Marlene vs. The Pod

https://www.feelregenerated.com/pod

For most people headed into flotation therapy (formerly known as sensory deprivation) the experience promises to be one of relaxation and stress relief. 

That is unless your friend has challenged you (and your claustrophobic tendencies) to go into the experience full tilt. 

So, in part two of what has become affectionately known as the “Comfort Zone Challenge” I was to re-enter the pod and keep the lid shut and the lights off for the duration of the session. 

The previous flotation session I had modified to keep some of my senses active. For example, the lid was open and the lights were dimmed but on. I could close my eyes but with the lights on the sense of sight was still engaged. 

The most jarring part of the first experience was when I removed the sense of touch. Upon letting my hands leave the sides of the pod I immediately had a “state change.” I can only describe it as instantly feeling like a floating head. There was absolutely no sensation of having a body. I did NOT find this relaxing. Turns out I may be in a subset of folks who drift into hallucination rather easily. So you can be assured that the rest of the session I kept my hands firmly placed on the walls of the pod to avert “the floating head” syndrome. 

Upon debriefing my experience with Hazel, co-creator of the Comfort Zone Challenge, you may recall that she saw an opportunity for me to widen my comfort zone. And my new challenge was born... re-enter the POD lights off, lid closed.

And so I did.

It was perhaps one of the most uncomfortable experiences of my 48 years. Mission accomplished! 

I received some well meaning and somewhat useful coaching from the flotation center’s owner. One point was that by turning out the lights you can actually hack the sense of claustrophobia because without sight you really can’t perceive how tight a space it is. So I got into the pod as quickly as possible and shut off the lights and pulled the lid down. What ensued was ... how shall I put this ... terror. It was an intense minute or so of bone shaking fear. And, I was prepared for it. My plan was to visualize the pod from the outside ... seeing it from the outside perspective ... reminding me where I was despite being inside. I spent a few minutes with my preparatory visualizations and the fear, thankfully, subsided. My chattering slowed as did my heartbeat. I was in. I passed the first hurdle. 

I retained my sense of touch (arms outstretched, touching the sides) and my sense of hearing (groovy meditation music playing) and remained in the pod for roughly 45-50 minutes. The actual session was 60 minutes so I didn’t make it the whole way but was proud of my performance for the time that I was in there. 

I did turn off the sound for a bit to deepen the sensory deprivation experience (by this time I was feeling more confident) and stayed that way for a bit and then put the music back on.

One useful technique I used to take my attention off the fear was to ask myself, “What am I enjoying about this experience?” I noticed that my legs were feeling quite light and relaxed and I could say that I enjoyed that feeling. By breaking the experience down and prompting myself to look for what I WAS enjoying I could somewhat override the negative sensations. 

Post-pod reflections.

Why the heck did I do that!!!?? No, just kidding. I did it to expand the boundaries of my comfort zone. To give my body and mind a chance to assimilate new and uncomfortable experiences so that I could grow my confidence and how I relate to myself. You see, it turns out the pod was just a vehicle to practice expansion. And I did it safely, with a friend.

Additional observation to consider: I may be a bit of a control freak ... aka ... not willing to fully turn myself over to an experience. This is some new ground for me to explore as I don’t normally think of myself as needing control. Hmmm. There is always something to learn about oneself. Being a know it all is far too comfortable!

How will you expand your comfort zone?

Would love to hear about it.

Might it be the pod??? 

When Breath becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade's worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi's transformation from a naïve medical student "possessed," as he wrote, "by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life" into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality.

What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir.

Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. "I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything," he wrote. "Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: 'I can't go on. I'll go on.'" When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both. 



I desperately want to be moved by and to love this book when it was assigned by my friend Stacey for our bookgroup read.  I opened it with enthusiasm and an open heart.  Sadly, that was quashed very quickly.  Paul Kalanithi was, obviously, a great, loving man who had a powerful love of life, and it was sad that it was taken away from him so suddenly and at such a young age.  His (short) life story did appear to be amazing and one is left wondering what he would have achieved had he lived.

