Surfing In Wet/Suits
By Alex Harmon, photos by Mark Morgan
Restricted, sluggish, feeling like you’re being dragged under - surfing in a formal suit can be done, but does it feel good?
Living with mental health challenges can make feel like you’re surfing in wet clothes. Life goes on but the lingering feelings of stress, anxiety or depression, like excess weight you’re forced to carry, are there every step of the day. As Churchill famously penned, it’s the black dog that comes into our lives, devoiding us of colour. Some days we can get on with it, springing onto the waves with a smile on our face while the suit and tie does its best to pull us down. Other days the heavy helplessness we feel has us sinking to the depths. The tie is metaphorically choking us, pulling us down like an anchor.
Compare this to the modern-day wetsuit which is flexible and agile, with a soft yet tough protective armour. Wetsuits, by their very nature, are designed not just to keep us warm but to make us feel in control, springy and powerful. The same can be said for our state of mind. When suffering from mental health challenges it’s the rigidness of our mind that can be our very downfall. Stiff, stubborn and paralysed - not exactly the branding of your high-performance neoprene wetsuit.
Yet, just like neoprene, our brains are rubbery and they can be shaped and moulded over time. Understanding and being aware of our brain’s plasticity can be key to reorganising our mind. Being flexible allows us to problem solve and gain new perspectives on life. Being able to shift the elements of a problem in our mind is the first step to shedding the weight of negativity. Using this flexibility to break down the pieces of a problem and understand how it is building up to contribute to a larger problem can be key. This is an example of cognitive flexibility and, just like the right wetsuit, it gives us the performance and agility to ride out even the most powerful and challenging of waves.
Surfing is graceful on the outside, and the best surfers make it look so easy, like they’re effortlessly dancing on water. Yet we all know that to get to this position takes hard work, perseverance, and a positive mindset. Surfing takes time to conquer, breaking down the elements and working on them, building up the strength and putting the pieces together so that in a few seconds you can combine the elements to pull off what seems like the impossible. Sure, surfing in a suit is possible but there’s a reason why we choose to put on our Batman-like wetsuit when getting into the water and not a penguin suit. (Don’t even get me started on the western style suit as a symbol of oppression).
The reason why people say they are dressing for success is because this is a powerful tool in addressing our mindset and tackling the darkest of thoughts. A positive outward projection which comes from within can shed some of that excess heaviness. Putting on a wetsuit is easy (usually!), but using your brain like a wetsuit takes work.
Waves of Wellness can teach you the skills to shift your thinking, using your brain as the most powerful high-performance muscle. I’ve always believed that while surfing is a physical sport, it takes more mental strength to conquer. When my brain is fit, flexible and open, my surfing improves. When I’m out there saying to myself, “I can’t do this,” I struggle to catch anything.
If your mind isn’t on board you may as well be wearing a suit with coat tails and tandem surfing with your black dog.
Next time you’re at the beach, don’t forget to stretch your hamstrings…. and your mind.