The Rip Current

When caught in a rip current, swimmers often intuitively swim towards the shore, unwittingly swimming directly against the rip. This is the main reason rips are so dangerous, because the strong current keeps pulling the swimmer back into the ocean, so even the strongest swimmer makes little progress, risking exhaustion and drowning. Experts advise us that a rip is ‘like a treadmill which the swimmer needs to step off’. This is done by swimming parallel to the shore until one is outside of the rip current, encouraged to aim for places where waves are breaking, which can assist one in being transported towards the shore. If the rip is too strong to allow the swimmer to swim away from it, advice is to relax and calmly float or tread water to conserve energy and wait till the rip loses its strength. Then swim leisurely in a diagonal direction away from the rip, but back to the shore.

Being caught up in a turmoil of emotions and thoughts can be very similar to a rip current. You might be able to clearly see the shore, i.e. the direction you want to take your life. Yet all your efforts just leave you exhausted, as you desperately try to fight your thoughts and feelings in order to reach your goals, almost like swimming into the rip current towards the shore. Our intuition and often the coping mechanisms we have learnt, urge us to try to get rid of thoughts and feelings as the only way to reach our goals. Yet, contrary to what you might believe, this is a very ineffective strategy. Some of the processes used in ACT therapy are counter-intuitive, asking you to go against what may feel like the right thing to do. At first some of these techniques might feel as if you are going deeper into the ocean rather than moving towards your goals. Sometimes it will be necessary to just calmly tread water and allow yourself to feel overwhelmed by your thoughts and feelings until the turmoil loses its strength. And at times you might have to make a slight course correction, swimming diagonally towards your goal rather than in a straight line. As you learn to notice what is happening in the here and now, you might be able to find the “places where waves are breaking”, the things that will aid you in getting to your goal more efficiently.