Diving Into Thirty

“You’ll love it,” a friend said of my lessons in scuba diving.

“It will feel like home,” another intoned.

Given the feel of the ocean is my deepest rooted feeling of home, I thought it true; some forty feet below the surface, in a natural state of buoyancy, breathing in the air no differently than I do above the surface, I would feel at peace.

But I didn’t.

It was a hard truth I had to face. And at times, one that felt heavier than the weight belt tight at my hips. Initially I thought I would get lost in the romance of the ocean. Enter the meditative state that so often quiets my mind just below the surface. Instead what I felt were emotions that clouded logic. Emotions that tricked me in to thinking I wasn’t in control, and dangerously far from the edges of my comfort zone.

At no point was I concerned with stereotypes. Uncertified, twenty-nine, and a traveller writer with an in-depth focus on an archipelago that is 95% covered in water, I had no care for what others thought, expected, or considered conventional. What I was focused on was the challenge and overcoming it.

Then perhaps one of my dearest and most honest friends bravely asked, “have you thought scuba diving may not be for you?” The truth, I had.

Preparing to get back in the water again, I look at how my lessons in scuba diving have shifted my attitude towards life. With each breath I learnt that I am capable of pushing myself a little further than I thought possible. I learnt that outside of my comfort zone is where life begins and adventure awaits. I learnt that there are feelings, and there are thoughts. They are not one in the same. Your thoughts determine how you feel, and when channeled positively could lead to a sea-change in attitude.

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