Cognitive psychologist Evy Syrou explains why we all need a good reset during our holiday and shares with us the photographs she collects with her own method of relaxation: diving. By Asteropi Lazaridou.
She learned how to swim in Chania, where she grew up. Ever since she can remember herself, she wanted to be near the sea. The beaches of Marathi and Stavros, also known as “the beach of Zorbas,” are the seas of her childhood, where she learned how to swim and how to feel free. “I was swimming before I walked,” says cognitive psychologist Evy Syrou. Through her scientific work, she helps many people get in touch with their inner world. And through her favourite hobby, diving, she helps herself unburder from everything that weighs her down and becomes light again, like a child who can’t get enough of taking in new images and sensations.
“Summer holidays are very important for each one of us. They interrupt something that pre-exists, the repetitive rhythm of our lives. Everyday repetitiveness overemphasises our rituals, our obsessions, our compulsions, which is exactly why it is important to interrupt, to reset. When we change our environment and habits, we revise our automations,” she explains.
I wonder if our psychology is more overloaded this summer? “After such a long lockdown our need for a holiday is imperative. But with great caution. We must keep in mind that after such situations, post-traumatic shock lurks. We were all under a lot of pressure, life as we know it was suppressed. When we relax abruptly after something like this, intense psychosomatic symptoms surface, like bells and whistles indicating that we have to do something to take care of our frightened selves.”
Nature is always a first-class medicine and sedative, keeping in mind that “we must protect and love ourselves again.” After all, August is perhaps the true New Year of the Greeks: “The last month of the summer is a period of revision and reconstruction, new ideas come to us, we decide to change things with the new season, it all works therapeutically. September is traditionally a renaissance period. We start working out, we start new hobbies, we end relationships, we create new ones, we change jobs, we change direction.”
The greatest ally throughout this exciting and transitional stage is the sea: “In Greece we have this huge privilege of the liquid element. It has immense power, it symbolises something infinite, its psychology is ever changing and it shows; it doesn’t hide it. From the Mind-Body-Emotion Triptych, the sea symbolises the emotion. We are dealing with the volatility of water. Emotions, after all, are very difficult to manage, one is very close to the other, the dividing line is blurred, they affect each other. If we can learn anything from the sea, it is to be ourselves, just as it is itself. To show exactly what we are experiencing, what is happening to us, exactly at the moment it is happening to us. From the calm to our storm and all the intermediate stages.”
Evy started diving with her mask from a very young age; free diving, without oxygen tanks, testing and exploring the natural limits of her breathing: “The sea for me was and is a shelter from everyone and everything, but also a springboard for exploration. I dive with my mask and at some point, I got an underwater camera, so that I can record all this observation. I dive spontaneously and freely by choice; it is a play with my own breath and my own limits. Inhalation and exhalation, these very natural functions, are in themselves a journey when you are under the surface of the sea.” And she continues: “The sea is magical in that it drags you along, you have to let go, but at the same time you have to be in control. Just as it happens in life itself, when we are on the land. If we understand how many different and exciting things we can see and experience in just one breath, we will definitely start to perceive the world differently.”
To her underwater images, reminiscent of frames from colourful, stylish video clips, she gives imaginative titles in English, depending on the associations evoked by everything she encounters: “The Persistence of Memory,” “The Road to Glory,” “Winter Scene at Sea,” “The Throne of Zeus,” are just some of the chapters in this endless underwater diary. Starfish resting on the sandy seabed, shells with striking colours, fish in their dens, intricate rocks and beautiful corals, make up the series of her very personal postcards.
These images bring out a very comforting peace, a quietness that we definitely need after such a stressful winter. “When I look back at the photos I’ve shot, I associate them with something from visual arts, a favourite film or something that has happened to me. I notice everything simple and amazing that happens when I swim. After all, when we return to our daily routine after the summer holidays, we do the same things. We just see them under a new light. And this is the most important of all!”.
The “Little Gidding” is the fourth of T. S. Eliot’s “Four Quartets,” a series of poems about time, and it’s the first thing that comes to her mind when we ask her what it is about being in the water that give her so much fulfillment: “...We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time…”.
As for the first image that comes to her mind when she closes her eyes and remembers her dives like a frame from a film: “My encounter with two kissing fish.” Could they have known that someone was capturing them at that very moment, as a kindly photojournalist brought from the earthly world?
What is certain is that we all need a holiday. Let’s find our own way to make the most of our free time. Starting from the absolutely necessary: inhale-exhale, inhale-exhale…
* This article originally appeared in the magazine Minoan Wave - Summer/Autumn 2021 by Minoan Lines. See more of Evy's underwater photographs here.
