In our rapid world today, we throw out ideas, concerns, solutions, and points of view easily without ever getting tired. We bounce from website to website on our screens consuming bits of the world each day. The pace of our days keeps getting faster.
What is missed in our rush, is the value that immersion has in both slowing us down as well as seeing much further. It’s the foundation that makes experience so valuable.
When immersed, you find yourself in the middle of something. You can no longer see clearly anything else. Think of diving into water or a strawberry covered with chocolate. Each is covered with water or chocolate totally. Immersion helps focus us and helps make time flow.
The beauty of immersion is that it is never quick. Once immersed we begin to learn unexpected new things. Things that we never knew or thought of when looking from the outside. We see something we didn’t expect and/or realize we don’t know everything about a topic that we thought we were expert in.
Immersion in life can best be thought of as diving into taffy. Taffy that is pliable enough to change shapes the more we pull on it and much harder to break free from. Life’s problems always seen to resemble taffy.
Immersion stops us from being reactive. It makes us pay more attention to not only what we see but also frustrates us by what we don’t know and must learn without the ability to quickly run away.
Immersion demands persistence for it to be effective. For nothing is revealed nor learned in a day. No matter how smart we believe we are.
Simply spending an extended period of time with someone you value teaches us more about that person’s thinking and/or our reaction to theirs that is invaluable and helps us grow. A simple handshake or greeting can never deliver these things in the same way.
Strong, intimate relationships demand immersion as well. Characterized by patience and depth, immersion within a strong intimate relationship gives us the freedom to explore our own being together with someone close that we truly love while feeling safe.
We don’t hear much about immersion in life. As you now see, it is the foundation of a lot of things that we not only find meaningful but give us the opportunity to evolve. Making time flow, working through issues to completion rather than simply “driving by” them is not meant to be the easiest route but rather the most rewarding.