I lived with anxiety for most of my life. I didn’t have the language to label it, but I knew how it felt.
I always thought I was broken. My off switch didn’t work the way other people’s seemed to. My racing brain would not switch off.
Running was the medicine I found to calm my mind and sit in my body. But I felt compelled to run; without it, I couldn’t cope with life. I knew how to run from discomfort, but not how to sit with it.
Then I found breathwork.
As I learned to breathe better, I could find peace without needing to run. Although I still enjoyed running, it was no longer driven through compulsion.
A friend inspired me to try freediving. It seemed like the perfect combination—breath and the ocean I loved.
That day changed my life. The moment I put my head underwater, my racing mind stopped. There was no to-do list—only the water, my body and my breath. I was present. It was the ultimate hack for my mind.
I wasn’t naturally good at freediving; it brought up fear and self-doubt. But I knew there was magic in it for me. I kept going.
I trained in the pool three or four days a week, practised holding my breath and dived in the ocean. Persistence and consistency led to results.
It led me to represent Australia on the National Freediving Team and in June 2026 to swim the furthest distance underwater on one breath by an Australian woman in competition and achieve four Oceanic Continental Records.
But the most important things freediving has given me cannot be measured in metres or medals.
Freediving has taught me courage.
I once thought courage meant not feeling afraid. Now I understand that courage is feeling fear and moving forward anyway. Through regulating my breathing, I have learned that I can attempt things I never thought possible. I can feel scared, steady myself and still take the next step.
It has also taught me how to sit with discomfort.
For years, running was my way of escaping uncomfortable feelings. Freediving offered me a different lesson. When the urge to breathe arrives, I cannot run from it. I have to soften, stay present and listen to my body.
That lesson has followed me onto land. Life will always bring discomfort, uncertainty and challenges. Not every uncomfortable feeling needs to be avoided or fixed immediately. Sometimes we need to sit with it long enough to understand what it is trying to teach us.
Progress has not always been fast or linear. There have been disappointments, failed dives and days when nothing worked. But I kept showing up. We don’t have to be good when we begin—only curious enough to start and brave enough to continue.
Most of all, freediving has taught me resilience—the willingness to begin again when things do not go to plan. As a woman and mother of two teenage boys, this matters deeply to me. I want my boys to see that courage is not pretending to be fearless. It is being willing to try, fail, learn and keep going.
That is what I would say to other women: don’t wait until you feel confident. Confidence comes after we begin. You don’t need to be the youngest, strongest or most naturally talented person in the room.
Find what makes you feel alive. Be willing to be a beginner, and don’t decide that discomfort means you should stop.
Freediving began as a way to quiet my mind. It became a sport, a passion and one of my greatest teachers. It showed me that I am capable of far more than I once believed—and I hope my story reminds other women that they are too.