she did. It is my comfort stroke, the easiest thing for me to do. I always go back to it. I start with it and I end with it. For whatever reason it is easier than freestyle or backstroke. Once I knew how to do breaststroke. I would go to the pool, between my weekly lessons and just see how long I could go. It was pretty long, like 40 minutes. I found that counting helps; how many strokes, how many times did I put my face into the water, pull my face out of the water on each length? Did I do it the same each time? Just counting those. How many laps?

The increased activity helped my fitness. I’m still sensitive to the temperature of the water. In the warmer months the Recreation Centers turned the water temp way down—or at least it felt that way to me. It was probably only a degree or two, but that was enough to throw me. The water temp is part of feeling comfortable. For a long time I was using a Neoprene vest that I got at a dive shop—and a neoprene beanie. Eventually I lost the vest---but I kept using the beanie. That was all I needed. If you keep your head warm you don’t need to keep your body quite as warm.
I realized that if you are not comfortable there is something you can do about it—that had a profound impact on my life. I learned also that you may have to ask for help. It would not have occurred to me to go to a dive shop. It didn’t occur to me you could use something made of neoprene—it didn’t occur to me I could have a vest. Beth told me about that.  Asking for help and realizing there are ways--no matter what your challenges are--there’s a way to do it. Beth is the number one resource in that regard.

Swimming forced me to become more aware of my body, and my mind’s relationship to my body. What is my hand doing? What position is it in? What do I feel? What verification do I have that my hand is in that position without looking at it? Same thing with my arms, my legs, my feet? Where is the water on the back of my head?

I go through these mental processes that are very different from my normal mode in my life as a computer guy. I found early on that after I got out of the water I couldn’t sit in front of the computer for very long--20 minutes tops. I could no longer dive into what I call Analysis Mode--doing the kind of mental juggling, problem solving, organizing-- that I was used to doing. I could not work after I swam. I found I liked this other mode—thinking and interacting with the world—my head is no longer down studying something; now my head is up and I’m looking out into the world. Now I incorporate more things in my life that don’t involve being in that analysis mode, relaxing and enjoying the world that doesn’t involve being up in my head constantly. To use the cliché--I’m stopping to smell the roses. In fact, I even changed careers in order to accommodate my new state of mind.

Now at age 41, I’ve got hours and hours of swimming under my belt and can do freestyle, backstroke and breaststroke . Maybe, some day I will learn how to do a flip.  After having swim lessons with Beth, my girlfriend and I went San Diego to see her family. We went to the beach--I was like, “I’m going out in that water!” It’s not quite as easy to swim in ocean water as it is in a nice calm pool but the extra buoyancy provided by the salt water is interesting. I just played. There was no anxiety over the deepness of the water. I didn’t want to go too far out—I was glad there were lifeguards nearby and my girlfriend knew where I was, I needed that reassurance—but I wasn’t afraid that I was going to drown. I knew that I could stay afloat. I felt good enough that I could play, splash around. I swam and enjoyed the view.

Roger's Story written by Roger-You are never too old to learn

From Beth:
This is someone who inspires me on a regular basis. His curiosity and eagerness to learn is astounding. 
His willingness to be taught new tricks is one of the reasons he appears to have the verve of a young man. He'll probably live a long life. 

Roger's Story-Age 70, by Roger M. 

I am an engineer. I learned to swim in the sandpits of Nebraska by the time I was 10 years old. Then I quite swimming for 50 years. Oh, I could swim long enough to get out of trouble if I fell in the river or the ocean, and I could tread water for 10 minutes to qualify for a scuba diving certificate, but I couldn't swim well. 
When I was about 60 years old, I could no longer achieve aerobic conditions by running or racquet ball or other pounding forms of exercise. My back, knees and ankles were just too worn and painful. So I decided to start swimming at the city pool. Oh yeah, I quickly recalled, I could do freestyle for 50 meters before I was completely out of breath and my heart rate was in a danger zone. With perseverance, I got to 100 meters before being overwhelmed by the same conditions. 

Then tragedy struck. My granddaughter fell from a horse and broke her hip at age 13. After several surgeries, she had a total hip replacement at age 15. The family yearned for some exercise that would help her regain her stride, and swimming seemed a logical candidate (her surgeon said she'd best go to college and learn a profession because she was not going to be able to run for a living). A mutual friend recommended Beth. I called Beth in the middle of her season and told her the granddaughter's story. Beth immediately volunteered to work the teen into the class schedule, and a week later her lessons began. 
We live in Golden so I drove my granddaughter to the lessons in Boulder each week and hung out by the pool to watch Beth work her magic. After watching the granddaughter become a better swimmer in a year than I had in 67 years, I asked Beth if she took older adults into her classes. She smiled and asked when do you want to start? It is now four years later and Beth has me swimming 1000 meters three times a week, using a variety of strokes and exercises. I no longer poop out at 100 meters. I can now count on injury free aerobic exercise for essentially as long as I live. I am slowing down a trifle, and it appears to be a monotonic phenomenon, but I enjoy my time in the pool or the lake or the ocean and I am practically injury free. 

