Have you ever felt “weighed down” by something in your life?

Diana Nyad’s failed first attempt to swim from Cuba to Florida in 1978 weighed heavily upon her spirit. She had undergone a lot of trauma in her life, and this defeat felt like another hard knock. Shame had haunted her for many years. But swimming had felt healing to her. The water calmed and focused her. Now, she felt, she had failed yet again. Discouraged, she abandoned swimming and focused her energies in a new direction.

Despite cultivating a successful career in sports journalism, her prior failures continued to weigh her down. After 30 years, she began swimming again, finding healing once more in the water. She would fail in her attempt three more times to swim the distance from Cuba to Florida. But through her journey of det…