A Year of 100 Wild Swims with Leilia Dore

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Have you ever taken a dip in a river? Do you long to swim in the sea but don't know if you could handle the cold water? Or do you love wild swimming, whether that's in rivers, lakes or outdoor pools? Either way, this episode is for you.

Leilia Dore is a writer who loves to swim in cold water, she brings her two loves together on her Instagram account, @swimmingthroughtheseasons, where she documents a year of 100 swims.

We talk all things wild swimming, from the mental health benefits of swimming outdoors, to body image and the community aspect of wild swimming. This conversation has reignited my love of wild swimming and of dipping into cold water, I hope it does the same for you too.

Follow Leilia on Instagram.

Please note: We speak of depression and thoughts of suicide in this episode.

Transcription

Karla: I spoke to Leilia Dore, who speaks about her journey of finding wild swimming again in adulthood, and also her journey of wild swimming for her mental health. Leilia Dore has always loved to swim in cold water and to write. She brings her two loves together on her Instagram account at Swimming Through The Seasons, which is where she began documenting a challenge. She set herself of 52 wild swims in one year.

I love starting with people's childhoods. I love to find out what sparked in them the thing that they're doing at the moment. So let's go back to your childhood. And so did you swim when you were a child?

Leilia: Yeah, it did. I was an absolute water baby. I feel like most of my happiest childhood memories are either I'm in water or I'm around it. I always loved swimming lessons and we were lucky. I lived in Wales until I was five and then I grew up in Devon, so there were always so many gorgeous places to swim, everywhere I was. And I always felt really safe and brave in water. I'm sure that was completely undeserved because I was never a particularly strong swimmer, but I just always felt like it was a really safe world for me to be in.

But then I got glandular fever when I was 17, and it kind of changed my relationship with swimming because I would get so cold so easily. It was like all my energy had gone from my body. So I kind of gave it up after I was about 17, but before then, yes, you couldn't keep me out of the water.

Karla: So you kind of had this reintroduction to world swimming as an adult?

Leilia: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it was always something I would do through the summers when the weather was hot, but yeah, I really couldn't understand how people were able to go in in the winter. I had a couple of friends when I used to live in Switzerland who would swim in the lake in the winter, and I thought they were completely crazy for most of my 20s. So I began world swimming frequently from December 2020 in the middle of the pandemic when I was really suffering with my mental health, and I swam through that winter.

And then when it came to September, I was, like, facing the idea of another winter of swimming. And I really wanted to keep it up, but I was a little bit daunted by whether I'd be able to keep going through the cold. And I decided to set myself this challenge of swimming. Originally, it was 52 swims of the year, and later it became 100 swims in a year. But as I went into that, I decided one of the ways that I could really commit to keeping going was if I started writing publicly about my swims, because then it would be much harder for me to be a chicken and give up when it started to become cold. So swimming and writing have both been important to me, but the swimming came first, and I'm actually pretty grateful to it for the fact that it's given me something to write about. 

Karla: The writing was like an accountability to swim. It's like, okay, so I'm going to swim and then I'm going to write about it.

Leilia: Yeah, absolutely. So it was accountability, and then it was also, I love my swim. They're beautiful, and I wanted to be keeping a record of them for myself. And then also, it just feels like this amazing thing that I've discovered, like, this secret, and part of me wants to be talking to other people about that too. And I wanted to be connecting with other people who felt the same about it as I did. And writing about it on Instagram has been a really good way to connect to other people.

Karla: And you touched on there about your mental health. So is that what brought you back to wild swimming as an adult?

Leilia: Yeah, it was. So I went through a big break up in the middle of 2020, and there was a pandemic. I'd been living abroad, so I moved back to the UK and moved in with my mum and I was far away from all of my friends and the rest of my family and everybody remembers what an isolating and difficult time that was. But I think that for me, the breakup forced me to face a lot of things that I had been thinking for years. Oh, I'll get therapy at some point.

