From the blog www.blissanddrumming.com, this piece is read by Clementine. She also references www.awakeningthetrueself.com.

***

I did love to float on my back and just watch the sky. Once or twice I made it there as the sun was rising or setting and the sky was a marvel. Those moments were worth it all. I didn’t think about what was underneath. I just watched the rose clouds blossom and change, and I allowed that peaceful, floating-on-my-back joy to wash through me. Eventually though, the thought of those fit folks and their steady paces behind me brought that old shame to the surface: I can’t keep up. I’m a failure. Or suddenly, my vision would drop below me, to the bottom looking up, and I would see my body up there on the surface, with all that space and darkness in between bottom and top. I would flail about with a kind of vertigo, panting. I would berate myself, power through, fall into a stroke to mimic the real swimmers out there, finding strength and pushing away the fear for short bursts. Then, the recognition that I was kidding myself would dawn on me. Then, I would paddle in defeat in to shore.