In a typical lesson (I share a spot with my daughter-in-law so we alternate weeks with Beth), I swim a few lengths, then Beth decides what we will work on. She usually prescribes an exercise to correct this or that in my stroke, and then we end the lesson with a couple laps to see what changed. We periodically commiserate on how I should structure my time in the pool to get the exercise I seek and to continue to improve my strokes. In my semi-retirement, swimming alone or under Beth's watchful eyes is one of the most fun things I do. 

Student Julie's Story-Her soul called out

From Beth:
Julie's water spirit early on told me her life would not be complete without learning to swim comfortably.  I had never seen someone beam so BRIGHT as she did after every lesson! When we had to take an extended break from lessons due to my climbing accident, I felt devastated. She was one client that I did not want to put on hold. She continues to improve and has a beautiful backstroke.

Julie’s Story [As told to Shoney Sien]

 My husband started saying, “Let’s go to Belize. Let’s take a vacation.” All I could think was why? Would I enjoy that? I did go to Belize—but I didn’t go in the water. 

I have wanted to learn to swim forever. I felt I was missing a piece of life.  I didn’t fit in society, in the world. It seemed like everybody could swim but me. I started looking online. Maybe they would have adult swim lessons, but it was always groups--that wasn’t for me. Past instructors, and trust me, I tried everybody—every time I’d get there, it’d be “Okay, everybody we’re going into the deep end.” Everybody? Who? Not me, I’m not going down there, I’m not doing that.

I was even willing to go to an Arizona swim school that guarantees students will swim in five days. I thought I would do whatever it takes. Then I stumbled onto Beth on the Internet. Reading her bio, she’s such an athlete, I thought, “Oh, she doesn’t want to work with me.”  But looking at the testimonials, I knew some of those people! I’ve been here my whole life and it gave me kind of a licensure, “I’m just like you. I can do it too. You are no different than me.”

 I called Beth but it took awhile to get started, which was anxiety-provoking because I thought; I’ve already made this decision, don’t make me wait another second. 

The Millennium Harvest House Pool? I’ve lived here fifty years and didn’t even know it was there. I was so nervous, “Here we go again.”  I almost chickened out .

My first lesson, Beth said, “Let’s start with what you know”. 

I said, “I don’t know anything”

She said, “Let’s talk about that, surely you can blow bubbles”. 

I said, “Kind of”. 

We started with me sticking my face in the water and blowing bubbles. She could tell something was up. 

Beth said, “It’s okay, you can cry”. So I did. She wanted to know why I was this way.

I told her, when I was a kid, I had a brother who was five years older. He used to hold me under the water and wouldn’t let me up. There wasn’t an adult around. It was a public swimming pool. Everyone thought this was just a brother and sister playing in the water. He tortured me and terrified me to the point where I stopped going to the pool at a very young age. I stopped going into the water at all. It took years and years before I put my face in the water.

 Instead of telling me not to be afraid, Beth said, “It’s okay to be afraid. You should be afraid if someone did that to you. It’s no wonder.”

That was a big turning point for me because Beth gave me permission to be afraid--I felt she would be there for me. She wouldn’t let anything happen. That first lesson she never took her hand off me. That’s all it took. 

I don’t think anyone else in my life has really understood. My sister to this day can’t figure out why that caused me trauma. My mother never learned to swim but she won’t speak about it. My friends think I’m more of a land-lover because I didn’t grow up around lakes or ocean, but I grew up with a pool down the street.

When you tell someone that you don’t swim they think it’s by choice, or that you don’t swim like a super star. You’re not Phelps. The absolute terror around water, especially deep water--friends and family don’t get it.

After that first lesson I thought, I’ve got to go with this. I’ve been working with Beth every single week for about a year now. I can get in the water. I can swim now. 

Beth worked with me in a deep pool over the summer--working on being comfortable in the deep water and understanding what it felt like. She took me to the wall and said, “Just let yourself drop down. You can hold onto the wall the whole time. I’m coming with you. I’m not going to leave you”. It was fine. There’s still fear because I haven’t learned everything. She knows that. I need to learn about treading water and what to do if you feel panicky in deep water—but I looked forward to every lesson in the deep pool. I looked forward to what I was going to do next, what could I do next? I’ve come a long way. 