Once I live back in the UK or once I have more time, I'll deal with these things. And I hadn't and I reached 30, my life kind of fell apart and it hit me so hard. Sometimes I feel a bit embarrassed when I talk about it because everyone goes through breakups, but it really took me to pieces, so I was kind of unable to function. I couldn't let people touch me for like, six months. I couldn't smile, I couldn't enjoy anything at all. I couldn't remember anything I enjoyed from my life before I became really depressed, actually, by the time it got to December, so this was six months after the break up, so I really felt that life should be getting better.

You know, by that stage, it was very clear to me that it wasn't just heartbreak that I was dealing with, but it was something kind of much darker and I was really depressed and I was trying to think what to do about it because I was starting to have suicidal thought and that really scared me. It felt like I was out of my own control now and despite the fact that I was surrounded by support and love and my mom was letting me stay in her house and I was lucky, but it was not okay.

And so I had this few days, it was in the week before Christmas in 2020, and over the course of three days, three or four people told me about world swimming for my mental health. And by the time the third person mentioned it to me, I just got straight in the car and drove to Staverton River in Devon and I just lowered myself into the water and it was just beyond freezing. It felt like my whole body was burning. And I have to tell you, it was not pleasant in any way, in any shape or form, but I did it then and I kept doing it over December and January. And what I started to notice was that it didn't make me feel better all the time. But for a few hours after a swim, my mind was a little bit more peaceful and a little bit more kind and just that even though that first winter starting world swimming in December is a ridiculous thing to do, that's the worst time of year to start. It was not enjoyable at that point in time. I wasn't enjoying anything in my life at that point in time, but I kept at it because it was buying me some peace. And I was really lucky because I was living with my mum, who would see me being in a bad way and would pack my swimming bag and drive me to the river and make me get in.

And so she could see that it was helping me. And over the winter and the spring, just I gradually started to feel better. And so, yeah, it's very connected to my mental health.

 Karla: Yeah, really connected. I really wanted to touch on this theme, actually, of, like, mental health and wellbeing, when it comes to wild swimming, because I feel that, too. Like, if you ever if I'm ever feeling overwhelmed or I can't get something out of my head, like, just something about being in the water in the wild, I think, as well, the nature of it, I don't know, releases something. It's quite soothing, I think.

Leilia: Yeah, absolutely.: It calms the kind of anxiety and panic and it kind of lifts the weight. Literally, physically, but also mentally. You're completely right. I really like that idea of it lifting a weight. For me, I always think of it as when I'm having a really bad day, when I'm really anxious and I can feel like the panic building. It feels like a broken glass in my body, like, in my joints and under my skin, and then I get in the water and the cold soaks into me and it has this magic property that somehow it dissolves the glass and it turns it back to liquid so that my body can move again. And, honestly, the sensation of comfort that it gives you while you're in the water and afterwards has always been really remarkable for me.

Leilia: How are you finding it, Karla, living in the Netherlands, are you able to find places to swim there?

Karla: It's not great. You can go in the canals, but they're not nature, if you see what I mean. It's all man made, basically. There are, like, stretches of water further out that doesn't have, like, the brick they're still canals, but they haven't got, like, the brick edges, so you can it feels more like nature. That's really nice. And there are, like, man made swimming lakes where you can go, but, yeah, we have amazing beaches here. They're quite wild.

Leilia: Yes. I swam at the beach in The Hague back in July with my friend Veniaa, who lives there, and it was amazing, the waves, the size of the waves. It was really exciting. It's almost more wild than Devon in the big stretches of sea. I love it.

Karla: My son is going to be a water baby. Whenever we're near water, he just strips off and in he goes.

Leilia: Oh, that's so lovely. My nephew, who's a little bit older than your son, he loves the idea of coming swimming with me. He gets excited and he'll take his clothes off and then he dips one toe in the water and he's like, no, he's a bit more of a chicken, but I have time. I can still corrupt him into becoming a water baby. Oh, you will. You definitely will.

Karla: Okay, so let's go back to the hundred swims because I'm really interested in this. So talk me through so you you've been swimming for your mental health and you love writing, so talk me through the process of documenting that 100 well swims, because you said it started off as was it 52?

