Last weekend was the weekend of my (Jo) surprise hen do. I had ‘thoroughly’ urged my friends not to arrange a hen do for several reasons.

1. I don’t really like being centre of attention

2. My friends have full lives and some pretty stressful stuff going on in some cases, so it felt like a lot to ask

3. I feel uncomfortable with the whole penis straw/stripper thing. It works for some people, but not for me!

Nonetheless, my friends are amazing people so organised a weekend that utterly hit the mark for me. A lovely house on a lake shore with bubbles and power ballads, dinner at an amazing local pub, arial yoga and watersports……namely, canoeing, stand up paddle boarding and swimming in a lake.

For me, a total dream, for some of them the thought of watersports was a living nightmare. Not fans of the cold, of water, of doing things that are risky in this very physical way.

Saturday morning came, massive fry up was delivered by my awesome friends and we headed off to the lake. We were greeted by a misty lake and a temperature gauge of 11.5 degrees water temp. Slightly chilly 🙂

All of them showed up for me. Every single one got involved, embraced the fear (and the wetsuits!) and got into those canoes and played ridiculous games. I say that they showed up for me, they absolutely did, but they also showed up for themselves. Brene Brown, one of our favourite writers, calls this stepping into the arena. This is a brilliant quote from her:

“I want to be in the arena. I want to be brave with my life. And when we make the choice to dare greatly, we sign up to get our asses kicked. We can choose courage or we can choose comfort, but we can’t have both. Not at the same time. Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome. Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage.”

They showed their vulnerability to everyone around them, which happened to mostly consist of strangers they had known for about 12 hours. My group of friends is an eclectic collection of people from different moments in my life; Uni, first job, volunteer work, career and mum friends. A brilliant bunch of people who radiate warmth and love but who don’t really know each other at all. They were even braver to show up in front of near-strangers.

What allowed them to do this I pondered? They all explained that having a group of positive people, some of whom had done water sports before (so spoke positively about it), with a shared purpose (to make my weekend amazingly special) allowed them to take that step, quite literally, into the water.

Comfort zones expanded by a combo of supportive people, fun and a safe space to try something new.

The best bit? There was talk of all getting together to do this again, discussion about the best water shoes to buy and which venues to swim in around the different parts of the country they all trekked from.

This is the magic that happens when you try something new with brilliant people – comfort zones expanded and fires of excitement lit.