More than a Breath to Hold

by Shirena González

he story of why I choose to push my lungs to their limit in an environment in which I cannot breathe, going against every instinct my body has to survive, is one that began when I was a baby.

Being born and raised on a small Mexican island in the Caribbean by two ocean-loving parents meant I was exposed to the ocean at a very young age. My parents threw me in the water as a baby, and by my mom’s accounts, my eyes opened wide in amazement as I held my breath. I can’t remember this, but I know this was the catalyst for my love for all things ocean. My earliest memory of the ocean is being on the beach with my parents, playing in the sand, laying in the sun, and chasing the waves. The roaring sound of the latter is very present in my brain, and sensory memory takes me back there often.

I remember going on scuba diving trips with my dad on his boat as a child and getting in the water to watch the divers descend to the depths of the sea. I was mesmerized, playing with their bubbles on the surface as they exhaled and sank deeper, following them along until the captain would tell me to get back in the boat so we could follow the divers. I would jump back in the water as soon as I could, which was usually during their ascent, and I would greet the divers and my dad on the surface. It was during one of these moments that my dad handed me his octopus (the second scuba regulator for those of you non-divers). I swam down to about five meters and breathed in through that regulator. I was ecstatic that I could be underwater and breathe at the same time. He held me down with him until he surfaced. I fell in love right then and there. I was seven years old.

From that moment on, I would do that as much as I could, and when I turned twelve years old, I studied my little butt off and got my Junior

Open Water certification. Hundreds of dives later throughout the years, it was time for me to leave my precious yet limiting island to go to college in a landlocked city in a different country: the U.S. Every time I went home to visit, which was around two to three times a year, I’d inhale deeply as soon as I got to the ocean. Serenity, peace, and quiet bliss would flood over me. I would scuba dive as much as I could on those short trips back home, as well as enjoy the beach with family and friends.

Flash forward to 2020, the year the pandemic hit this hemisphere. I had over ten years of experience working in the restaurant industry (for those of you that know, my condolences). I was too afraid to take my photography career full time, and I was tired, undervalued, and underpaid. I would later come to terms with the fact that, without noticing, I’d fallen into a series of abusive relationships and settled for a life of mediocrity. The relationship I was in during this period of time was the most egregious of them all. Feeling trapped in a cycle of unhappiness and unfulfillment, fueled by my new unemployment status and my partner being across the country for a few weeks, I took advantage of the situation I found myself in, and ran away from my life in the States to go home for an undetermined amount of time.

During this period, we weren’t allowed to go to the beach, and all sports and water activities were suspended. This meant no swimming, no scuba diving, no surfing, no snorkeling, and nothing that involved being outside. At this point in my life, I wasn’t much of a snorkeler, as I didn’t see the point in just floating on the surface, because what I really wanted was to be down there, where all the fish and coral were. Scuba diving would’ve been complicated to get away with, so I started sneaking in the water for little snorkel trips without any authority figures noticing. In doing this, I noticed I wasn’t the only one. There were a few of us who couldn’t resist the tides of the ocean.

It didn’t take long before swimming was allowed again, but scuba diving was still off the table. So, I began going with a friend to snorkel. He taught me about freediving: how to pull air into my diaphragm instead of my chest, how to hold my breath underwater, to take the snorkel out of my mouth during my descents to prevent pressure buildup, the difference between a traditional, a dry, and a semi-dry snorkel, and other equipment. Slowly, I began to get better, go down deeper, and stay down longer. I went from going down five meters, to ten, and then seventeen. I was able to hold my breath long enough to not scare the animals, to sit still and have them come to me. I was once again HOOKED. More than that, I felt the freedom I had felt when I first tried scuba diving, and in some ways, even more so. I could do it any time I wanted, and I didn’t have to spend any money to do it.

I had never been able to quiet my thoughts, slow down, or even meditate. I couldn’t understand how people were able to have nothing else going on in their heads. This was something I later discovered to be ADHD (but that’s another story). Descending several meters below the surface, on nothing more than the oxygen in my lungs, flooded my body with feelings I had been looking for for a long time. Ironically, I felt like I could finally breathe again. I felt this deep connection to everything: the rocks, the coral, the fish, the sand, all of the different sounds, and especially the water. I was better able to observe animal behavior, as fish and other animals would curiously come up to me. With no bubbles to scare them away, I had a completely different interaction with wildlife than I had previously had. I was able to become one with nature below the surface, and give in to the ebb and flow of the ocean. Even more incredible, my mind would quiet down. My thoughts weren’t scattered anymore, and I was able to focus on the here and now. Sound travels differently underwater. This is something I knew since I was a kid, but now, I was hyper aware of it. I was hyper aware of everything…I could hear my own heartbeat slowing down. My movements appeared to be one tenth their regular speed. I could hear boats passing by in the distance, fish chomping on coral, rays flapping their wings, dolphins squeaking, clicking, and whistling, and schools of fish suddenly changing course… It was the same underwater world I had known, yet experienced in a wildly different way.

Freediving saved me. The ocean saved me. I felt at home. I felt safe and at peace for the first time in a long time. Focusing on my body, my breath, the sound of the water, and the crackling of the coral helped me tremendously. It helped me to overcome fear, uncertainty, and even trauma. It saved me from spiraling out of control, and resorting to other methods of coping. It saved me from myself. Combined with meditation, yoga, and a lot of inner work, freediving helped me discover a whole new version of myself.

Feelings of overwhelming joy weren’t uncommon during these excursions of mine. Neither was the sensation that we are all connected, we are all one, and we all depend on one another. The ocean never fails to teach these lessons to those who listen. Our time here is finite, just like the breath we are able to hold. Knowing I would eventually have to go back up for oxygen taught me that the present is a gift, and nothing is guaranteed. What better personification of freedom is there? No other obligations, nothing to trouble you, just you and the water as one, for that moment in time

I could keep trying to find the perfect words to describe how freediving makes me feel, but it simply comes down to me smiling and feeling happy when surrounded and engulfed by the ocean. Everything else is blurred.