In the past, I've been known to do things that really scare me, in a determined effort to overcome the fear.  Things like climbing Chichen Itza in Mexico; hauling my trembling self up Sigiriya in Sri Lanka even when the panic was really grasping at my mind; walking across a 70ft high rope bridge in Borneo, a bridge that was far to bouncy for my liking (and normally, I'm a fan of bouncy things, like balls, dogs, children).  Yes, I've done a few things that scare me, and last night, I managed to achieve another – SCUBA diving.

I am a bit of a water baby.  I love to be near it, on it, and in it.  I adore swimming, or simply floating to be honest!  Sometimes, I like to swim underwater for a little while, yet I'm never far from the surface, and can easily pop up when I want some air.  The idea of SCUBA diving has never really appealed, simply because I know I'm not too great with having things around my face and neck and eyes.  Therefore, having a mask clamping my nose shut and a plastic tube shoved in my mouth is not in the slightest bit appealing to me.

That was, until a friend of mine suggested diving with sharks as one of my 40 Things for 40 list.  At first, I was horrified at the mere idea.  Not only the diving aspect, but the real reason why the idea of diving (at least in open sea) terrifies me…de dum…de dum….SHAAAAAARK!

A student of mine recently said "I don't see the point in having Hypnotherapy or any other sort of therapy to overcome a fear that doesn't impact your life", whilst a group of us were sitting around a table at lunch and chatting about the 'daft things we'd like to do'.  She couldn't understand why, if I'm so scared of sharks, I'd decided to add the shark dive to my list.  She pointed out (quite rightly) that I live in the middle of an inland city, where we don't get many sharks (other than the loan variety!), and thought it was a daft idea.

So I had to make my confession.  Now, you're very welcome to laugh when you read this.  I now laugh when I tell people, as I know it's ridiculous!  Here's the truth.  My fear of sharks WAS impacting my life, even miles away from the sea!  Like I mentioned, I'm a bit of a water baby, and I love to swim.  However, increasingly, my shark fear was grasping at the edge of my mind every time I found myself in the swimming pool on my own.  Yes, it's utterly irrational (most phobias are), however, it was impacting me because gradually, I stopped swimming unless there were at least two people in the pool with me.  This meant, some days I'd only be in there for 5 minutes.

Now, the perhaps most embarrassing part of all of this is that I'd had used EVERYTHING that I know to help me to overcome this particular phobia.  From EFT to Journeywork, Byron Katie's The Work through to my beloved Sedona Method, NLP to Hypnotherapy, and watching Jaws films and documentary's to try and understand these potential killers who are (apparently) very misunderstood.

Nothing seemed to have much impact and in fact, last year, it seemed to get much worse!

What actually worked for me, was clicking on the link to the website my friend had sent me, about an Aquarium in Liverpool, UK, where you can dive with sharks indoors.  My first reaction, as I said earlier, was horror.  My second reaction with out and out panic, as I clicked the link to see a picture of divers kneeling underneath a shark that was twice the size of all the divers put together.

My heart starting racing, my mouth went bone dry, my hands were shaking and sweating, and yet I was utterly mesmerised by the picture.  Could I actually do this?  What would it mean about me if I did?

After a couple of minutes of looking at this screen, the shakes subsided, and calmness started to take over.  And then another feeling, a feeling that surprised me…a glimmer of excitement.

And so it was that "Shark Dive" made it on to the list, and rather than fearing it, I started to look forward to the idea.  However, in order to do the indoor shark dive, I need to be able to know that I could dive.  I would be given a basic lesson on the day, so that I could participate, however, my Mother (who thought that this was one of my less sensible ideas!) is very practical and thus bought me a SCUBA diving experience  for Christmas.

And so it was that last night, myself and my lovely friend Jessie, headed off to a dive centre in Birmingham to get kitted up before being taken off to a swimming pool and learning the basics of diving.

And I'll be honest with you; I nearly quit after about 10 minutes.  I was okay in the shallow end.  The initial "WoW!  I'm breathing underwater!" was magical and peaceful, so I swam around quite happily.  The challenge came when we had to go into the deep end.

The first problem was what I'll call my own inbuilt flotation devices!!  They had to tie extra weights to my tank so that I could actually make it to the bottom!  This involved lots of being pulled around from behind, and as I couldn't see what was happening, I felt pretty nervous!  Then it got worse.  Now that I was weighed down, and with the air out of my tank, I was able to get to the bottom of the 15 ft pool.  However, at that depth, I suddenly realised that my weaker left leg, a causality of surgery complications many years before, was fairly unresponsive at that depth, meaning that I was practically limping underwater, and really struggling to move anywhere (other than in circles!).  I had noticed a bit of a problem in the shallow end, and didn't realise it would get worse with depth.  When I swim normally, I don't notice it at all, however, it's different with diving.  The next problem was my mask, as I have a deceptively small head for the size of my currently larger body, and the mask was leaking a bit, causing me to get distracted, and then I managed to not bite enough on my respirator and started to take in water.

That was when I panicked, and with a double and frantic 'thumbs up' to my instructor, was helped up to the surface where I gasped for REAL air, and said "well, a least I know this isn't for me" as I started to swim in my strange, hobbling way, towards the shallow end.

The instructors were fabulous.  I was taken to over the side of the pool, and another instructor coached me through getting more comfortable in the shallow end again, until eventually I plucked up the courage to have another go in the deep end.  Knowing that the panic was perfectly normal did help – I wasn't just being a wimp!  As one of the instructors pointed out, the brain spends too much time focussing on the fact that you're breathing underwater, because it's completely unnatural.  You need to find a way to stop the brain from doing that.

I can't say I was 100% successful at that bit, however, I'm pretty good at being in the moment when I focus on doing so, and though I never stayed down for more than a few minutes at a time, I did manage to take pictures, have a picture taken, and play a bit of underwater Frisbee (pictures will follow soon, when I get my underwater disposable camera pictures developed!).

So, will I be diving with sharks as part of my 40 Things for 40 List?

Yes, I believe I shall!  I plan to go for a couple more swimming pool diving sessions with the crew from last night nearer to the time (probably September/October), and in the meantime, I'm continuing to focus on my leg being much stronger for the challenges at hand!

For now, I am just very grateful to be alive, and rather chuffed with myself for sticking with it!