Taking care of myself doesn’t have to mean doing more. A 50-metre morning swim and a ten-kilometre bike ride made me think about performance, old habits, and why sometimes it really is enough to let enough be enough.
🇸🇪 Svenska – Jag har fortfarande inte bestämt mig för om jag ska vinterbada
🇬🇧 English – you are reading the English version.
I’ve had a break from my morning swims.
Not because I actually decided to stop. It mostly just happened because I haven’t really had the time. And if I’m honest, it’s been quite nice too.
I’ve been able to stay at home in the mornings. Finish writing my blog post. Do the other things I usually do. Not have to stop what I’m doing, put on my bathrobe and head off to the lake.
But yesterday it happened.
I had time.
I went to the lake.
And I swam.
It was 0°C in the air and 14.3°C in the water. The water was cold, but still perfectly manageable.
And I did something that might have been just as important as actually getting into the water.
I was kind to myself.
I didn’t have to swim far just because I had made the effort to go there. I didn’t have to prove anything.
I swam 50 metres and then got out.
That was enough.
I didn’t get as chilled afterwards as I have on other occasions. And when I came home, I could put on my cosy clothes and slowly feel the warmth returning.
Because that is part of swimming too.
It isn’t an annoying bit that comes afterwards and simply has to be endured. Coming home, putting on warm clothes and feeling the warmth return is almost the final part of the swim itself.
I’ve written a lot about the lake over the years. When I collected some of those thoughts in The lake and life – what the lake taught me about life, I realised that swimming has gradually become less about performance and more about being present.
Perhaps those 50 metres are another small sign of that.
Taking care of myself doesn’t have to mean more
That same day, I had made another decision.
I wasn’t going cycling.
But when my husband came home, we sat there looking out at the weather.
It was lovely outside.
And suddenly, the decision I had made earlier in the day seemed rather silly.
Why should I stick to not cycling simply because I had decided that a few hours earlier?
We wanted to go out.
And we didn’t actually have to cycle very far.
So we got on our bikes.
We cycled about ten kilometres.
Not several tens of kilometres. Not a long ride.
Ten kilometres was enough.
And when I think about that day afterwards, that is exactly what I like about it.
50 metres in the lake was enough.
Ten kilometres on the bike was enough.
I didn’t have to do more of either for it to count.
The shop has become part of the bike ride
We finished our bike ride by going to the shop.
It’s becoming something we do quite naturally. Instead of taking the car to the shop, we cycle there and pack our groceries into our panniers.
And that was when it struck me:
We humans really are creatures of habit.
Not long ago, taking the car when we needed groceries was the obvious thing to do. Not because we had thought about whether we actually needed the car.
We just did it.
Now the shop has started to become a natural end to our bike ride instead.
And of course there are several benefits. The car stays at home. We don’t need shopping bags because we already have our panniers. We get some exercise, and impulse buying becomes a little more difficult when everything actually has to fit into the bags on the bikes.
We ride e-bikes, so the journey isn’t completely free of energy use. But we aren’t taking the car. There is something both economical and resource-conscious about that.
But that wasn’t really what stayed with me.
It was the habit itself.
How something can feel so obvious that we don’t even stop to wonder why we do it.
Then one day we do things differently a few times – and suddenly the new way starts to feel obvious instead.
A little like the decision I had made earlier that day.
I wasn’t going cycling.
Then we looked out of the window, saw the lovely weather and thought:
Why not?
An old decision didn’t have to decide the rest of the day.
And perhaps our habits work in much the same way.
Do I really want to do this again?
This morning, the next discussion started in my head.
Am I going to keep swimming this autumn?
Am I going to be a winter swimmer again this year?
One side of me had some pretty good arguments.
You cycle.
You’re already taking care of yourself that way.
You’re even thinking about buying that smart indoor exercise bike.
Maybe that’s enough.
That was more or less the part of me that didn’t want to get into cold water and freeze.
And I could understand her.
But then I looked at the morning.
It looked like the kind of morning when swimming might actually be possible.
And suddenly the other side had taken over.
She didn’t even argue very much.
She brushed her teeth.
Took off her nightclothes.
Put on her bathrobe.
And suddenly I was sitting in the car on my way to the lake.
Well then.
Apparently, we were going swimming today too.
I recognise that discussion between the one who wants to swim and the one who would rather stay at home. I’ve written about her before in A morning swim in gratitude – when the will to go wins.
