Sara Campbell – Diving in through the Depths of Your Spirit

This episode’s guest will take us to the depths of her soul and her fond memories of deep diving. Sara Campbell is like the ‘grandmother’ of free deep-diving by holding three world records on free deep diving for several years. Like the program she founded and manage, Discover Your Depths, this conversation is out to bring us to discover Sara’s and our notion of the depths that lie within everyone. 

Sara’s discovery of her passion for deep-diving was almost accidental. Her success story in the sport was pretty unusual as she came to it on a different path. She was teaching yoga and meditation when one of her students asked her to take lessons with her. And as the first rule of freediving is to never dive alone, she went in and let fate have it. For all she knew, she was just playing and having fun! 

But throughout her journey exploring the depths of the ocean, Sara has also deepened her understanding of the foundational principles she’s been teaching in her yoga and meditation classes. And most of all, she understood that integrating her spiritual teachings with her new-found passion is what propelled her to success. And these pieces of gems are what she’s sharing with Alexandra and their listeners in this podcast. 

Free deep-diving can be for competition but also recreation as relaxation is the foundation, key-stone aspect of freediving. To dive deep without suffering an injury, you have to receive this incredible embrace from the ocean; the embrace of the divine that’s down there. This is where the surrender comes in—you cannot be the one controlling the dive. One has to let go and give in to the wisdom of the body. Going further into the deeper depths is a process of trusting that the wisdom and intimacy are already there and of surrendering the ego. 

To Sara, the struggle is much more an internal one—when we get an uncompromising confrontation with ourselves and with everything not in alignment with our spirit. Everything that the ego is bringing up to get involved in the process happens when people are stuck in the numbers. There’s this pull to be something more than we already are. If we’re ready to go there, the body will go there. It is not about us creating or forcing or doing anything; it’s allowing. 

Sara and Alex also went on to explore the dynamics between the ego and the spirit. If the desire comes from the spirit, we are guided towards something which is in our path and for our expansion. But often, we get attached to desires through our ego. And this is something Sara learned unwittingly in her journey. The relationship of the body with the ocean gives her so much honest feedback—a great level of awareness and honesty people cannot get from anywhere else.

Links mention in the podcast 

Podcast Highlights

  • You have to let go and give in to the wisdom of your body. Our bodies and the ocean know each other intimately because that’s our original home. Going further into the deeper depths is a process of trusting that the wisdom and intimacy are already there and surrendering the ego. – Sara Campbell
  • It’s initially very counter-intuitive. It can be for competition but also for relaxation. Because people hold their breath and take them further and further away from the most vital source of life, which is the breath, the air. In order to dive deep, one has to completely relax and that requires trust and surrender. – Sara Campbell 
  • My motivation was happiness. And so, when I was going in the ocean with that as my intention, I was always in a space of openness, not in a space of contraction. – Sara Campbell 
  • If the desire comes from the spirit, we are guided towards something which is in our path and for our expansion. But often, we get attached to desires through ego. – Sara Campbell 
  • In having so many labels for ourselves, we become so much less than more. – Alexandra Kreis
     

Guest Bio

Sara CampbellSara Campbell is a Kundalini Yoga teacher since 2003-, and four-times World Record-holding freediver. She is the founder of Discover Your Depths, a unique teaching and personal growth philosophy based on yoga, meditation, freediving, and body-mind-spirit awareness. She was the second woman ever to have dived, self-propelled, below 100m on one breath. She originated from the UK but is now living in her chosen hometown in Egypt where she teaches classes, workshops, and retreats.

 

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