Leilia: Yeah. So at the end of August last year, like I said, I was facing another winter and I was feeling better enough that I was worried, I guess, that I'd be able to talk myself out of wanting to swim, because still now, all the time in before every swim, I'm like, why am I doing this? It's going to be freezing. This is a terrible, horrendous idea. But I knew that I was going to need it. I knew that it was really important to me. I was at this place called Ringstead Bay in Dorset in August, which is really special place to me. My family goes there every year and I have been going there every year for my life, my whole life, and I really love it. And I was sitting on the beach and I was talking to my mum and I was saying, I really need a way to keep this up through the year. And I had this idea suddenly of I could set myself a goal of a certain number of swims. And I was like, okay, well, 52, that seems like a good number, because that's one a week. And I know in the summer I can do loads more than one a week. So if I'm a chicken and can't do it through the winter, I'll be able to make up the numbers in the summer and it won't look like I failed. Typical. Overachiever over here. Perfectionist. So I started and by February, 6 months in, I had done 52 swims. And it had just been the best thing, having the motivation of writing about it and connecting with other people. On Instagram. I felt so hungry for every swim, I was desperate to go.

And so when it came to February, I extended it to being my year of 100 swims. And, yeah, by the middle of August, I'd done my 100 swims. So I've started my next one now.

Karla: And how did that feel when you stepped out of the water after your 100th swim?

Leilia: Yeah, I mean, that's a great question because I had been building up to it for so long and I'd been thinking about where did I want to be? I'd planned this trip to Yorkshire with a friend of mine and we'd talked so much about how that hundredth swim was going to be and then, frustratingly, I was really low that week, like some crap had happened in my life and I was just not happy. A lot of my anxiety was back and it was temporary. It wasn't as bad as it had been before, but it was not the kind of fireworks and joy that I anticipated it being.

I mean, it was lovely. I was with one of my dearest friends in a tiny waterfall in the middle of nowhere in Yorkshire, and we were skinny dipping and the sun was out and there were flowers in the meadow. It was pretty idyllic, but it wasn't exhilarating. But in a lot of ways, that's what it's all about. For me, swimming is not just a joy, it's medicine. And so the fact that the 100th swim was one that I needed and that gave me some of that peace that I had been looking for. And going to the water to find for the year and a half before was actually quite meaningful in a lot of ways.

Karla: Quite beautiful, actually. That it wasn't balloons and fireworks, actually.

Leilia:  Yeah. It was just quiet and peaceful and exactly what I needed.

Karla: Beautiful and swimming through the seasons. I love this name and I was really intrigued by it. Where did that come from? What was the reasoning behind that?

Leilia: Well, there were several reasons. One was that I knew I wanted to swim all year round, and that was a really important part of it for me, that it was going to be autumn, winter, spring, not just the summer season that had been swimming before. I knew that one of the things about swimming that was making it so meaningful to me was that I was having a really strong connection to nature through it. And then I think that the symbolic part of it was that I felt that swimming was helping me pass through seasons of my life as well. So I'm swimming through the seasons of the year and I'm swimming through different periods of my life.

And as I was watching the seasons pass by, it was giving me proof that change could be okay, change could actually be beautiful, that you could be loving what was happening in autumn and also being excited for what winter was going to be like. You could be sad that you were letting something go and you could be excited for what was coming. And that was exactly the lesson I needed to learn in my life, really.

Karla: So that's where the name came from. How do you fit your swims around your day to day life? Do you do it before or after work? Do you leave it for the weekends? How does that work?

Leilia: My life has changed so much. I've gone from being somebody who travels to work all the time. My job and my ex and my friends were, like, the main driver of my life. And now I very intentionally moved back to the UK. I work from home and I'm still figuring out a lot of things in this new chapter of my life. Like, I don't have all the answers but the one thing I feel incredibly sure about is that my life includes swimming. So it feels almost like one of my biggest commitments that I have. So when I'm planning a week, it's always top of mind like, how am I going to fit this in?

Karla: mmm, that's really interesting. I feel like in my 30s, life is a lot like that. There's a lot of working out, what to hold and what to let go.

