How Mental Training Helped A Former Lawyer Embrace A Career In Spearfishing

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Valentine Thomas, a lawyer turned spearfisher, and the author of Good Catch, struggled with severe anxiety until she realized that repetition of controlled risk actually freed her.

I have had anxiety my whole life and started having severe panic attacks when I was 18. I couldn’t get out of my house.

In my early 20s, someone told me that my anxiety attacks would pass at some point if I just kept pushing through. So I hung on to that hope and started working on my mental strength.

Let’s say there was a bar around the corner from my house. I would go with a friend and pay for my drink right away, and my friend knew that if I told them we’re leaving, that meant we were leaving. I did these little exercises gradually, going a little bit farther out into the world each time.

I eventually was able to go to school and get my law degree in Montreal. Then I did an internship and moved to London. And that’s where I picked up spearfishing. I made friends with a group of people who were super into it, which forced me to try it. (We did it in the Channel Islands between France and the U.K.)

I didn’t fall in love with it right away, but my previous mental training translated here. To begin, I’d just swim out to the boat. Take it slow. Ease into it. My first time going down, I asked my dive buddy if he could hold my hand the whole way. Spearfishing is what it sounds like: catching fish underwater with a speargun or pole. The caveat is that you’re also free diving, so you’re holding your breath too.

What made me fall in love with spearing was bringing back my food to eat. And the strange thing was, the more I did it, the more repetition, the less I panicked out of the water. I gradually transformed from being scared of my own shadow to being able to do pretty much anything.

This transformation also gave me the courage to quit a stable job and leave an unfulfilling relationship. I moved to Florida to spearfish and to turn this passion into a job. Once there, I did different things: I made online content; I worked as a chef on a yacht, catching and cooking the food.

When I saw what was working and what wasn’t, I knew where to put my efforts. Not to sound cocky, but if I can make a career out of spearfishing, you can create a job out of anything.

I definitely dealt with pushback, though. Everybody around me was like, “You’re doing what?” But if you truly believe in what you want to do and think you can make it happen, that’s good enough.

Now, I spearfish based on how much fish I have in my freezer. I currently live in Austin, Texas, so I’ll go to Florida for a few days to fish and bring back 30 pounds of food. That tides me over for a couple of months.

Fish is one of the best proteins. I want to make it easier and more accessible to cook and eat fish while also sharing the magic of spearfishing, which was what changed so much for me.

Valentine's Advice: You can be the sweetest peach in the world, but there will still be people who don’t like peaches, so do what makes you happy. Only one person has your interests at heart, 100 percent: you.

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