I had received the gift certificate for my fortieth birthday back in February to this floating, relaxation chamber from a handful of neighbors. The gift was rather unconventional, but the gesture was sweet. It had undoubtedly been a year of stress for my family….and a corporate gift of calming relaxation was beyond thoughtful from those ladies in my life who saw me daily at the bus stop.
Life….such as it is in my house; however, is rarely calm, and thus it took months to finally schedule an appointment to actually go. The impending completion of preschool that week, seemed to be the catalyst for my rather impromptu decision at 7:43 am to pull the bandaid, call them, and have today be the day that I “relaxed”.
Today I was going to stare into the face of calm.
I dropped the girls at school, and arrived a few minutes late to the appointment. Being late to a place which promises to release stress doesn’t start things off as optimally as I would have preferred.
The establishment was very quiet, and the decor like something you would find at a yoga retreat. They had set an atmospheric tone well, and both the lady I’d spoken to on the phone and her husband, who also worked there, were there to greet me. They were both disarmingly calm. I can only assume as a byproduct of this job.
As soon as I stepped into the room….I saw it. The white box. People, it looked like a coffin or a motel icebox…I’m just gonna say it.
My outsides were forcing my insides to speak in hushed tones because I dislike the inability to adapt to uncertainty in people. I pride myself on being adventurous of spirit. So I was not going to change my mind. Its wildly know amongst my circle of friends that if I say I’m going to do something…and I don’t….then I am on my deathbed. Period. The only reason. So I was going to keep my cool.
Quite suddenly my insides were making it clear they were not buying what my outsides were selling. I could hear myself thinking “wait… what now……I have to climb into that spaceship pod? Um heck no.” This was feeling like the start of a weird cult movie where women are held captive in a basement.
What reasonable person, takes off all their clothes, and climbs into a metal box of water? This was the breading ground for every psycho-sexual thriller ever made. The craziest part was money had been paid for me to do just that very thing. I was beginning to wonder about my neighbors, and their idea of what constituted relaxation.
The host began to talk about how I would need to remove all articles from my body, and then shower before entering the chamber. He noted the music would play for the first 15 minutes before fading into silence, to create a sense of calm. A dim blue light would remain on the entire time. It was my option to close or not close the hatch, but important to note that should I leave it open then the water would become cooler. I dislike cold. At the end, chimes and gongs would be the sound I would hear to alert me to the fact that my 90 minutes was about to come to a close.
90 MINUTES!! IN THE BOX!
He transitioned into the topic of how to relax. I had to pull my mind back from its current downward spiral to engage in what he was telling me. He touched on meditative techniques to aid in my efforts. We discussed my breathing, the sensation of my heart beat in the water, and the fact that the water temperature would match the temperature of my skin.
We talked about my hand position and wether or not I might lay with them at my sides or behind my head. There was so many more parts to relaxation than I had realized. This was a process….like a whole multi-step process into calm. I’m good at many things, but I was starting to worry that calm….might not be one of them.
My anxiety was starting to build, and I made a joke about hoping this would go better than the swimming lessons I unsuccessfully took as a child. I defuse with humor when I’m uncertain. “Oh you will float in this tank. The salt content is twice that of the Dead Sea. A bowling ball will float, so you certainly will too, just trust the process,” he replied to my attempt at nervous humor.
“Trust the process”…..were his final words. Process……can we talk about how in this man’s attempt to reassure me of my natural buoyancy…he had used the word “dead” while standing next to a sketchy white box. Sure it was in reference to a body of water, but still this man may need to reconsider his trigger words hot list.
He interrupted my thoughts with, “Now, most importantly, if you have any wounds or abrasions on your body, you’re going to want to put the petroleum ointment we have provided in the tray on the wounds before you enter the chamber. Otherwise the salt will cause some… discomfort. It should be temporary no matter what, BUT if you’d rather NOT feel that sensation…then I suggest you cover them.” he stated.
I had no cuts that I was aware of…sure a few mystery bruises, but that’s because I walk at unnaturally fast speed,s and run into things. So I felt confident I could skip the jelly. I had enough other things to worry about in this whole find my calm exercise.
After he had left the room, I stripped down, showered, and then climbed into the box. I left the door open. I was not ready to go fully into the dark. I was flustered about my arm placement at first. At my side, behind my head….oh what had he said I muttered.
It was weird in the box, and it felt like a shallowly poured bath. My body was indeed floating, but my neck was the opposite of relaxed. I could literally feel my veins throbbing from the tension. This was not going to work. There’s no way I could lay like this for 90 minutes.
“Trust the water, trust the water…trust the process”, I thought in mantra style repetition. I speak to myself in mantra now….its a 40 something thing…just go with it.
