Thursday Seeds | Drop a Toe in the cold

Try something new! 

“Try it, you’ll like it!”

“I didn’t know I liked that!”

“Have you tried ______?”

Venture away from the familiar and try something new.

What are you afraid of?  That something new might get you lost? It might lead to cold limbs? It might lead to the best gelato that you’ve tasted since that place in Buckhead around the corner from the Cafe tu tu tango. It’s possible. You might be cold while you enjoy it. March has lead us into a nice early spring but cold weather could invade at any time and quite frankly, we are already spoiled with the warmer weather.  Have you put up your winter things yet? Most in Atlanta don’t do that anymore, they know better.

Are you worried what others might think? And what if it all goes crazy, you lose the rest of the day by getting lost or you find that you hurt yourself getting your shoe and sock off just to get that foot in the water.

Or maybe the water has become too shallow. The water is not the right level, though still cold.

If you get your feet cold, have you helped someone else? Surely not. (She’s crazy…which is true, I’ll admit that part but hear me out.) 

What if you could be cold for an hour so that a soldier from the military could be warm as they complete a mission that keeps our country safe? Would you do it?

What if being cold meant that someone who doesn’t even have a home, can be warm and snuggled long enough to fall asleep on the street for one hour?

What if being cold means that someone who is looking for a wandering child, doesn’t have temperature hindering them while they find that little one and dash back into the warm house none the wiser than if they had waited five more minutes, the child could have been lost long enough to freeze in the winter cold? (Southern ignorance could cause this)

These are are a lot of “what if” stories or scenarios. And while I try to stay away from the dark paths of most of them, the idea of lending a hand and being able to help, makes me happy and also doesn’t exist without some dark paths. It suggests at an important human need: purpose.

Sometimes when you sit at the water’s edge with your toe in the water, you meet people. Folks you never would have before. Ones that are actually connected to you from some weird way. An interconnected humanist will tell you that it’s a part of physics: Quantum entanglement.

If we are all “entangled”, can’t we untangle? The parts of my personality that require order, want to know! Lol

It might be why I prefer Venn diagrams and yarn rolled up in balls. I’m in danger of veering off to another topic, let’s circle back. 

We can talk about the ice cold water plunges and how amazing good they are for the health. They “shock” your senses and cells into a state that takes them off their course and cause them to reorder or determine if they need to. This helps the nervous system, the senses with pain relief, the cardiac system must work for extra oxygen or at least get out their little calculators to verify they have enough. During all of this, or actually shortly after, your mood is boosted.

You did it!  AND you are now warm again. Your senses know the difference between cold and hot.  You are no longer the frog in the pot where the water is slowly boiling hotter and hotter until you are the meal!

It’s an eat or be eaten world!  Dog eat dog, cat eat cat. Who knew that cold plunge, cold shower, etc would actually help your health?  The only way out is through.

And suddenly your pain endurance, becomes a thing. Marathon runners understand this. Do other people not able or willing to run?  Try it, you’ll like it!

Culturally, did you know that Scandinavians use cold plunges to go with Sauna? They do.

Now, all this said, you should use common sense. If you have cardiac issues or even of an age where levels should be checked, you should use caution in these things and also pay attention to your body.  This should be a lesson in doing riskier things in a safe manner.  

We’ve talked temperature. What if it is heat?  What if it has NOTHING at all to do with temperature and this relates to a similar topic?

You can actually have it all in taking a calculated risk.