My mom gifted me an hour at a float spa for my birthday. I cashed in on the present this summer. If you’ve never been to a float spa before, it’s a really interesting experience. Considered an ancient mind/body relaxation strategy, modern float tanks or pods use 1,000 or so pounds of Epsom salt in about 10 inches of warm water. While styles of floating vary, most float spas are tubs or pods in an enclosed room with little to no light or outside stimulation. The temperature of the water, combined with the high volume of salt, and lack of stimulation, creates zero gravity weightlessness and the sensation of not knowing where your body ends and the water starts. Sounds pretty cool, right?
Before my visit, I wasn't sure what to expect so I read all of the questions on the website FAQ page ahead of time and the spa attendant instructed me upon my arrival. She guided me to a small room where, once alone, I would strip down to nothing, shower off in a small shower, pop in ear plugs, and lob petroleum jelly on any cuts or "sensitive areas. The shower had two doors- one opened into the dressing room and the other into the float tank. I was told I could turn off all of the lights, leave them all on, or lower them to my desired level of brightness. Before leaving me to do my float thing, the attendant told me that, once in the water, I was not to touch my eyes. Then, she wished me well, told me there was a button within the tub area to call her, should I need anything. Then, she left and I was alone and ready to, well, float.
As I showered, popped, and lobbed, I peered into the tank area. Being a bit claustrophobic, I was relieved that these tanks looked more like little rooms than the pods I'd seen on other spa websites that looked like alien abduction chambers. I grabbed a few washcloths and placed them on a small towel rack in the shower area, then placed my feet into the tank. I was surprised at the shallowness of the water in the tank. Like a toddler tubby, the water was a comfortable temperature- not too hot and not too cold, and it felt very unthreatening as I sat down. Not believing that the water would truly lift me up, I grabbed a head rest float, wrapped it around my neck and leaned back. My body easily lifted up off the bottom of the tub and I knew that, if my kids saw me, they'd be super impressed with my floating abilities.
For the first 15 minutes I pushed myself around, moving my arms and legs, stretching and playing with the movement of my buoyant body. I quickly regretted touching my hand to my face to scratch my nose when a drop of water slipped into my eye and it burned intensely. To my chagrin, the dry wash cloth fell into the water when I reached for it to pat my face. I spent the next 5 minutes occupied with the eye burning and the urge not to touch my face again and also being really thankful I'd lobbed jelly over parts my sensitive bits and a few scratches.
For the next 15 minutes, I felt claustrophobic. I'd started to lose the sensation of knowing where my body was in the water or air and the pod felt much hotter than when I'd started. I had left the light on in the shower so, with my eyes open (despite not having contacts in and having limited sight), I had a general sense of the space around me. The ceiling was still at least six feet above me and no, the walls had not closed in on me even though it felt that way. I sat up momentarily to remind my body that it could move if I wanted it to and I contemplated getting out. Then, I took a few deep breaths, and lowered myself backwards. Again, my body popped up easily and I practiced a few simple meditation techniques, focused on my breathing and felt each part of my body gently relax. For the next 15 minutes, thoughts came and went in my mind. I stopped feeling claustrophobic. I stopped thinking about what had happened the hour before, the day before, the week before, and the month before. I didn't think about what I had to do in the next hour, the next day, the next week or the next month. I stopped worrying about whether I was floating right or wrong or wondering how much time I had left to float.
Then, I took the ultimate personal trust fall. I removed the pillow float from under my neck and head and allowed the water to cover my ears. I let the muscles in my neck relax and the salt worked it's magic, propping my head up just as high as the rest of my body. For the last 15 minutes of my time in the salt pod, I was suspended in time and space. I did not hold myself up and instead, I allowed nature to do the holding for me. It felt so good and surreal to forget the weight I carry in my body and mind at any given time.
Then, the lights blinked on and off and it was time for me to return to gravity.
Yes. I'm talking about everybody's favorite new age concept: mindfulness. We all know we should be more mindful of the small moments in our days and focus on our senses, the here and now. Laying in a warm tub of a ton of salt and no distractions definitely serves as a mindfulness tool and I do my best to be "mindful" when I can and I'm not ashamed to pay for activities that bring me to a mindful state of being. We can judge our society for "how we got here" but it's just a fact of life. We are here and we do need to have actual conversations about how to live in the moment and strategies for extracting ourselves from sensory overload.
Like many others, I struggle to unplug, unwind or relax. Sleep is my only reprieve from feelings of general anxiety and I'm often shocked at how quickly I wind up at the start of any given day. Most days, I actually wake up feeling anxious as my subconscious kicks in before I even know what day it is. Thanks to a series of awkward visits to the local prime care clinic where I insisted that I'm dying of something insidious, I've learned that I carry anxiety with me in many ways, some I'm aware of and others I've just recently discovered or have yet to discover. The victims of my stress are primarily my neck and jaw and I now do a great deal of self talk so that my brain can effectively tell my body to chill the f out.
