I was ten years old when my uncle loaded my brothers and me onto an inner tube at a beach near our childhood home in Jamaica.
My uncle pushed us into the water, and we squealed. “One more time,” I said, not wanting the fun to end.
Then, in an instant, I slipped beneath the surface.
Everything changed.
Time seemed to stand still as terrifying thoughts raced through my mind. I imagined my friends hearing that I had drowned.
The water that had felt so joyful only moments before had suddenly become a place where I believed I would die.
I remember the sting of saltwater filling my nose and mouth, the muffled roar of the ocean, and the desperate search for air.
I survived that day, but my body never forgot.
For years afterward, the memory lived quietly beneath the surface.
My family never returned to the beach, and we never visited a swimming pool, even after we immigrated to the United States.
No one talked about what had happened. We simply stayed away from the water.
Years later, when I attended college on the banks of St. Mary’s River in Southern Maryland, something unexpected happened.
Looking out at its majestic blue waters, I found myself wanting to learn to swim.
I wanted to know what it felt like to enjoy a day at the beach or relax in a swimming pool.
The campus gym, just a short walk from my dormitory, had a beautiful swimming pool. It felt like an opportunity to begin again.
Trauma, however, has a way of lingering long after the danger has passed.
Even when our minds know we are safe, our bodies often continue to prepare for possible danger.
In my first swim class, I believed determination would be enough.
It wasn’t.
Every time I moved beyond the shallow end, panic tightened its grip.
My breathing became shallow. My muscles stiffened, anticipating danger even though I was standing in the shallow end of a swimming pool with an instructor only a few feet away.
I completed the course and earned a good grade, but I never ventured comfortably beyond the five-foot section of the pool.
I hadn’t really learned to swim.
More accurately, I could never believe that I could be safe in the water.
Over the years, I signed up for one group swim class after another.
I kept showing up, hoping repetition alone would erase my fear. It didn’t.
I would make a little progress, then retreat.
Fear wasn’t something I could outwork or outthink.
Everything changed when I started taking private lessons with Sharon, an encouraging instructor who had swum in the waters around Alcatraz.
She noticed what others had overlooked: the tension in my body.
“Breathe,” she gently reminded me before correcting my stroke.
“The more tense you are, the more limited your progress,” she said.
Those words stayed with me because they described much more than swimming.
When I finally headed to the deep end of the pool, every instinct told me to turn back. However, I heard Sharon’s familiar, reassuring voice nearby.
“Breathe.”
I took one stroke, then another.
Before I realized it, I wasn’t thinking about drowning anymore. I was simply swimming.
When I reached the other side of the pool, I laughed.
The water that had terrified me for decades had become something that could hold me.
After repeated swims to the deep end, my breathing settled.
My strokes became fluid.
The joy and the buoyancy that had once seemed impossible became something I could finally experience.
I didn’t conquer fear; I re-connected with safety.
By then, I had become a trauma therapist who knows that healing rarely happens by forcing ourselves through fear.
It happens when our bodies begin to reorient to safety, one breath at a time.
As I reflected on my swim journey, I realized that what had happened in the pool closely mirrored the healing journey of so many women I work with.
Learning to swim was never about mastering a physical skill.
It was about rebuilding trust in my body after trauma.
The pool became another place where healing happened.
I know healing is possible because I have lived it – in the therapy room, in the swimming pool, and in my own body.
Today, as a trauma therapist and a swim instructor, I especially enjoy helping African Diaspora women who have carried fear in their bodies for years, whether that fear shows up in the water, in their relationships, or in work environments.
So, I leave you with these questions:
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What fear has been living in your body for years, quietly convincing you to stay in the shallow end?
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What might become possible if you took just one step towards it today?
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Whether your deep end is trauma, anxiety, relationships, or even the water itself, you do not have to navigate it alone.
