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!