Oh wait… thats right…..one problem….I don’t trust the water. There I said it. As a child I never found comfort in the water, and I never learned to swim because of my inability to relax when I was in it, and the great distain I seem to have for submersion.
I love going to the pool with my kids who all, not by accident, know how to swim. I love it at the pool not because of the water, but because of the laugher and the sun that float around the water. In this room, there was no sun, and there sure as heck was no laughter. I was here in the untrustworthy water, a strange haunting blue light swirling over my head, and the sound of my own heart beat.
“Hands behind the head, try that Summer. Ok…there it was. I’m feeling it,” I told myself. That worked. I was doing it.
Just then realization number two struck me: I may not trust the water….but I guess strangely, I trust myself. I was beginning to feel myself relax.
This micro achievement aside, how on earth was I going to lay here for over another hour. I thought about my breathing. I did not love how it felt to breath through my nose with the weight of the water on my chest. The air was heavy in the box, and so it felt labored. I switched instead to breathing with my mouth open. Ok, I was doing it. I was being calm.
Suddenly my micro calm was interrupted…..um wait…. what is this sensation??? This is not pleasant. What is happening right now? These were all the thoughts quickly screaming through my subconscious.
So…..it turns out I do have an area of wound or abrasion. Hmmmm. Sweet baby Jesus…..my nether regions were not at all happy about their submersion into a vat of salt. You read that right….lady parts = not pleased with this choice.
Don’t panic this isn’t a full overshare, but we’ll leave it like this….I was not anticipating that sensation as a part of this process. Here I was trying my darndest to achieve calm, and to make things unnecessarily more complicated… my body chemistry or what might only be described as life long internal road rash courtesy of my tiny frame giving birth to four nearly 10 lb babies (moment of silence)…I’m still not entirely sure what it was, but it was poor form.
Whatever the reason did not matter. All I knew is I seemed to be having some sort of averse body reaction to the salt water. Thankfully it was antiseptic in nature, and the sensation did pass…. as he assured me it would with any possible irritants. I’m going to put money on the fact; however, that he was not referring to my inside lady parts when he mentioned that fun fact in the orientation.
After that little momentary personal horror, I started to laugh. Right there floating in a creepy box of water…my full… hard…outloud laugh.
I suddenly thought….well to be fair…. the source of likely 60% of all my personal stress did in fact originate from that region of my body……so it only seems fitting I would need to be reminded of that truth in an effort to truly release its control over my ability to reach total zen.
How’s that for a glass half full respective?
At some point, I must have drifted off, because the entire time window passed. I was not confident I’d make it past an hour, thinking surely I would become restless, when I’d first climbed in. As it turns out, I wasn’t restless. I wasn’t thinking about life or to-do lists or motherhood or my marriage…….I let it all go. Mostly, I think because my body was a tiny bit worried I was going to die in there, but you know tomato-tomatoe.
What I did think about….like a movie playing before my eyes was a book…about three friends who spend the summer at a beach house. The one a one hit wonder writer, hoping to find the inspiration for her next great work of fiction, falling unexpectedly in love with the boy next door. Classic story of beginning and re-beginnings.
That right there may have been the most amazing moment. Outside of the fact that I was able to relax enough to fall asleep…which in and of itself is kind of extraordinary considering. The truth was in my most primitive state…naked, wet, silent, and in the dark……I was still a writer…..and I was creative. Freaky physical awareness’ and all the other elements aside…..that was what I walked away with, and there was something magical about that realization.
Its likely too soon to say I’d do it again, but I think I would like to just to see how much of the oddity I felt was associated with the unknown affect of it simply being the first time, and the struggle I had just getting myself into a state of relaxation.
So to you who have ever considered stepping into one of these boxes of calm… I say…..do it. It will be a story worthy event there is no question. Think of it this way…you never know what you might find out about yourself until you let your body fully free itself from every worry. It’s not a condition we often experience in the outside world, and I don’t think there is another way to duplicate the elements.
I for one can say it’s up there on the list of most unusual things I have even been a part of, and thats saying something since I own a ventriloquist doll that looks like me, but its certainly something I was glad I did.
So here’s to our next adventure, fully pressing into new life stages, and always being open to new possibilities!
Summer Smith is a speaker, writer, and motherhood blogger. She and her family are currently navigating the suburbs of Northern Virginia. As the mother to four young children, Summer maintains her sanity thanks to her sense of humor, copious amounts of coffee, and Amazon Prime. Maya Angelou once said, when reflecting on her childhood, that her mother left an impression like technicolor stars in the midnight sky. Influenced by these words, Summer blogs at her website Motherhood in Technicolor, and can also be found on her Motherhood in Technicolor Facebook page.