Practice was scary at first because I was alone. I was embarrassed. I felt like everybody was looking at the stupid old woman who couldn’t swim. I told the lifeguard, “I’m learning how to swim. I’ll be in that lane.” He said, “That’s cool. If you get scared, I’ll help you. You’ll be fine.” By talking about my fears, my embarrassment subsided. I had built this wall—thinking everyone will notice, that everyone is going to see that I’m a dork in the water. And no one cares, no one cares—they really don’t care!

This summer I was at the pool with Beth and ran into a doctor friend. She gave me a hug and wondered what I was doing. I said, “I take swim lessons.” She told me, “You know I never learned to swim.”  I asked, “Why don’t you learn?”  Here was this accomplished doctor, who does this amazing surgery all day, and she said,” I always wanted to learn but it’s embarrassing now. I’m too old.” I said, “No, no, you’re not too old.” 

If you can’t swim at least have a conversation with Beth. She’s a superstar swimmer so you might think she wouldn’t want to teach people who are glugging around in the water. But she wants to work with people like me. Beth gave me a gift that no one else has ever been able to give me.

I walk with my head higher now. Learning to swim is a huge sense of accomplishment--it means more to me than all those pieces of paper on my wall--to walk around that pool and not have an ounce of fear.

We are going to Belize again in January. This time I want to stick my face in the water and watch the little fishies and play with the starfish. In Belize there are miles and miles of shallow ocean. I can go a long way and still be in water where I can stand up. I wouldn’t even walk out in that water before. I wouldn’t even go tubing down Boulder Creek. I went tubing this summer—my husband and I had a blast. My husband said, “You are having so much fun. You are so much more relaxed since working with her. You are enjoying life more, you can enjoy so many more thing now that you’ve done this”. 

Lesson Two-Trauma has to be released

From Beth:
Trauma works in mysterious ways-- a person may scream, cry, faint, lock up physically or freeze mentally. If I am to free any student from fear of water, I must listen closely to their words and watch carefully with my eyes for the clues from their bodies.

Lesson 2, August 1, 2012

I arrived at Lesson 2, eager to learn. I was checking in with Beth beside the pool when a man arrived with his toddler for the child’s lesson. There had been a scheduling mix-up, so I quickly said, “Please take him.” I was delighted for the chance to practice in the pool. At first I felt silly floating and blowing bubbles but then I just let myself enjoy feeling silly and playing. 

My fun was interrupted by the terrified screams of the toddler at other end of the pool. My teacher and mom antennae went up, but I could see he wasn’t even in the water. He refused to get in, not with Beth or his dad. Beth was gently assuring. I wondered why he was so afraid. Beth took them to the outside pool and I resumed my floating and bubbles.

I thought about how some kids are more sensitive than others. This can be a good thing, as well as a challenge [I count myself among the “too sensitive”]. Things that happen to siblings might deeply affect one and the others don’t even remember it. When I was four, my three-year-old brother and I were playing on our farm. He decided to walked along the top of the cow tank and slid down the metal roof into the water. He was thrashing in the deep tank while I shouted desperately, “Swim over here, swim over here!” Then he floated lifelessly in the cow-tank--suddenly my mother and sister were there, screaming at me about drowning my brother as they pulled him out, blue and limp. They hit his back repeatedly to force the water out of him and maybe breathed into his nose [though I don’t remember this]. My brother survived. As an adult he swims with ease, loves water and runs his own fishing guide company. I am afraid of deep water and never learned to swim.

Is that tension Beth sees in my shoulders, my neck, my head all the history, fear and sadness trapped in my body? While practice, I let the water cradle me.

When I return for my lesson the next day I felt more comfortable in the pool from all the time I spent in the water between lessons. Beth pointed out again how tightly I hold myself---is this how I protect myself from the fear, from memories? Relaxing because someone says relax is not easy, but Beth finds ways to help me relax. I build on that.  I clench and let go, practice relaxing. It makes a huge difference. When I used to run hill repeats I would mentally chant, “hills are my friends.” Now I internally chant, ‘the water is my friend, it will hold me.” 

We talked about the child from yesterday. Beth wanted to be sure that I wasn’t upset. She said that he’d had a trauma, not involving water, and now every new situation triggered terror. This might be true for many non-swimmers. The other night I was watching the TV show, Treme, set in post-Katrina New Orleans. In it a thunderstorm booms loudly during an elementary school band class. The kids freeze with fear. The teacher says, “It’s just a storm. It’s not a hurricane. It’s not Katrina.” 

I want to remember this in my body:  this is now, now then when that scary thing happened. It’s just a rainstorm, not a hurricane.

Shoney's First Lesson-Finding Courage

From Beth: 
I knew right away after reading Shoney's initial email that she would be someone I could connect with easily. 
I sensed through her words the courage she was mustering to take on the task of learning to swim. 