However, I am not reviewing his life but the book of his life.  The best part of the book were the Foreward by Abraham Verghese and the Afterword by Mr Kalanithi's wife.  The reason for this was editing.  The book read exactly like an unedited manuscript.  a very rough first draft of notes he made before actually bringing them all together into a cohesive book  and then putting that book through an Editor to improve it even more.  Some people might like it better for that very rawness and roughness, but it irritated me to the point of not enjoying the read.

I think this is a love itor hate it book, no middle road.  Harsh but true.

The Rain Watcher by Tatiana De Rosnay

The Rain Watcher is a powerful family drama set in Paris as the Malegarde family gathers to celebrate the father's 70th birthday. Their hidden fears and secrets are slowly unraveled as the City of Light undergoes a stunning natural disaster. Seen through the eyes of charismatic photographer Linden Malegarde, the youngest son, all members of the family will have to fight to keep their unity against tragic circumstances.




I normally love this author but this whole book fell really flat for me.  It just felt so dreary, just like the weather it depicted in Paris.  It moved so slowly with just a hint of a twist coming.  It never really delivered and then ended most unsatisfactorily.  Not really sure what the point of the story was!

The Wife Between us by Greer Hendricks

When you read this book, you will make many assumptions.
You will assume you are reading about a jealous ex-wife.
You will assume she is obsessed with her replacement – a beautiful, younger woman who is about to marry the man they both love. 
You will assume you know the anatomy of this tangled love triangle.
Assume nothing. 

This book was fine on it's own although there were a lot of weaknesses in the plot. Those aside it would make an okay light beach read. However, I had just read the book "The Last Mrs Parrish" by Liv Constantine, which was almost the same story concept but written in a much better way and with a lot less weaknesses in the plot. Read this book if it is there but read The Last Mrs Parrish if you have the choice.

Shut the F*** up

If you thought we were done doing a Comfort Zone challenge after one, you clearly don't know me very well.

Allowing time for Spring Break, and for me to take notes and scheme, we just set each other our next challenge.

I admit, I was nervous as to what Marlene would set for me.  We recently had a conversation about my personal Comfort Zone after a comment from a friend that she didn't believe much in life was outside my comfort zone.  I knew Marlene was taking  mental note of that so I fully expected it to be something really challenging to "up the ante" and really push me.

Marlene and I never stop talking when we are together.  The deep and meaningful discussions we always have about everything and anything are one of the many things I cherish in my friendship with her.  So when she mentioned what my next challenge was going to be, I knew it would have to be with her to push me even more.

She challenged me to go on a 24 hour silent retreat but gave me the option of going alone, going with my husband or with her.  Going alone would have been a breeze for me as I am not one to strike up a conversation with a stranger anyway if I don't need to and am comfortable in my own silence.  Going with my husband would have been a bit of a challenge, how would I nag him if I had to be silent, lol!  Going with Marlene is going to be hard.  I knew I would be bursting to discuss things we see and the experience we were going through with her but having to wait 24 hours to do so would be challenging.

Giving it some thought I decided that it would be easier than I thought, just take a few good books and read the whole time, not so hard.  But then I stupidly asked Marlene for some parameters.   What could we bring, what we could do and if any level of communication was allowed, note passing etc.

NO BOOKS she said!!!  I kicked back at first and whined a little, I must admit as I am always reading when I can and couldn't stand the thought of missing the chance of all those quiet hours of reading.  Then I remembered the name of the challenge, The Comfort Zone Challenge, and realized that to really push that zone I would have to follow her rules.

I can journal, color, knit, meditate, prepare my meals, hike etc so have options.

Marlene went to visit the retreat to get a feel for it and sent me some pictures.

My comments on the pictures were "Looks lovely although it also looks like the set of a bad horror movie in the woods"!

Watch this space for how it goes in a few weeks.

Think about grabbing a friend of your own and challenging each other as well.

Not just a Giant Floating Head

So what do you do once you complete a comfort zone challenge with a friend?

You ask for another one, of course!

I mean, what could go wrong, am I right?

