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How do I describe the experience of FLOATING?   Here’s a bit about me.  I have practiced meditation for most of my adult life.  On the cushion I still struggle to drop into something resembling nothingness.  I focus on my breath and eventually the continual chatter of the mind begins to settle enough for my awareness to settle on the breath.  This is where I long to be but it takes work to get there, let alone to settle there.

I found FLOAT NC last winter.  I knew immediately that this was going to be something I would love.  I crave the dark.  I crave total quiet.  I crave winter and the darkness and yin of winter.  I crave nothingness.  For me nothingness is where I feel most at home and yet my life, as most of our lives, is filled with any and everything but the quiet our Souls long for.  We race through life as if it is a race.  What are we racing toward, our own eventual death?

It seems so foolish to not take the time to BE here in this precious moment, the one that is only now, and now and now.  It is only in this moment, in this now that we can find the peace we long for.  Surely at the time of our death we will not reflect on the many things we did in our life, the accomplishments, the trips we took, the activities we enjoyed, and the experiences we had.  We will probably reflect on whom and how we have loved, how satisfied and content we feel at the end of our life about what really matters.  For me, I know already that it is in the empty spaces of life, the moments of quiet, and the solitude in which I remember what is true.

Floating has become a weekly ritual for me.  I look forward to it and my body has started to remember how it feels to slip into the deep dark quiet.   As I step into the float tank I sink into the black nothingness and allow myself to rest.  My body appreciates the non-doing.  It relishes in the space I have given myself and my body to just Be.   At times my mind enters the float buzzing with the busyness of life.  It can take a few minutes for those things to drift away and for the darkness to take over.  Here is it just breathing, simple breathing.  Nothing to do, breathing happens on it’s own without us doing anything.  That’s the mystery of our body.  It knows exactly what to do.  We can let go and settle into our breath and let the body unwind.

If you have a busy life, if you are craving more quiet and solitude, if your body needs time to settle and relax I cannot recommend FLOAT NC more.  The facility is wonderful, the rooms are private and the whole experience is regenerating and enlivening.  Recently I have moved from the 60-minute floats to 90-minute floats, seeing that my body and I long for even more time to do nothing but allow the darkness to absorb me.  I slip into nothingness and nothingness is all that is needed.

If you are new to floating and to meditation, don’t expect it to be easy at first.  The mind is like a hamster running circles in its cage.  It takes time for it to know it can settle.  Just relax and focus on your breathing and know that no matter what your experience is initially that your body is thanking you for giving it the chance to simply BE.