Another day passes, and another headline surfaces, “Freediver Sets New Depth Record.” Another Netflix show releases, another tragedy portrait “Chronicles Of A Freediver’s Death”…

Casual observer. They’re all alike. Paints us all with the same brush. Freediving is a dangerous sport.

But have you ever paused, amidst your conventional beliefs made up of what you’ve seen, heard, or been told about freediving, to truly fathom what freediving means to every freediver?

I am a freediver, welcome into my world…

I’ve listened to instructors recite safety protocols, watched videos of athletes breaking records, and read books of famous freedivers explaining the same freediving techniques repeatedly. I grasp it. “No, Captain, though it started like that, I didn’t follow the traditional route. I found my way of freediving… the mindful way”

Yes, I discovered the sea, a realm where freedom’s hand reached further than the confines of the land. And then it happened… An unforeseen bit, my mind once free, now trapped within the sea.

Casual observer. They generalize. You’re a freediver? How deep do you dive? How long can you hold your breath? Have you freedived with whales?

As I ventured forth, a revelation happened to me, that not everyone who freedives was actually free. A slave to numbers, to expectations, and to the sea was not what I set out to be.

And then, a moment unfolds… A connection sought beyond the mundane… Like a transcendental experience, an immersion into self, a world within me. No pursuit of depths or lengthened breaths to thrive, just a deeper grasp of self, to truly come alive.

“This is it… This is where I belong…Not in the sea but within the breath itself”

Yes, I am a freediver. But the depths I reach are not a number one display, the limits I surpass, are not something that can be perceived, and the only personal best that matters….. is that of being the best version of myself.

I am a mindful freediver, and this is my manifesto.