July 25, 2012 Lesson One

At 55, I’ve gone years without trying to learn to swim, years since I’ve been in a swimming pool. But this summer I ran into an acquaintance. She looked so healthy and happy. She was biking to the Millennium hotel to swim in their pool. She did it every day. I felt a sudden, intense longing to swim. I wanted that—riding to the pool along the creek path, the confident joy. I wanted to be a swimmer.

I went home and searched the Internet to see if anyone offered lessons at the Millennium pool. I didn’t want group lessons: they had never worked for me. I wanted the right teacher because despite the adrenaline pushing me to find lessons now, I knew my frustration or fear could defeat me. Beth’s website came up and I explored it just enough to see that she taught adults who were afraid of water, that she was a runner and that she appeared close to my age—I had a good feeling about her and thought I would try one lesson. I emailed her quickly before I chickened out. 

I wrote that I was athletic [30 marathons] but afraid of deep water and had never grasped the coordination—using my breath/arms/legs together to be able to swim. I wanted a supportive, encouraging teacher.

Beth offered to put me in touch with some current students and thanked me for my background information and best of all, told me that the pool at the Millennium doesn’t have a deep end. While I appreciated the offer to talk to current students, I didn’t want to think too much about my lesson ahead of time. I was glad that she cared about my background---but really, knowing there was no deep end sealed it for me.

I was excited before my first lesson as I wandered the hotel hallways looking for the pool—then feeling joy: the pool was in a big open room, three sides of windows and high ceiling. I didn’t know I associated pools with claustrophobic rooms.  Nor did it reek of chlorine [something else I didn’t know I disliked]. It was freeing that this pool had none of the negative associations with past pools [dark and smelly] where I’d been unsuccessful since childhood. 

I felt comfortable with Beth immediately. She was competent and gentle. We talked about how I was feeling [mostly excited] before I put on the first pair of goggles I’ve ever owned and got into the pool.

I showed her that I could float on my back and front. I put my head under water. I could blow bubbles. When I floated on my front, Beth pointed out some simple adjustments I could make to my head position. Who knew it mattered? With a few changes I felt more balanced and floated with more ease.  She saw how tightly I held myself  and suggested ways I could relax my shoulders and feel what I was doing in the water--in my body—not just in my brain. She had me turn over, put my face in the water, arms straight ahead and kick to propel myself while blowing out. At first I did not move forward at all but I did get my head in and got the idea of blowing bubbles into the water. After some practice I was able to propel myself across the pool standing up just a couple of times to take a breath. I enjoyed my lesson. It went too quickly! Maybe this time I would really learn to swim. 

Shoney's Story-Why she never learned to swim as a child

My fear of deep water began with my mother. Her brother drowned when she was 9. One of my earliest memories is of my mother describing in detail the last time she saw her brother, how he fell from a boat and what his body was like after three days in the river. At 89 she still frequently describes this event in detail and I feel how deeply she was traumatized by it. She never learned to swim and refused to come to family outings near water. She just couldn’t watch. On hot summer days after working on the farm, my twelve siblings and I would go to a local lake—I often played in the water but was afraid that one of my brothers or some other boy would pull me under---a terrifying experience for me, not being able to breathe, not being able to reach the surface. I entered the water on-guard and never went in very deep. 

One summer when I was about nine my mother signed up us younger kids for swim lessons.  I asked her about this recently, and she said remembered hauling us over to the swimming pool [but never staying to watch]. It was a cold summer and we were always frozen and purple when she came to pick us up. I never got beyond sitting at the edge with my feet in the freezing water watching the other kids and feeling embarrassed for not getting in.

When I entered high school we were told that to graduate we had to swim the length of the pool. The fear of this test hung over me for four years and yet I can’t remember if I ever took that test. It’s possible I thrashed around for half a length or showed them I could float.

When I was 21 I had an accident that escalated my fear of deep water.  While cross-country skiing across a frozen river on a cold Wisconsin day, the ice cracked below me and I was completely submerged. While plunging deep down under the icy water I saw my own death announced in a newspaper;“21 year-Old-Girl Drowns.” Fortunately I popped back up through the hole and was rescued by my adult Eagle Scout skiing buddy. 

Throughout my life I longed to learn to swim. I signed up for group lessons a few times. The results were always the same. The instructor would rush the group through a series of fast verbal instructions and move on. I couldn’t coordinate my legs, arms or breathing and was quickly left behind—discouraged, embarrassed and feeling clumsier than ever. And no one helped me overcome my fear of deep water. 

Throughout my life I have overcome many obstacles and fears and now at 55 I’m determined to learn to swim and to conquer my fear of deep water. At 89, I want to be one of those women I see who do lap and after lap, moving smoothly through the water. And so I begin my story of learning to swim with Beth.