Swimming and Spirituality

What is the spirituality gap?

Our society is less religious than ever before. According to the latest census data, 37% of British adults have no religion and Christians are now a minority in the UK for the first time. At the same time, relatively few are hardline atheists. When you delve into what secular people actually believe, you’re likely to find an extraordinary range of responses.  

I believe that some kind of spiritual impulse, however you might want to define it, is an integral part of being human. I don’t think this impulse has to involve beliefs. It’s more about the search for meaning, a sense of awe and transcendence, and the ability to source hope in dark times. In the absence of a ready-made religious framework, secular people get to decide for themselves how to fill the ‘spirituality gap’.

For many outdoor swimmers, swimming clearly fits the bill for a spiritual practice. While writing The Spirituality Gap, I spoke to Lucy Sam, author of a paper on the subject, who told me that phrases like ‘connecting to nature’ and ‘taking me outside of myself’ repeatedly come up in her research. Although not all her research subjects label wild swimming as ‘spiritual’, most find it deeply meditative, bringing them into the present moment, calming their minds, fostering a sense of – dare I say? – communion with something greater than themselves.

Spirituality doesn’t have to involve beliefs. It’s more about the search for meaning, a sense of awe and transcendence, and the ability to source hope in dark times.

What did you discover while swimming outdoors? 

I live close to Beckenham Place Park in southeast London, home to London’s first purpose-built swimming lake. Although I’d never been much of a swimmer before moving here, it would have felt remiss not to take advantage of such an incredible space. 

To this day, I’m still a ropey swimmer – I’m painfully slow and a little pathetic when it comes to really cold water – but every time I visit the lake, I find it to be restorative on many levels. There’s the visceral shock of immersion, which stops the whirring of my mind and jolts me straight into my body. As the cold subsides, there’s a sense of being held by the water. My mind reverts to a looser and dreamier state, in which anything is possible. I watch ducks and dragonflies going about their day and feel just as much a part of nature as they are. 

As someone who spends way too much time in their own head, swimming outdoors helps me put my problems in perspective and see the bigger picture.

Does spirituality come with responsibilities?

For many people, connecting to nature is an essential part of their spirituality. That’s always been the case. Many ancient people were animists, who believed that every living being had a spirit. Today, nature-based faiths, like Wicca and paganism, are exploding in popularity, while thinkers across every discipline are challenging the idea that humans are separate from the natural world. From this perspective, climate and ecological breakdown can’t be dismissed as something happening ‘out there’. It’s our shared responsibility to address. 

A more subtle but equally important point – we ought to be kind to ourselves as we confront this crisis. Climate campaigners often talk about humans as a scourge on the planet, but while researching The Spirituality Gap, I spoke to people who take a different view and emphasise that humans are part of a greater whole, that we belong in nature and have an essential ecological niche.

For many people, connecting to nature is an essential part of their spirituality. That’s always been the case. Many ancient people were animists, who believed that every living being had a spirit.

Why do you think so many people are taking to the water?

The mental and physical health benefits of outdoor swimming are well-attested, and though there’s been much less research on the subject, I think it can be spiritually enriching too. So many of us live predominantly indoor lives, confined to desks for many of our waking hours. We make do with little pockets of green space, rarely encounter wildlife and can’t see the stars because of light pollution. Wild swimming feels very primal – a total plunge into nature, a reminder of what we’re otherwise missing out on.

So many of us live predominantly indoor lives, confined to desks for many of our waking hours. We make do with little pockets of green space, rarely encounter wildlife and can’t see the stars because of light pollution.

Why is swimming unique? 

Wild swimming isn’t the only way to appreciate nature, and it isn’t the only nature-oriented spiritual practice. I’d be willing to bet there’s already a big overlap between outdoor swimmers and hikers, trail runners, forest bathers and so on. It’s about stepping outside yourself for a moment and appreciating the magnificence of something more. In the Canadian writer Alice Munro’s words: ‘The door to the woods is the door to the temple’. 

But to my mind, there are a few extra factors that make wild swimming so special. First is the fact of being fully immersed in nature. When you’re walking or running, you can still position yourself as an observer to the scene, but when you’re swimming, you’re right in the midst of it all. Then there are also the somewhat magical properties of cold water. Plenty of cultures have used cold water immersion as a means of spiritual purification, and in more recent times, scientists have started to discover some of the mental and physical health benefits for the brave and curious. 

Swimming may not be overtly spiritual, in the way that going to church is. And I appreciate that not every swimmer will resonate with this terminology at all. But I think, for many swimmers, their relationship with the water is profound, perhaps even mysterious, and can’t be reduced to a simple list of ‘benefits’. In that regard, it absolutely falls into the realm of spirituality, whatever you may or may not believe about the big questions in life.