Exclusive: Breaking Waves Chapter 5

The Body Keeps the Score

As the copy edits come to a close (it’s now at final proofing!), and Breaking Waves is hurtling ever closer towards actual publication, I am sharing an exclusive excerpt from each of the 10 chapters between now and September, when it will become available for pre-order.

I have previously shared excerpts from Chapter 1: The Shape of Water, Chapter 2: The Taste of an Iceberg, Chapter 3: Drowning and Chapter 4: The First Breath. Today I would like to introduce you to Chapter 5: The Body Keeps the Score.

This is for you 🌊💕

Chapter 5: The Body Keeps the Score

It feels strangely prescient that this chapter is the one I’m sharing this week, as I recover from another health flare. Also this has been a week where I’ve connected with several people with chronic illness in a new way, having been very open about my own experiences in my interview with

Rachel Katz

for her Lady’s Illness Library. In my book, I talk about how my mental health fractured after the death of my brother, and how it was my body that eventually gave in, allowing me to finally pause and try to repair my mind.

I chose this excerpt because it makes me feel hopeful. It reminds me that although, like so many of us, I do sometimes carry the heavy weight of depression, I have found ways to make it lighter. It reminds me that my body is my early warning system, and how I am so grateful when it allows me to take to the water to ease my soul. The difficult times always pass.

Oh, and I love elephants, so having one as a companion every now and then isn’t all bad…

Photo by Jakob Owens on Unsplash

I hope you enjoy it, I’d love to hear your thoughts 🫶

”The anecdotal evidence on the benefits of wild swimming on mental (and physical) health is overwhelming. It is not just the physiological responses that happen in the water, whether cold or not, it is so much more. It is the overcoming of fear, the personal challenge, the power of just showing up, the feeling of achieving the impossible, being part of a community, connecting with nature and a brief liberation from the noise that so many of us struggle to drown out. Women have described it to me as ‘utterly transformative’ and ‘deliciously beautiful’, telling how the water takes away their pain, saves their sanity, and time and time again, that it is their ‘reset button’. It can clear the mind, wash away feelings of numbness, aid relaxation and even improve sleep. These are all things that I have experienced, time and again, and have had countless other women share the same. There is no science that can dismiss that. One lady I spoke to told how her daily swim is her grief therapy after the loss of her sister. I am so heartened that she has this outlet, and only wish I had discovered the open water five years earlier. If you invented a pharmaceutical drug that listed these benefits, there would quite possibly be a mental health revolution

When depression sneaks up on me, and I feel the presence of the elephant on my chest crushing my soul, immobilising me, I try my best to breathe through it, to treat the feeling with care and respect and knowing, and I do what I have to do. When I’m unwell, my family make me tea and wrap me up in blankets like a sad sushi roll. If I’m able, I take the weight of the elephant with me and I head down to the sea or the lake. While there is much joy and companionship at the lake, there is also a tacit understanding that often people need to have a solitary experience. No one takes offence when I say I’m not feeling great, or I don’t want to talk. I feel innately understood. I can stand there with the weight on me feeling utterly insurmountable, the vestiges of grief thickening my tongue so as to render it inoperable. Sometimes that means I can’t get in the water at all, but that’s okay. Sometimes I can. When I can, I again feel held by it, and something lifts. It doesn’t disappear, but the grip on my soul is loosened, and my heart beats more freely. The shore going into the lake is sandy and has a gentle slope, so it’s possible to make the decision one step at a time. It doesn’t have to be a plunge, or a ‘sink or swim’ experience, it can just be a walk, with the water around my feet and legs, breathing the air, hearing the birds and feeling the whispers of the trees. It is forgiving and kind, and that is what makes it so special. Sometimes in the water the elephant peels herself away from me altogether and swims away, smiling back at me, hosing me with water like a fond farewell, until next time. Sometimes she just shrinks a little, then comes back and nestles on my chest for a while more, but she is smaller and doesn’t weigh quite so much. I am able to carry her.”

Chapter 6 excerpt next week…if you like this please do share! It means the world 🙏

As always,

Love & lemons 💕🍋

Em xx