The Day Of Overcoming Deep Water

On Tuesday May 21st, 2024, I shattered a significant barrier in my life: overcoming the fear of deep water. 

Here’s some context. For my whole life, up until yesterday, I was terrified of deep water (i.e., bodies of water that were deeper than my height, where I had no ground footing). I avoided them like the plague, repeatedly echoing the narrative that, “I’m going to drown/die if I enter deep water”.

This led to avoiding activities of interest such as inflatable water parks, snorkelling, lake swimming etc. As a child, I participated in school swimming lesson programs, however, didn’t seem to ‘get it’. A month ago, I restarted swimming lessons and this ignited the beginning of a new journey.

Typically, at my pool, the 50m lap pool is divided into two 25m pools - a shallower and deeper side. On this particular occasion, it was left at 50m, and so I thought, “fuck it, I’m gonna swim the whole way down to 50m”. It was the best decision I made that day.

Rewind a little bit. Around 10 months ago, I went swimming with a friend, and when we went from the shallow to deep end of the lap pool, I was petrified. I stuck onto the ledge like superglue as it was my lifeline. My friend was casually swimming down and treading water, while I looked at them in disbelief.

There was one thing I attempted: to sink down to the bottom and bounce back up using my legs. That was a mistake as two seconds underwater, I panicked and was struggling for air, in addition to difficulty rising to the surface again.

Yesterday, I re-attempted the same trial mentioned above, and it was not only achieved, but I found it meditative and calming. It’s called bottom bouncing. Same pool depth, same type of water. The water didn’t change; I did.

I’d developed improved breath control, being calm underwater even if oxygen may be running low, sinking and floating techniques and confidence in my own abilities.

I treaded deep water successfully, despite no prior experience. I recalled people doing flips underwater, and so proceeded to attempt it. In the end, I successfully did two continuous front flips underwater, which left me in awe.

Moreover, I found stepping into the 2m pool from the ledge enjoyable and did it with no hesitation. Next goal is to dive from the starting platform into the lap pool.

The lesson? Do difficult or scary things as it allows for evolution, otherwise, we’ll be stuck in stagnancy for an undefined time period.