I am Safe and I am Loved
Learning to float through fear
“You should try it,” Lachlan says.
“I cannot imagine lying in an enclosed, dark space floating for an hour and a half! There’s no way I could just shut my brain off for that long and just be. I’ll be thinking about Altered States and maybe I’ll be claustrophobic. And what can I listen to? Can I listen to a podcast in there?” I reply.
“Maybe you could do half an hour.”
“Maybe.”
My partner Lachlan is a massage therapist, a seeker, and a healer. He recently bought The Float Shoppe. It’s a new venture for him. He’s had a massage business for years and now he’s adding floats.
My friend Mich1 has been floating for years. In fact, right there at The Float Shoppe! She’s a huge advocate—does it monthly and says it’s the best. She’s been encouraging me to try it. And here I am now, sitting in the backyard with Lachlan on a warm late afternoon, the offer of a free first float dangling right in front of me.
What else could I do but say, “Yes.”
Despite the fear.
Arrival
The place is adorable—an old Portland Craftsman painted yellow with bright blue trim in the trendy, walkable Nob Hill neighborhood in the Alphabet District of downtown Portland. The area has this almost old-school European feel. It’s like I am walking down a smaller, scrappier version of the Marais in Paris with all of the little boutiques, and couples sitting outside of cafes people watching.
When we enter the cozy lobby of The Float Shoppe, there’s a warm soaking tub for your feet. I slip mine right on in. I better relax before this anxiety producing float situation starts.
Silas swoops into the room. Tall, mid-30’s, good looking, jeans, plaid shirt, beanie, and just the right amount of 5 o’clock shadow—Portland ready! I have to admit, the uniform feels familiar and comfortable. I love my city! I love my people!
Lachlan introduces me to Silas and tells him it’s my first float. He welcomes me and launches into the overview, empathetically answers my nervous questions, and assures me that there is no need to stay in the float tank for 90-minutes. I can stay as long as I am comfortable—which is a relief!
The float tank is in one of the former bedrooms of the house. The blue glow from inside the tank gives the room an otherworldly feel. Silas points out the shower for me to use before and after the float. He hands me ear plugs, shows me how to open and close the tank, and points out the buttons inside, one to turn out the lights and the other to push if I need help. He reminds me that I can stay in for as little or as long as I like. He shows me my robe and slippers for after the float. He leaves.
Water
I am standing there in the blue glow surrounded by water in three forms—the shower, the tank, and my water bottle. I am about to do something new that I thought I would never be able to do since Mich brought up the subject a year or more ago. Water is going to carry me through.
For the last month, one of the daily practices I have adopted through The Creator Retreat, a ten-month cohort experience I am participating in this year, is to increase my water intake and to talk to my water before I drink it. I know—if someone had told me I'd be doing this a year ago, I would have laughed. But I'm leaning into the possibility that 'there are more things in heaven and earth…than are dreamt of in [my] philosophy’.2
Daily I am mindfully setting positive intentions into my water before I consume it. I am even labeling my drinking water—just so it remembers what I said to it earlier. I get it, 'woo-woo,” I know. I’m still going to do it and see what happens. What could it hurt?
My current label says: ‘You are safe and you are loved’—something that I need to be reminded of right now as I am moving out of my nesting partners house and into my own space for a time.3
I have to admit, it is working—for whatever reason. My nervous system is calming down and I am trusting that I am safe to allow events to unfold in my life as they do, without my need to control everything. I’m even sleeping better—despite these turbulent times.
I take a sip from my water bottle: “I am safe and I am loved.”
I undress and turn on the shower in the room. I step into the warmth of the water and let it wash all over me: “I am safe and I am loved.”
I stand in front of the tank of salt water and stare into the abyss: “I am safe and I am loved.”
I slide inside. The water feels thick, slippery, and slightly warm—not like bathwater, closer to body temperature, not cold and not hot. Goldilocks would say: “Just right.”
Reaching above my head, I close the top of the tank. There is a slight hiss from the hydraulics. For a moment I float in the blue light, adjusting to my surroundings. Breathing slowly, I remind the water: “I am safe and I am loved.”
I move my body around feeling what it is like to let the water take my weight.
I turn out the light.
Nothingness
It is so dark. The kind of darkness I have only experienced one time before when spelunking deep inside a cave in Northern California. Everyone turned off their flashlights and standing there for just a few moments it became impossible to tell which way was up or down. I was sure I was going to fall.
But here, the water cradles me.
I notice my neck and shoulder muscles are fighting it. They are attempting to hold themselves up, not trusting the water to take their full weight. I breathe into those muscles and slowly they release. They begin to trust.
The water says: “You are safe and you are loved.”
For a moment I notice that I can’t tell where the water stops, the air begins, and my body exists. There is just me in nothingness, letting go.
I just allow that to be.
It feels good to be so fully relaxed and held—to trust that I am safe in this cocoon.
The only sound I hear is internal. It’s the slow and steady rhythm of my inhale and my exhale. Like the flow of the tides.
I center here and breathe into the experience…
And then my brain chimes in: “Aren’t you supposed to be doing something?”
“Goddamn it,” my body says to my brain.
And I start moving around. The space dividing the water, the air and my body comes immediately back into view. I turn the light on and I can see my surroundings.
I laugh. My brain is definitely not my friend sometimes.
I remember what Silas said and I decide this float is over. I’ll get out now. With practice, I suspect I’ll be able to stay in longer and maybe get my brain to decide to join in on the experience as well.
Reality
I open the tank, hop out, step into the shower and wash off all of the slimy salt water. I dry off, put on my clothes and head to the lobby where I plan to soak my feet in the tub while I wait for Lachlan to finish his float.
As I pass reception, Silas says: “I was just about to let you know your float was over.”
“What? I thought that was like maybe 45 minutes.”
“No. You were in there almost an hour and a half. Not quite, but pretty close.”
Lachlan comes down the stairs after his float, gives me a big hug and asks me how it was. I am glowing and so relaxed.
Lachlan has some business to do before we can leave, so I grab a kombucha, slide my feet into the soaking tub, and lean into the memory of that relaxed state of giving into nothingness: “I am safe and I am loved.”
Some fears are worth floating through, especially when they lead you to a place where your brain finally agrees to let your body rest—I hope my brain will get more on board as I continue to float regularly. Sometimes the thing you think you can't do becomes exactly what you didn't know you needed. And sometimes ‘woo-woo’ works!
Mich is Letter #5 in my Analog Letters series, if you want to find out more about the amazingness of her! You can just scroll down until you get to #5.
This is bastardised from Shakespeare’s Hamlet.
This is a story for another time.
Ah...the "unseen labor" of letting go. We often celebrate achievements, progress, and the visible results of effort. But your journey into the float tank, and the struggle your neck and shoulder muscles had to release their hold, illustrates that sometimes the deepest work, the most significant shifts, occur when we stop trying. It's a profound act of defiance against our ingrained need for control.
The "hiss from the hydraulics" and the darkness that removes all external cues—these elements transform the float tank into a sacred space for this unseen labor. It's where the nervous system does its quiet, vital work of untangling itself from chronic tension, and where the mind is gently encouraged to surrender its endless chatter. It’s a powerful lesson that sometimes the most productive thing we can do is nothing at all, allowing ourselves to be held and just be.
Cool story. And very well written. Great job