Leilia: I didn't really have that sense in my 20s, but in my thirties I definitely feel like that. Yeah, I completely agree. Going back to that idea of where the swimming through the seasons name came from, I just think it's a really helpful framing. You hold on to what is there in the moment, what is important in the moment. So right now when I go on swims, I'm enjoying the fact that the water is still a warm temperature but at the same time I'm really ready to let that go because I'm so excited for the colder water and the rush I get from that. And so I find swimming to be a really helpful tool to help me with that holding on and letting go process because it's a reminder of that all the time. And you are so right, your 30s is just a big balancing and priority setting act.

Karla: It really is. So you've talked there about friends and family of swimming with you. What do you take away from both solo swims and swimming with friends and family?

Leilia: That's a lovely question. Yeah. I am aware that I am an incredibly lucky person. When I was really depressed and I was a horrible person to be around, so many people really committed to me and kept showing up to me and I'm so grateful to that. And what I have loved is that swimming is another way that people have shown me their love. Right? So the number of friends and family members who've come in the middle of winter in the Drizzle, my mum with my hot water bottle shoved down her jumper to keep her warm while she holds the timer and I'm going, how many minutes have I been in for? Now they show me their love and commitment by coming for swims with me. And I've had so many friends who don't like the idea of swimming at all, but who've said to me, yeah, I'll come with you. Like, this is obviously something that's really important to you and I want to share it and that just means so much.

And even when you go and there's somebody you don't know, there the camaraderie, the friendship that you get. I've had a woman give me half of her Chelsea bun on the edge of Cleveland Marine Lake and, like, lovely chit chats. And you're there with your boobs out getting changed with a stranger who you've never met, and suddenly you're talking to as if they're your best friend. So there's really such a sense of community in world swimming. And then the solo swims, they almost feel like I don't know. I've been reading this book recently which is called Sacred Nature by Karen Armstrong, and it's making this argument that we need to get back to this idea that there's something sacred about the natural world. And honestly, when I go swimming alone, it feels that way. I'm not a religious person, but there is something so quiet and peaceful and still and precious about going on those swims. As someone who's just gone through two and a bit years of therapy, it feels like I am taking tender and precious parts of myself and connecting with them and giving them what they need.

And that is just amazing. And I don't get that so much when I'm going with other people because then it's about the connection to other people. But when I'm in the water on my own, I feel this amazing sense of being both at the same time being more myself than I am in any other part of my life, but also as if the boundaries between myself and the world around me have been blurred somehow and I'm part of something bigger. So it's a really strange thing about the boundaries of myself when I'm swimming.

Karla: That sort of respect and connection which again loops around almost to the community aspect.

Leilia: Unless you connect to nature and care about it, then we lose so much. It's where we come from. There is now I'm not making any sense at all, but we've evolved to need it, we've evolved as part of it. We consider ourselves to be so separate from the natural world, but we are not. One of the most amazing things I've learned the last two years is about the nervous system and how that plays a role in your well being and your mental health and how your body stores trauma that is done. All that happens because we are animals, because we have these flight freeze systems built into our bodies and we cannot, even though we desperately want to as human beings, we cannot separate ourselves from the fact that our bodies are built to protect us and to keep us safe and to deal with fear.

And then as humans, we've learned to override the ways that animals have learnt to deal with trauma because we have social connection and in some ways that's great and in some ways it means that we become traumatized. Animals don't become traumatized, but humans do. And to me, like building that, reminding ourselves that we're animals and that our bodies need to be taken care of and our minds need to be taken care of.

And then the planet needs to be taken care of. And if we don't care about nature, how are we expecting people to care about climate change? And you don't care about things if you don't have a connection to it. I think it's so important.

Karla: You could write a book about it, couldn't you? Like the connection between the wellness of you, the wellness of the planet, but it could get quite big in thinking and my brain is hurting now.

Leilia: I love that. And like the wellness of our communities as well, because it's something that brings people together. It gives people a focus that you see so many lovely groups on Instagram, on the internet, where people are coming together for mental health, swims and the water is good for their mental health, but so is showing up to a group of people. I genuinely think that we lose so much as humans now.

