“Getting into the sea on days when the temperature hovered around zero was an act of defiance against our own woes. By doing a resilient thing, we felt more resilient. That circular process of being resilient and feeling resilient kept us afloat.”
― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
Sunrise was cold, bright and salty, as I pottered around rockpools.
A glowing fire in the log burner, as I write.
Each year, I find a time to reflect on what’s done. It’s a genuinely pleasurable task. I think, because it sets a state of alternating between nostalgia and daydreaming. Reading the January blog triggers memories of the real-doing of tasks that were only ideas back then. Marking items as done adds to the foundation and future plans.
A soft and cyclical process, this habit seems to become more helpful every year. There is the unexpected reward of seeing more has been done than not (because progress doesn’t feel like movement when you’re in it!). There too is a confidence built from that observation. Reminders of outstanding tasks, though a little jarring, are a helpful thing. As is the opportunity to admit defeat, and ditch some of the task-clutter.
“We tend to imagine that our lives are linear, but they are in fact cyclical.”
― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
2024 Review
The “to do” items from the new year list:
Writing up the “bad dives” pilot study
No. Although I have revisited the responses frequently to inform other work, so far I have failed to commit the time to writing up a paper. I have shared insights from the research in various ways, including live online meetings and within the Talk Trauma course. A selection of quotes have also been added to the printable guide to diving-related trauma.
It remains on the list.
Creating a self-help guide for scuba divers impacted by traumatic incidents
Yes,.. well very nearly done! Over the last few months, I’ve added more to the online resource. I have also put together a 30+ page, print-friendly, downloadable version. There is a bit of spell-checking and format tweaking, and it will ready to share here.
Unfortunately, the need for this resource is not going to go away. If you follow scuba diving news, you will see there have been multiple incidents with liveaboards, as well as several significant diving fatalities and abuse cases. And most of the time, distressing underwater events are not newsworthy, so we do not hear about them: being pulled into a rapid ascent by a runaway DSMB is rarely headline news when no one is hurt, even if leaves the diver with anxiety and skill performance issues.
Publishing previous essays
I love the contrast is this work: from trauma to the healing benefits of diving in a single-sentence! Yes, this is done. Available here and online book sellers.
The “Talk Trauma” course (which starts 13th January).
It did indeed start 13th January and was completed in March. It is now continuously available to all adult divers wishing to educate themselves about the impact of distress and trauma in scuba diving. I will warn you, I went deeper than planned, so it makes a good course for a diving healthcare professional!
This course is not therapy. The intention is to learn how trauma may affect your diving in ways most divers do not consider, such as learning blocks and how divers communicate. It also introduces concepts and skills that can be applied to help after bad diving experiences – including psychological paper-cuts.
Honestly, two-months of lonely desk-work in the middle of winter was super hard! I’ll not be doing it again for a while, so the next of this series is not making next year’s list.
An audio product
Hmm. Sort of. The idea for multiple audios is still around. Some exist in the courses already, such as “thought-bubbles” and “54321 system check”, also the free breathing audios. And yet, there are more to record. Recently, I’ve been working on one that will be available freely. It’s a simple practice that is recommended for victims of mass trauma and critical incidents, as well as being equally helpful for pre-dive nerves or on any given Tuesday. That will be ready soon here.
The issue I need to work out is how the creation and sharing of these can support the rest of the work.
An idea for short courses to fix common blocks (mask, regulator, DSMB ..)
Trial programme TBA in 2025. The idea has developed immensely. In fact, I’ve attended (and am still to attend) multiple trainings to inform this service. Tension or performance anxiety around certain skills is relatively common. There are specialist techniques for addressing these issues. Yet not every diver is willing to invest in one-to-one time, so I am exploring options for more cost-accessible groups.
A handful of physical offerings to support physical and psychological fitness to dive.
In progress. I’ve built the store pages, in collaboration with Teemill. I chose Teemill because they focus on sustainability and circular economy: when your old t-shirt is no longer wanted you can send it back to be recycled and they give you a credit to spend on a new one! There’s also mugs, bags and notebooks.
On the topic of renewal, it’s time for a new logo! I put the first one together quite quickly, and always felt I’d be changing it. Even though I like the idea of a stamp “FIT TO DIVE”, the box is too constraining and risks conveying judgement and rigidity. The new logo is more flowing, flexible and a reminder of why be fit to dive – whatever that means for you. (And it would still make a nice stamp 
) I’ll share that in the 2025 plan!
“That’s what humans do: we make and remake our stories, abandoning the ones that no longer fit and trying on new ones for size.”
― Katherine May, Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times
It’s easy to forget the year’s activities and feel like nothing has been achieved, so to end, I’m having a quick brain storm of highlights of 2024:
Learned how to self-publish and published a book. Its on Amazon, but I think it’s cheaper here.
Set up the new gifting feature on the course platform. (This doesn’t sound like much, but after years of working-around with vouchers I make manually… this easy way for divers to share a course is very useful).
Guested on the Happiful Podcast: The Spotify link is here, and the Apple podcast link is here, but you should find it wherever you get your podcasts (search for ‘Happiful: Finding What Works’) and we have a transcript on the site here.
Two more articles published on DAN Europe’s Diver Alert Network: https://alertdiver.eu/en_US/authors/laura-walton/
Researched and shared knowledge about lots of interesting impacts and effects of trauma in scuba diving.
Featured on The Big Scuba Podcast with Gemma and Ian: https://www.thebigscuba.com/ , and in a related point some interesting discussions around the topic of psychological first aid in diving.
Did lots of training around intensive EMDR (an approach for trauma therapy as well as mental blocks) and responding to critical and mass incidents (something we do not have much structure for in scuba diving). I have a lot of thoughts on this.
Heard “aren’t you the one that works with divers” multiple times at psychology training events following my efforts to continually talk about why divers need options for support.
Being grateful to diving medics, instructors and divers letting psychologically-injured diver know of the services I offer.
Took the L1 Human Diver webinar series which meant some in depth discussions on diving and the dive industry. L0 and L2 I’d already done, and would recommend for any diver interested in safer diving.
Being part of this intriguing new members group for divers to find information on diving medical issues, diving conservation and generally access worldwide diving community: https://www.amtecs.global/membership
Two things that have not been so good this year have been my frequent failures to communicate, .. and definitely not nearly enough diving! More on all that in the new year plan,