Hold my celery juice, Medical Medium! Maybe I should have thought this 

through a bit more.

If you are sensing some good-natured hesitation on my part then you 

sense correctly.

It’s only natural for version 2.0 to be of a steeper nature and so here 

we are. Hazel has been keeping a list of comfort zone challenges that 

would push me outside the familiar ... and she chose well because this 

one has me squirming way more than last time.

A little back story:

A few months back we tried flotation therapy (aka sensory deprivation 

tank). I didn’t anticipate it but it was a challenging experience for 

me. I wound up doing sensory deprivation “light” ... meaning I left the 

“lid” open and some light on. Closing the lid created an instant 

claustrophobic/panicky experience and since at the time ... there was no 

challenge involved... I just did it in a way I was comfortable.

Flash forward a few months later... we are debriefing the experience 

with our husbands over lunch. I made reference to my extreme discomfort 

at feeling like a “floating head” (no sense of touch, sound, light, etc. 

... you get the picture) and also being shut up inside something not 

totally dissimilar to a coffin. I most willingly admitted over lunch 

that I was indeed “afraid of dying” and this flotation tank definitely 

triggered that fear. Little did I know at the time that Hazel was 

listening VERY closely for the edges of my comfort zone. 😉

So, ladies and gents ... that’s my challenge. To re-enter the tank with 

lights off and lid closed - 100% for 45 minutes.

I considered declining the challenge because that is indeed an option 

however I realized that having some sort of breakthrough around this 

experience was actually of interest to me. I mean lowering the threshold 

of fear - that can be useful especially around the fear of dying since, 

well ... we all gotta do it at some point!

Hazel made a brilliant suggestion ... that if I did decline I ought to 

write a blog post about it to provide some sort of accountability. It 

was in thinking through the blog post that I came to the conclusion that 

there was MORE available to me in pushing through whatever the 

discomfort was than in writing the post. So here we are!

Round two - sensory deprivation tank - game on.

I am starting off by using a technique of altering my “language” around 

this experience. “The possibility that I might enjoy being in the tank.” 

By "re-wiring" my neurons around a new “story” I am hoping to open up 

the potential for new questions, inquiries and observations... and a new 

way of perceiving the entire experience.

I’ll be back to let you know how it goes! Support and encouragements 

welcome!

                

Medical Medium Liver Rescue by Anthony Williams

What if you could focus on one aspect of your well-being to transform all the others--and at the same time prevent health problems you didn't even know were lurking beneath the surface?

In today's world, we have no idea how many symptoms, conditions, and diseases are rooted in an overloaded liver. It's not only about liver cancer, cirrhosis, and hepatitis. Nearly every challenge--from pesky general health complaints to digestive issues to emotional struggles to weight gain to high blood pressure to heart problems to brain fog to skin conditions to autoimmune and other chronic illnesses--has an origin in an overloaded liver and can improve and heal when you harness the force of this humble organ.

Yes, I have jumped on the bandwagon and decide to see what the Medical Medium is all about. Myself and Marlene set this as our April Non Fiction book read challenge. There were some very good points made in this book and I certainly took away a lot of tips for improving by eating and fasting habits. He could have made the same points in half the time. Each chapter had a lot of repetition under different health issues but ultimately telling us the same thing. Will the people who need this the most actually read it, probably not as it gets a bit technical at times and, as mentioned above, is longwinded. Now to the author, I must say he came across, to me, as an unlikeable cocksure person. I do not believe and was disturbed by his claims of getting his information and guidance from a Spirit. It came across as rather preachy/Preacher at times and that everyone should believe him even without proof of his claims. I didn't like the tone he continually used to debunk Doctors, people who have spend years getting professional training unlike him who gets it from his Spirit! I do agree that Doctors are often too quick in prescribing a drug to "cure" an ailment when a change in diet or habits may have helped more but people need to be careful and make those changes under the care of their doctors. I am not a convert to his "cult" but can give him credit for some good ideas. If he toned it down a bit I would like him more but I guess that is his brand/gimmick.