Alarm rings. Shower, dress, food. Make some coffee to go. Grab your keys, endure traffic, arrive at work. Then calls, emails, meetings, emails about meetings, meetings about calls, lunch at your desk, paperwork, paperwork, paperwork. Keys, back into traffic, gym, home, shower. Out to dinner with a friend, colleague, date, partner, family member. Can’t neglect the social life. Home in time to do one load of laundry while relaxing: watching Netflix while skimming the internet on your phone in an attempt to keep up with the world. 11:00 already? Bed, toss, turn, mind racing, so much on the “to do” list that’s still undone. Finally to sleep.
And all that is if you don’t have children.
Stillness, for most people, is a futile pursuit. Honestly, who has the time?
Sometimes I teach clients to use mindfulness meditation and then give them homework to do it for 2 minutes a day, and you know what? Most people can’t find the two minutes.
So when someone in a yoga class a few weeks ago mentioned that they had tried a “sensory deprivation tank” for an hour, I was intrigued. “It’s lovely,” they told me. “Your mind goes blank. For an hour, you just… are.”
I was skeptical. I never just “am”.
Wayne Dyer is credited as saying “I am a human being, not a human doing.” But me? I’m pretty sure I’m a human doing. I own and operate a business. I’m planning a wedding. I’m trying to keep entropy from sinking the state of my home into complete disarray. I’m maintaining friendships and family relationships. And there are about 30 items on the living document that is my ever present to do list.
Once, someone asked me to sit completely still, not moving but for breathing and blinking, for 20 seconds. I did it, but when time was up, I flailed my arms and extra-fidgeted my whole body to compensate. Me? Yeah, I’m a human doing.
In spite of this – or perhaps because of it – I felt compelled by my yoga companion’s description. So last week I tried it.
My Time in the Float Tank
I arrived at Just Float feeling optimistic, but not really sure what to expect. I signed in and watched a brief video, explaining that I would float in a tank of Epsom salt, with no lights and no sound, and that if I needed lights and sound, I could press a button and they would return. A soft-spoken woman then escorted me to my… Room? Chamber? Nook? I showered, and then opened the door to the float tank.
I was met by soft lights, blue water, and gentle music. It felt like stepping into a fairytale. I lowered myself into the water and found that I floated on top if it easily.
I knew from the video that over the course of the first five minutes, the lights would gradually dim and the music would fade away until I was just there, floating, nothing interfering with my senses. So I was surprised when I pressed the “start” button and the room was immediately and completely dark.
But not really.
Did you know that there are different shades of black? That’s the first thing I learned. What I thought was 100% darkness faded darker. Then darker still. Finally, I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face, and the inside of my eyelids looked just like the world around me. I thought of my urban lifestyle – filled with constant light and noise, regardless of the time of day. Is this what true darkness looks like?
I also found myself tuned into sounds that I don’t normally notice. I could hear my breathing, of course. But I could also hear my heart beating, the water around my arms whenever I moved them. And what was that? Did I just hear myself blink?
And essentially, I was touching nothing. But every so often, the water would carry me a few inches and my foot or hand would touch the side of the tank. It was shocking: feeling something after feeling nothing. The few times it happened, my whole body jolted.
But mostly… stillness. For the hour I was in the tank, I was – in the truest sense of the phrase – a human being.
Back to Reality
I was informed my time was up by the lights gently fading back on and the soft return of the music. “Was that really an hour?” I wondered.
I showered again – this time to wash away the Epsom salt, and then left my little chamber. I walked down the hall in a blissful haze and settled into a designated communal post-float area. I was the only one there, so I made myself a cup of green tea. I sat, sipping the tea, enjoying the stillness.
Another woman entered, shortly followed by a friend, and they caustically broke the silence.
“Well, I didn’t feel any mindful whatever or anything, did you?”
“No, it was too long. I think half an hour would be better.”
“Yeah, did you close the door? I didn’t close the door, I left it open to the shower area so I could get some light.”
“Oh well, that was a bust. Let’s go get lunch.”
They left.
And just like that, the magic spell of relaxation was broken and I was back in the real world. Perhaps it’s because I recently watched this old episode of Friends, but my first thought was, “you stole my wind!”
It was a bit of a microcosm for the quest so many of us are on: the desire to prolong a pleasant feeling, and the impossibility of having that feeling stay with you for long periods of time. But I suppose the flip side is that unpleasant feelings also tend to be fleeting and time-limited.
(The other lesson I was reminded of by the women who “stole my wind” was that any experience is only as good as what you make of it.)
I reentered the world. I drove back downtown. I jotted down some thoughts for this blog post. I saw clients. I went home and made dinner. In the hero’s journey, which we are all on, there’s a stage towards the end where the protagonist returns to the homestead, armed with a new elixir. And that’s how it felt: a return to normality, but with a new secret power – stillness.
I’m not sure I’ll float again soon, but at least I know I can achieve stillness. Maybe it’s even a thing I can integrate more into my day-to-day life. And that, I think, was a thing worth learning.