I am writing this from room 106 at the Sobienie Krolewski hotel 1 hour outside of Warsaw. It's a small hotel with a pool and spa- a perfect getaway for the weekend before starting work again in Warsaw on Monday.
For all sorts of reasons, I hadn't been swimming since August 2013 and swimming is something I really enjoy. I learnt to swim when I was quite young- maybe 8 or 9 and I think I took to the water and swimming very easily. I always have this huge sense of freedom when I am in the water- especially when I am swimming in the sea.
Anyway, this morning, I got into the pool at around 10AM. The pool was completely empty when I got it. The first 30 or so lengths were good but it felt a little strange getting back in the water after all this time. When I got out of the water, I was breathing quite hard and I felt like it took a lot of effort. I rested for a while and got back into the water. This time, it felt a bit better. The next 30 lengths felt easier and I was breathing better but also, I felt I was moving along the water much easier with less resistance. The third time I got in, I used a kickboard and did quite a few lengths using the kickboard only. When I got rid of the kickboard and swam again, I could really feel my stroke coming back. It felt such a luxury to be able to use both arms and legs and somehow, I was completely into each and every stroke. In that sense, I was really in-flow. The fourth time I got in, I felt I could swim on and on. I had found my stroke.
When I got out of the pool, I was reflecting this experience- how strange it was for me to feel so strange doing something that was second nature to me and how it took several breaks and several attempts before I found my stroke again. A few weeks ago, towards the end of an Organisation Effectiveness group workshop that I was co-leading/ facilitating with John and Karol, I mused out loud as to what my work really was. I came to the realisation that I had been very good at supporting and promoting other people's work- but I felt that everything I did was relatively invisible. Or maybe, everything I did was consumed by and subsumed into something else. So I wonder about my work and wonder when and how I was in-flow and how to rediscover and get back in-touch with my stroke(s).
Saturday, 12 April 2014
Monday, 30 December 2013
Wednesday, 25 December 2013
Full Circle
So I was one of the 5,000 people caught up in the Gatwick flight nightmare yesterday...it was truly a bad scene. But the light at the end of a 14-hour nightmare of indeterminant waiting and not knowing which culminated in a 2.5 hour wait in the luggage hall of chaos was a free meal at the Hilton. The miracle was not only that our luggage was delivered and not just we got a free meal but it was a chance encounter with this waiter who appeared out of nowhere to greet us- when so many people were queuing and milling about. He just showed us the way to the hospitality buffet downstairs in a hotel where I started my career. The whole scene was a bit surreal because I remembered working on such a night, before Christmas, 20+ years ago in that exact hotel- serving customers like me. Somehow, it seemed a massive cycle had been completed. I had been texting a couple of my closest friends throughout the day- they had seen the news and were concerned for me---so they also knew and really felt for us when I let them know that our flight was cancelled. First thing this morning, I called Nadia- one of my oldest friends---and we chatted about the previous day and how so many people were without electricity or flooded...and suddenly, it occurred to me that I only knew Nadia because of the Hilton. We met when I was in my first proper job after university- I was working as an HR Manager at the Hilton in Southampton and she was working as the HR Manager in Portsmouth- we met at an HR Manager's area meeting and just clicked immediately---that was 20+ years ago. And so, it just seemed right and miraculous that on Christmas morning, I was talking to her on the phone, about the hotel chain that brought us together. In that moment and now, I am full of wonder and gratitude at all the twists and turns in life and of these wonderful moments when I am reminded of all the causes and conditions which manifest into situations- and how without exception these situations are always full of learning and potential---even though sometimes, the question 'why' might appear many many years later.
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