Recently I floated in a sensory deprivation tank for the first time. Iāve been curious about trying it for awhile, and oh my goodness Iām so glad I did because it was magical. It was absolutely fascinating to be in an environment with no immediate boundaries (I mean yes the tank has walls, but the point is you donāt have to be in contact with them). At times it felt like being in the womb, at times it felt like floating among the stars, and at times it felt like being immersed in nothingness. It was beautiful. And to make things even better, I had a spectacular revelation in the tankā¦
When I first got in and laid down, I couldnāt find a comfortable resting position for my head and neck. Iām so used to having a place for my head to rest when Iām supine, that I (the voice and movement teacher!) couldnāt figure out where neutral was. I kept moving my head around trying to let my neck muscles go, but every time I tried to let go my head just moved through the water. So I grabbed the inflatable neck pillow and rested my head over that. Better.
Next it was on to my hips. My hips are perpetually tight so I was really excited about this opportunity to try to let them go. I thought to myself āElissa, let your hips relaxā and my right leg shot through the water. āOkay nope,ā I thought to myself, āthatās not letting go, thatās moving.ā I tried again and this time my tailbone nearly hit the bottom of the tank. Nope, that wasnāt letting go either. This all went on for a bitā¦ me trying to let go and finding that I was doing an action instead. Then finally I sent the ālet goā message down to my muscles, and instead of an action there was this gentle, subtle, easy adjustment and my hips settled. THAT was letting go! And suddenly I had this massively huge revelation about something I already knew:
Iād known this conceptually, sure, but being in a floatation tank I got to actually embody the concept. When youāve got a boundary youāre in contact with, like when youāre lying down on your bed or standing on the floor, itās easy to think youāre letting go when youāre actually pushing against a surface. I study a movement approach called Body Mind Centering, and in that practice we talk about how yielding has to come before pushing. Yielding is letting go, yielding is allowing yourself to give over to the boundaries of your environment. When I was trying to yield in the tank, I found I was doing too much. Having only a boundary of salt water taught me how little it took to give over. And how the giving over was not about effort ā in fact, it was about the opposite of effort. It was about letting go.
Eventually I took the neck pillow away and my head found a resting position in the water. I lay there feeling the slow, incremental, unwinding of letting go. I think this unwinding of tension must be a progression that can continue ad infinitumā¦ it just keeps getting more subtle and profound as you find the ability to yield more. To me this is such a blissful thought, because it means Iāll always have more letting go I can doš
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