Like, yes, okay, we don't have to believe in God, you don't have to have a religion, but we're social beings who need ritual and we need ceremony and we don't have it anymore, we don't have ways to give our lives meaning. And I think that we are all so hungry for it. And so when you have groups of people who meet every Christmas, their Christmas swim or every Tuesday night with the same people to like, huddle around a little candle and drink some hot chocolate and go in the water, those are really important. They're like a modern day version of church or mosque. I just think it's really, really good for us.

Karla: Yeah. And it's almost like a deep connection, I find, when I'm swimming with others. You've really made me think actually, I don't actually solo swim that often because I've always wild swung with other people. So that's something I'm definitely going to try.

Leilia: Oh, that's lovely. Well, I mean, please do solo, but also please come and swim with me.

Karla: Oh, yeah, we haven't together, we never have. But also there's also the safety components, right? You can't just go off and swim on your own in the same way because you have to think about that and that's something that you always have to think about. As a wild swimmer, are you being silly or are you being careful? Which kind of leads me to my other point was about body image and being a woman while swimming, because women are so under surveillance these days and I find that being in nature kind of is quite freeing. How do you feel about that? Do you find you feel more freedom or do you find because you're in Bristol, do you get, I don't know, watched? Have you got any thoughts on that?

Leilia: Yeah, I love this question and I was talking about this with people on my Instagram account recently, because this wasn't something that affected me directly, it wasn't targeted at me, but I was swimming with a couple of female friends and a guy friend and somebody passed and was going to my guy friend, oh, you chicken. You're letting the girls get the better of you. Like they're all in, and you're on the side like you're the girl.

And it just made me feel so pissed off that this lovely thing was being then seen through this gender lens and these aspects of insecurity. This thing that makes me feel glorious was taken by somebody else and made uncomfortable. And I've noticed myself that this happened multiple times that I'll be in the middle of getting changed after a swim. And, guys, you've never seen anything less sexy than your skin is beetroot red, apart from your hands and your feet, which are bright white because of your thermal gloves and socks. And then you've got your knickers around your knees, and this guy goes, oh, was it cold in there? And he stands like, two or 3 meters away and starts making conversation.

Yeah, fine. Maybe he is a lovely man who just wants to know about your swim, but they could also just wait until you put your knickers on, right? There is some discomfort or lack of awareness there. In the very best case scenario, there is a lack of an aware of awareness that the men should have. And in the worst case scenario, that's an intentional behavior to make people feel unsafe. And it happens all the time.

I guess I am lucky in that the two occasions in which I have felt very threatened by men have been in cities, which means that nature still feels like a very safe place to me. In my lived experience, I know that it is not for everybody, and I know that it is not, but for me, the water is somewhere where I feel safe. And you mentioned body image, Carla. And honestly, I'm not a skinny person. I'm not an obese person.

I am aware of my body privilege, but at the same time, I have spent 32 years feeling relatively crap about my body. And in the water, I am somehow able to focus on how my body feels, not how my body looks. And I find I'm that really annoying, overconfident person getting changed on the side of the lake who doesn't really care if everyone sees my boobs, because my body is not there to be looked at when I say my body is there to swim.

And so it gives me a lot of freedom. In terms of body image, what do you find when you swim? Does it change how you feel about yourself?

Karla: I think what's amazing is it's like a form of exercise, and I feel like my body is really powerful, but when you're under the water, you're not seen. I think that's really powerful to not feel like you're being viewed in the gym. It's freedom.

Leilia: This is really interesting because this weekend, a good friend of mine who's a photographer, she works with women. She takes photographs of them to help them feel better. About their bodies and she's coming swimming with me on Sunday and she's going to take photos of me. And that's a really interesting twist on what you said, right? Because it's taking a place where I don't normally feel scrutinized or feel observed and it's going to change that. Right.

I hope that what that's going to enable is for me to somehow have a visual record of the freedom and the confidence and that invisibility that someone gives me. But, yeah, it's going to be an interesting experience. It's kind of a shame that I haven't done that already because I feel like that would be a really interesting thing to talk about with you. Some women in their female friendships are very open and confident with each other, with their bodies, but not everyone.

