How a broken boiler changed my life…

Okay…Hear me out. I may sound crazy but it’s the truth. My broken boiler changed my life. This is my story.

January had arrived and it was unsurprisingly cold and wet. I, on the other hand, was safely tucked beneath my duvet, the unforgiving frost climbing up the windows failing to enter my warm, heated home. I was adamant in my household to keep all windows closed, heating on at all times. The warmth was my best friend.

So, one bleak winter morning I wake up shivering. I knew something was wrong.

The boiler was broken. It just decided to stop working on one of the coldest days of the year. To make matters worse, we would have to wait one week for it to be fixed. No hot water. No heating. Our only saviour was our open fire chimney.

By far the worst part was the showers. After 2 days my family began to complain, and I was forced to face my doom. After screaming my way through the first 30 seconds, I realised it was not as bad as I had thought – it was worse. During these seconds of my life, I was in fight or flight mode, a shock pulsating through me. But my anguish was more mental than physical.

My body was perfectly capable of surviving this temperature, but my mind was drowning in despair. This is when I had the epiphany. I needed to teach my mind. But how, you may be asking? WimHoff method is how.
After this shower, I went straight to my computer and found many techniques to battle the cold, but the Wim Hoff method stood out. It combines cold exposure with a breathing technique allowing you to reap the benefits of both. Next time I showered, I focused on my breathing, slowing it down, placing my full attention on the air moving in and
out of my lungs. The first time I tried this, it didn’t work. But I’m not one to surrender. I came back the next day out of necessity and gave it another go. It was better but there was still a stream of thoughts in my mind screaming at me to stop exposing myself to this agony.

I tried again and again and again.

It was still hard but getting better. Finally, it came to the day when the boiler was fixed, but I wanted to conquer this, so I decided to make it into a habit. After every steaming shower, I would voluntarily turn the temperature to freezing. 30 seconds quickly became 1 minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes. Until I decided to take it that bit further and filled the bath with ice and cold water. By now, my mind was made of steel, and I survived in there for 5 minutes.

I used to be so afraid of the cold, covering every inch of my body even if it was just mild outside. The chill that I would get would knock me off my feet and put me in bed for days. But after the lessons I learned from my cold showers, it completely changed me not only physically but mentally. I can walk around in a t-shirt during winter and feel warm. I can have cold showers and feel exhilarated.

You may be asking, why? Why did I decide to punish myself in this way? Because the pain I would experience mentally strengthened my mind to help me surpass so much more. It never got easier; I just get stronger.

The cold changed me in many ways but the most obvious one was my ability to withstand the cold. After voluntarily facing a stream of freezing cold water every morning, I can face harsh winters without any problems. What is also nice is the alertness I feel just after 30 seconds. Wow. It really shocks your system!

Even though it continues to be difficult every morning, I’ve learned to face the cold and embrace it, and I think you should too. Now as we look on to this coming winter, I dare you to face the cold as I did. Just start with 30 seconds. I hope they change you as they did to me.

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