HI, I'M DONATA
"..freediving showed me things I hadn't been willing to face anywhere else."
I grew up in Lithuania, but it was moving to London that dropped me headfirst into the reality of human behavior.
For a decade, I built a corporate career there specializing in People Management & Development. My role was about mentoring, coaching, and figuring out what was actively holding high-performing individuals back.
I spent years holding space for capable, successful people as they navigated intense pressure, self-doubt, and the invisible mental barriers we all build to keep ourselves safe. It was my first profound lesson in how deeply our minds try to protect us when we feel overwhelmed.
FROM CURIOSITY TO DEPTH
Then, in June 2022, on a holiday in Kaş, Turkey, I took a beginner freediving course. What I experienced beneath the surface had very little to do with physical technique or breath-holding numbers.
Instead, it showed me that you cannot think or intellectualize your way through discomfort underwater. The water acted as an honest mirror, gently but firmly exposing the exact patterns of control, anxiety, and ego that I had successfully managed to ignore on land.
What began as simple curiosity soon grew into a serious commitment. While still working full-time in London, I spent my evenings training in local pools several times a week. Over the next two years, that consistent discipline evolved into dedicated open-water training blocks, an instructor certificate, and eventually, a decision to move permanently to Egypt in October 2024.
Ultimately, that progression led to setting national records as the deepest diving woman in Lithuania. But the depth is just a metric. The real value was the internal shift required to get there. Training taught me how to listen to my body rather than force it—allowing me to completely redefine my relationship with comfort, safety, and my own perceived limits.
THE REALITY OF THE DEEP
What I know now—from a decade of supporting people in London and from everything the water has taught me since—is that the barrier standing between you and what you are capable of is rarely a lack of physical ability.
It is almost always a protective, deep-seated story you have been telling yourself about your own limits to keep yourself safe.
The water doesn’t care about your titles, your corporate success, or your intellect. It simply mirrors your current internal state. You cannot fake relaxation, and you cannot force your way through a mental block.
Lasting progress is quiet and patient. It requires you to sit with your discomfort, understand your body's survival responses, and rewrite those internal patterns from a place of genuine safety. That is what we actually work on together. In the water, and out of it.
THE ATHLETE
"I compete because it keeps me honest."
And that discomfort is exactly why I choose to step onto the competition platform. I hold six Lithuanian national records. I am officially the deepest diving woman in Lithuania. Those milestones are real, and I am deeply proud of them.
But chasing a number or collecting credentials is not why I choose to compete. When I step away from teaching and dive purely as an athlete, my role changes completely. I stop being the coach with the answers and become the student again.
I step back into the exact position I ask my clients to face: standing face-to-face with the unknown, managing the precise moment of doubt before a breath-up, and overriding the survival instinct to turn back.
Competing ensures I never lose touch with what it actually feels like to navigate a plateau, to manage fear, and to find absolute stillness when the pressure is at its highest.
I also compete for every person who thinks it is too late to change direction. You do not have to start young or come from an elite athletic background. Taking up space—whether it is on a competitive platform, or in the trajectory of your own life—is a choice available to you at any moment.
THE VISION: BRINGING
THE DEEP TO THE BOARDROOM
Managing your physiology at depth is the ultimate laboratory for human performance. The deep ocean does not allow for guesswork, ego, or panic.
Having spent a decade in corporate London before setting national records, I know firsthand that these are the exact same forces that cause burnout and stagnation in high-pressure business environments.
My long-term goal is to bridge these two worlds—translating the nervous system regulation, fear management, and sustainable performance from the ocean directly back into corporate spaces.
As I continue to push the boundaries of Lithuanian freediving, I am looking to partner with forward-thinking brands, companies, and sponsors who want to align with this journey from the ground up, explore what is possible, and eventually bring these frameworks to their own teams.
