So my good friend Joy – if I haven’t mentioned her before in a blog post – she is the Thelma to my Louise, my sister from another mother, someone who understands a piece of me that is unexplainable in words but deeply feels, anyways, she suggested for our Christmas girls day out that we do a float at this place in Bethlehem that she had been to before called Metta Float. 
Now I have been to spas, I have floated, but never in a dark room in salt water all to myself for an entire hour. And it sounded totally appealing.
The place is super duper cute and we had a coffee from one of my favorite coffee spots before. The outside of it looks like a submarine and then when we walked inside it smelled amazing and I especially loved this christmas tree made out of a ladder with lights strung around it and then topped with a gorgeous angel. Already, I was in the mood of Christmas. Not the hustle and bustle but the spirit and love and stillness of it all. The awe on a child’s face when they see the tree star light up and they just stand staring up at it for countless moments. I highly doubt they are like us adults thinking about all we have to do, who we may have forgotten or the little children that have nothing and how to help or maybe the pecan pie they ate too much of. No, they stare in awe and admiration and total stillness.
I wasn’t the best first floatee as I did not watch the demonstration video at home so I watched it in the waiting room as we prepared. The video was informative and I am glad I listened because I especially seemed to listen to this part. The video instructed me to tilt my head back into the water so that the water came to touch around my brow line – this would help find the natural curvature of the spine. Now in my yoga teacher training we have been learning a lot about the natural curvature of the spine because well most of us go through life – jacking it up in some shape or form and I think this leads to a lot of alignment, stress, trauma/emotionally held issues. We can’t let go easily. Atleast I know I can’t – esp since having a child, moving twice, switching careers, and recently a miscarriage. I know I am holding on to shit. I know I haven’t slowed down enough to feel some shit. I press on. Because that is what I have been told all my life. But yet from my own learnings – I know I have to keep going at a pace that allows me to feel, process, and digest life and sometimes life is hard, sometimes it throws you curves, knocks you down and returns you to rest. And I know I sometimes stand in my own way of doing this. 
Anyways, so I also didn’t bring anything with me to take out my contacts so the lovely owner let me borrow a contact lens case and solution and I proceed to room number 1 downstairs. Joy is right next to me. We both go in. I put on my swim cap which she was right did nothing but I thought it would protect my newly gotten highlights. I thought my hair stylist did an amazing job last time and I was concerned. It had been four months since I had gotten my hair did and I wanted to relish my new highlights. Anyways I shower off and enter the tub as directed and find the knob to signal floating time begin and music cease. It becomes pitch black. I float for a bit – as I have stated before I love floating – had just done some in the ocean in aruba but this was me in a tub in a dark room. So then my brain starts to think like what if I can’t find the knob, what if it gets deeper and someone comes and grabs me from beneath, what if I fall asleep and don’t hear the music come back on? Crazy thoughts right?! But we are in crazy times. So I thought them and then came back to my breath, how good it felt to be weightless and how much my physical body could reeeee-lax. And then I started to think about my spine and the natural curvature that was being supported and the sympathetic curves that we experience – I felt them. Then I started to play with turning my hands and arms one way and then the other and then I rested a bit more. Then I started to notice some funky stuff – my spine wanted to go in all sorts of directions – swaying to the left and right, engaging fullest upright every muscle engaged type stuff, it was very interesting what my body wanted to do and how crazy my mind thought my body may be. Then I started to get chilly. I had no idea how much time was left but it felt like it had been a while. I kinda wished I had set my phone alarm so I knew if I could make it to the end and hold my full bladder that I know had become aware of and needed to release as well. So I tried to relax but at some point I weighed the pros and cons of why I was trying to stay in the water if I was physically uncomfy (cold) and needed to pee. I thought to myself what if I fully relax and do let go and urinate in the tub. That isn’t good for anyone. I kinda laughed at how silly I was being, that I wasn’t failing by not making it to the full time of my float and I found the knob, the lights came on and I got up.
Woah, I was woozy. Like not totally in my body yet. And I couldn’t see as I had taken my contacts out. I showered but apparently not enough to get all of the salt off because I think I wanted to exit the room too fast. It was like I needed fresh air. So I put my clothes on and exit my room to go to where the mirrors are so I can fix my face, put in my contacts and dry my hair. I noticed there was caked on salt everywhere. My ears, around my eyes, my neck. Oops. So I tried to get what I could and make myself presentable knowing that I couldn’t wait to shower again once I returned home. Then this other guy comes out from his room and one of the workers asked him how it was and the guy simply says “I get the best sleep in there” and I am thinking to myself dude – I just had a bajillion things happen during my float and you slept? wtf? He must be healed and I am a jacked up mess. Wait a minute. Calm that thought. I am a beautiful human being in the process of processing some super real shit. I am strong, unique, child of God – really trying to harness this voice recently when the other one enters. 
We paid and then we walked outside and I let out what needed to come out but for whatever reason I couldn’t do it in there. I cried. I let what needed to come up – come up. I had a release. I am not saying I am fully healed as I think we are all in a constant state of healing -especially right now but what I am saying is that it worked! And that I would totes do it again. It wasn’t easy. I think the second time will get better now that I know the room, the layout, to bring my own contacts and to not drink coffee right before.
I think when times are changing as they are right now, when things in life get tough, to be held by the water and rocked as if you were a baby, to sit in stillness with your life, helps you take a step back from all that other stuff – the drive, the motivation, the press forward. It balances me. It grounds me. It soothes me. It revives me. It lets even my spine return to its MOST natural curvatures and just float away for a while……
Thank you Joy! Sometimes it takes that one special friend to know exactly what ya need.
And I must say it’s 24 hours post float and my body feels incredibly open and I had an amazing workout this morn!!