Friday night is big time self talk each week. Because I am a planner and a scheduler and a worrier, time piles up on me and I find that autopilot is the only survival mode for the weekly 9-5 grind. I also find that my body has determined that the only way to survive survival mode is to grind my teeth. Teeth grinding leads to all sorts of other problems from headaches to neck and shoulder pain.(and much more, just google it) As the week comes to a close, I unpack the kids' backpacks and then unwind with a glass of wine, accompanied by my bathroom cleaning bucket, some comet and a toilet brush, I have to tell myself, "Relax your jaw. Breathe. Relax. It's ok to relax. Dude! Relax! What are you stressed about? It's Friday! You don't have to check email tonight. Order pizza. Chill the F OUT!" As I swirl my wine in my glass and my toilet brush in the toilet bowl, I force myself out of a what has become a comfortable body pattern of stress and...voila! I finally relax my jaw.
I'm still trying to figure out how to talk my neck out of being a spazz. My body type lends itself to neck pain: with a really long neck and some scoliosis turned bad posture, I permanently resemble a turtle. I try to do everything with my neck. I know, sounds weird, right? My neck can't do everything for my body because it's a neck but it still tries. My legs carry me on a run but my neck is racing the rest of my body, jutting out to cross the finish line before my legs. My arms and hands maneuver the steering wheel in the car but my neck desperately wants to be in control, pushing my forehead out toward the dash. Nothing besides doing some muscle memory exercises that involve wrapping a towel on my head and tucking my chin toward my chest relieves the pain of carrying the weight of my world on my shoulders.
Nothing except suspending my head in a pool full of warm water and salt.
I've been thinking a lot lately about my need for suspension. According to Merriam-Webster, suspension is to hang, to keep from falling by some invisible support, such as buoyancy. My worry and anxiety is the gravity that pulls me down and I need suspension mechanisms to keep me from falling. I need to do things that train my jaw and neck to trust again so they can let go and stop doing a job that's not theirs to do. I need more buoyancy in my life. I need to find the invisible supports around me and trust them. I need to stop weighing myself down.
The weeks leading up to my float visit were stressful, as usual, and my body was suffering. At the time, I could have listed off a dozen or so ailments, some more painful than others, including a strange, neuropathic pain encircling my chest, under arm and back. During the week before the float, the pain bothered me so much it was on my mind from morning until bedtime but I pushed the pain away because I felt I had no time to figure out why I felt this way, and honestly, I didn't have the money. The anxiety circle is a ring of fire when it comes to my health. I have a high deductible health plan so any time I feel sick, I start to panic about the cost of going to the doctor, and the potential cost of treatment vs. the embarrassment of being slapped with a bill for a grand just to be told I should "relax".
A week before the float visit, the girls and I left our house to spend the week with my mom. My autopilot was in full form as we packed and I yelled at the kids to get ready and resented Andy for not joining us. I am able to make a vacation feel like hard work and my neck and teeth were working against me as I drove three hours to my home town, racing against the clock and the arrival time only I'd set for us.
If you live in the Northeast, you know that it rained almost every day last summer. This day was like all others before it, and most after it. The skies were overcast and gloomy as we made our way and when we arrived at our first stop- a camp where my family and friends gather each summer for a weekend campout- it started to rain a bit. We ate our lunch and set up our cabin, me doing a lot of directing and hauling things around and grinding my teeth. As the rest of our family joined us, the sun peeked out between the clouds and by dinner, was in its full glory. And so were we. We swam, we snacked, we kayaked. We had popcorn by the fire. The kids ran around in the dark and I laughed with my family about nothing in particular. Two days later, we packed ourselves up for destination number 2- the New England coast. For four days, me, my mom and the girls rode waves, napped in the hot sand, ate ice cream and fried seafood. And while I did some yelling and created a few fake, unnecessary deadlines and rigid rules like being at the beach at a certain time, and getting in a specific amount of exercise each day, I noticed that, on our last day at the beach, my jaw felt relaxed and the weird, burning pain I'd had before the trip had almost completely subsided. Without realizing it, I'd done a personal trust fall and allowed the buoyancy of vacation to invisibly support me.
After stepping out of the float spa, at the end of my vacation week, I realized that creating physical and mental spaces and experiences, that eliminate sensory overload and decrease my desire to control everything, allow me to feel as buoyant as I felt in the float tank and, if I am lucky, I'll trust myself more and allow suspension to take on my gravity load.
For my ongoing health and sanity, I can't wait and hope to find this state of being only seven days of every year. My goal for 2018 is to find moments of suspension in each day. My resolution for the coming year is to shower off, lube up and be more buoyant.
Comments