Why Though?

to dip or not to dip...

​During a polar vortex a few years ago, I dipped in the ocean.

For five minutes, I marveled at my ability to endure 34-degree water and below zero air temperature. Chunks of ice floated around me. Seagulls huddled behind beach grass. I kept my back to the wind and my feet buried into the ocean floor for traction.

For hours afterwards, I couldn’t get warm, but I also couldn’t help but think, Wow, how did I do that?

I started dipping when a friend said it had helped her mental health more than anything she’d tried. That was enough for me to push through the discomfort of unforgiving water temperatures and do it.

At the time of the polar vortex, I’d been dipping daily for two years. Like most things at the time, I did it religiously — compulsively — as if my life depended on it. The polar vortex wasn’t an excuse to take the day off, it was a challenge to see what I was made of.

Since my early 20s, I’ve been driven by things I can point to at the end of the day for worth and validation. And boy, oh boy, going into frigid ocean water made everyone, including myself, say, Wow, you’re amazing!

Until a year ago, my daily dips were saving me. They rebooted my mind and body. I felt alive, which was big, because I spent most of the day feeling kinda dead inside.

Science backs up the benefits of cold plunging — the euphoria afterwards, the physical ways it “helps” your body. I loved it. And hated it.

Last winter, I’d long lost the ability to differentiate between what I was doing because I wanted to and what I was doing out of duty.

I dreaded getting in from January through March. Thinking about it consumed so much mental energy.

I dipped to help my mental health, not make me edgy with anticipation.

A little voice — my internal Knowing — whispered, You don’t have to go today. But Mean Amy lashed out, Yes you do! Don’t be a wimp!

I didn’t want to disappoint the people who asked, “Are you still dipping every day?” So every single day I dragged myself to the water, most of the time kicking and screaming.

“Why do you continue to do it?” my therapist asked when we started sifting through the rubble after my husband left.

“I like it,” I said. “Sometimes.”

It took months for me to stop lying to myself and give myself permission to be human — to respect and honor that my mind and body needed a rest sometimes.

Again and again, I had to remind myself that I’m worthy of admiration simply by being myself, which felt very risky at first.

The first day I chose not to dip, I found myself at the ocean just in case my insatiable will took over and squashed the promise I’d made to myself not to go in.

The voices in my head went wild. Just go in already. You’re making a big deal out of nothing.

I closed my eyes and became very still. I drove home unsure I was doing the “right” thing. I let the voices throw a fit as I pulled away from the snow-covered shore.

And guess what? The world didn’t collapse. I was more than okay. Better yet, I knew I’d made progress.

The world rewards the hustlers and the do-ers. The ones who go to extremes. We praise them and believe they’re stronger than we are. This is just not true. Often, they’re the ones with the loudest internal demons.

To all my type-A, people-pleasing perfectionists who’ve disconnected from their Knowing and lost their ability to decipher what they want and need: stop doing things because you should or can. Ask yourself: why am I doing this?

There’s no gold medal for pushing through something that doesn’t serve you. You’ve been sold a bill of goods about being “better.”

Being the onlooker, bundled up on the shore, listening to the seagulls squawk, and admiring the soft glow of a winter sun, makes you just as worthy of love as the wild woman running into the sea.

Now, the days I want to go in, I do. And on the days I don’t, I don’t. It’s a no-brainer – but took me a long time to fully embrace that I had jurisdiction over my decisions.

The voices have settled. Yours will too. Honoring our Knowing takes practice. We’ve been conditioned to disconnect from it. But when you dial in, you’ll be more content. You’ll enjoy the days you (proverbially) go in. And the days you don’t.

I promise.