Apparently, they are both still here.
The same lake – but never the same water
Today it was 11°C in the air and 15°C in the water.
And yet the water felt colder today.
That is one of the things I like about my morning swims. I return to the same place, but the experience is never quite the same.
I often meet the same people.
We arrive.
We swim.
We say goodbye.
A simple little morning ritual.
And yet everything around us is changing.
The water feels different. The temperature changes. The light changes. Nature shifts a little from one day to the next.
And I notice it.
Sometimes I feel as though I could never get enough of looking at all the beauty around me.
Then I start walking into the water.
One step.
Another.
My body says:
No.
This is cold. Turn around.
But I take a few more steps.
And somewhere around there, something strange happens.
At the same time as my body protests, it also begins to settle.
I slow down.
My thoughts change.
Everything becomes quiet.
One last wash in the lake
Today I swam 50 metres again.
Then that was enough.
But before I got out, I did something I know I won’t do again this year.
I washed myself in the lake for the last time this season.
It is difficult to explain why that means so much to me.
It’s the simplicity.
The closeness to nature.
The freedom.
I stand there in the lake and don’t really need anything more than what is right there around me.
But that part is over for this year.
If I continue swimming as the water gets colder, the swims will have to become simpler and shorter.
If I continue.
Because I still haven’t decided.
But do I have to decide?
Perhaps that is where something has changed.
Yesterday I had decided not to cycle.
Then reality changed, and I changed my decision.
This morning I didn’t know whether I was going to swim.
Then there I was in my bathrobe, on my way to the lake.
Maybe I don’t have to decide today what I’m going to do for the whole autumn and winter.
Just as a bike ride doesn’t have to be several tens of kilometres, a swim doesn’t have to be long.
Maybe I don’t even have to decide whether I am a winter swimmer.
I swam today.
Perhaps that is enough to know.
On the bike I move – in the lake I stop
I started thinking about all this because I wondered whether I really need swimming when I already have cycling.
Because cycling gives me so much.
When I cycle, I notice the nature around me. I can pass a tree that has probably been standing there every other time I’ve cycled past it – but today I see it.
Really see it.
Cycling gives me movement, exercise, energy and new thoughts.
And most of all, it gives me the feeling that I am taking care of myself.
Swimming does that too.
Just in a different way.
On the bike, I move through nature.
In the lake, I stop in the middle of it.
On the bike, I discover what is along the way.
At the lake, I return to the same place and discover just how much the same place can change.
Maybe I don’t have to choose.
Two squares can become a circle
I think a lot in squares.
One thing at a time.
But perhaps I have sometimes made the mistake of thinking that one thing at a time must also mean one thing per day.
It doesn’t.
When I swim, I swim.
When I cycle, I cycle.
Swimming can be one square.
Cycling can be another.
Two different squares in the same day.
And when I look at them together, perhaps they can actually become parts of the same circle.
Taking care of myself.
Because both give me something that is difficult to measure in kilometres, minutes or degrees.
They give me new thoughts.
They make me notice the nature around me.
And they both give me the same strange but very clear feeling.
I come home to myself.
Between the lines
When I say that I come home to myself, I think I mean something very simple.
All those judgemental thoughts about myself aren’t there.
I don’t have to be good at anything.
I don’t have to do more.
I don’t have to wonder whether 50 metres was too little or whether the bike ride should have been longer.
I don’t have to perform my way towards the feeling that what I did was enough.
On the bike, I cycle.
In the lake, I stand there in the water.
And I simply am.
Perhaps that is also part of taking care of myself.
Not always demanding a result from what I do.
Not turning 50 metres into 100 just because 100 sounds better.
Not turning ten kilometres into thirty just because a longer bike ride would look better in the statistics.
And perhaps that is why I don’t have to decide today whether I’m going to be a winter swimmer.
I still don’t know.
But today I swam.
50 metres.
That was enough.
Questions for you
Do you have a habit that once seemed obvious but that you have started doing differently?
Do you find yourself sticking to a decision even when circumstances have changed?
Is there something you do that quiets those judgemental thoughts for a while and lets you simply be?
And how easy is it for you to let enough be enough?
You may also like
🌿 The lake and life – what the lake taught me about life – about what the same lake has taught me over the years about courage, presence, performance and gratitude.
🌿 A morning swim in gratitude – when the will to go wins – about the part of me that wants to swim and the part that would rather stay at home.
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