I notice there's still a lot of self consciousness between you, between me and some of my really close friends. And the people I compare myself to the most are the people I love the most. Right. They're the ones I want to look like or I want to have that person's arms or that person's bum, and they're the people I know. So I think one of the things I've loved about selling for me is that I now can stand in front of one of my great friends and just get changed and not think about it. It's taken away some of those barriers for me. So, yeah, it will be lovely doing that with this friend, but she's definitely never seen me naked before.

Karla:  So what advice would you give to anyone wanting to try while swimming for the first time?

Leilia: That's a very good question. I would think about the safety components of it. Make sure you go with somebody or people know where you are. Choose somewhere that is easy to get in and out, have warm clothes, lots of layers. When it's really cold and winter, I always have a hot water bottle and a hot drink with me and I go home and shower to warm up afterwards. So those are all the boring things, but it's really important, like, educate yourself about the possibilities of things going wrong.

I would say to find somebody to go with, make it into something exciting and companionable, at least at the beginning. And then I think this is the most important thing to me. The pleasure of this has grown really steadily over time. Like, sometimes now I get this ludicrous, like, desire to giggle, or I just get I feel so excited as I'm walking towards the stairs that are into Cleveland Relate. It's a bit mad, but that built. That wasn't how it was at the beginning.

So if this is something that you're doing for your mental health, it's not a miracle cure, it's something that will help your body recover and your mind recover over time alongside everything else that you need. Right? Like the therapy and the support and the connection and the solutions. Those things matter, too. Of course they do. But, yeah, be committed. Let it build over time, and just let it be lovely and fun.

Let it be a really exciting experience as part of your life. And connect with other people on Instagram, too, because there is such a great community of people out there doing this all the time and really, really willing to share advice on the best socks to wear, the best swimming bag, all these things.

Karla: What's next for swimming through the seasons? Are you doing another 100 swims?

Leilia:: I'm doing another 100 swims. I'd love it to be more like my dream scenario would be to swim every day, but it's just not feasible given the fact that I live in a city right now and that I work and all these other things. But I'm going to do my 100 swims this year. I'm going to keep writing about them. I really want to get better at meeting people consistently for swims, and that being the thing we connect about.

And a couple of really cool things I'm hoping to do this year. One is a world swimming book club. I've got a whole bookshelf, which is just books around about world swimming or about people's experiences of swimming. And I want to be able to meet up with people and read them and discuss them. So, you know, if anyone is interested, let me know, because we'll probably do it online. And then I also am inviting people to write about a swim each month of the year and talk about what swimming in that month was like for them and then what swimming through that season of their life is like for them, what it means to them.

And post that on my Instagram account, which it's a small Instagram account. That's not exactly a big claim to fame, but I'm excited to be linking to other people's stories. But, yeah, I'm just really excited about how cold it's going to get. That's a weird thing to say, isn't it? I want to go for an ice swim this year. Or swim in the snow. When you swim in the summer and the water is warm, I don't get any of the mental health impact that I do when I go in the cold water. So I'm really hungry for that.

Karla:: So how do people find you on Instagram? And how would people contact you about the book club?

Leilia: Yes. Well, my Instagram account name is Swimming Through The Season, so you can find me there. And for the book club, message me on the Instagram account and we will loop you in.

Karla: Thanks so much. That was really insightful.

Leilia: Thank you. It's so lovely. We both come from Devon. We both share all these memories of these absolutely beautiful swim spots, and I cannot believe we haven't swung together yet. But I can't wait for us to thank you so much for providing this wonderful platform and highlighting these stories of these amazing women. It's such a fantastic idea. You're doing amazing work.

Karla: Well, there you have it, the first episode of season three. I love where we went with that conversation and I hope that you've if you've never gone for a wild swim, I hope it's made you want to at least give it a go once. Please go and follow Lelia on Instagram at swimming through the Seasons. And you can also follow the podcast. It's conversations underscore changes underscore podcast. And be sure to go and follow the pod where you listen to your podcast.

I also have a beautiful bonus episode coming soon after this, one of women where they share the reasons they wild swim and how it makes them feel. The outpouring of love for wild swimming that I encountered recording this podcast was eye opening. It really is something. So I will see you next week where I will be talking to photographer Sarah Too Late about changing careers and also changing how we show up in the world. So see you then.