Why I float: Yamina Lyara

The healing powers of water

Ever since I can remember I have been charmed by the endless healing quality water has and its calming and rejuvenating effect on me. Moreover, water has always been here to teach me, to remind me, to soothe me, to help me to accept change as an inevitable and perpetual flow, accept the impermanent of all things that has form. To find floating as a practise was only a matter of time.

To float means simply to be. To observe and honour the wonders of the present moment. When I first heard about floating, I was instantly intrigued, being someone highly sensitive to my surroundings, therefore being somewhere completely excluded from all the stimuli from our high paced external world sounds like heaven to me. And then I just laid there – surrendered. With the biggest and brightest smile on my face, astonished by the immediate impact I could sense, a wave of energy moving through me, a state of bliss, ever so connected to my breath that anchors me in the precious moment.

The gift of weightlessness

I joined the Floatworks family with the highly anticipated opening of the new centre in Angel thus the beginning of my regular floating practise. As a dancer and movement artist naturally, my interests revolve around the body, how to create a deeper connection, how to improve performance and endurance, yet simply how to better take care of this vessel that moves us through each second of our lives. Floating gives me the space to do that. It strengthens and expands the ability to check in with my body more honestly and to nurture it by presenting the gift of weightlessness. For one hour my body is gently carried by the water and doesn’t need to bring up any energy, it is completely free and allowed to tap into its innate capability to heal from this source of inner intelligence.

The power and beauty of silence

Floatation therapy helps me to have a better insight of what’s going on, yet not only on a physical level. Whatever I bring into the pod, it’s the time and the space to be brutally honest with myself – a space with no external noise distracting you, you are able to see and observe very clearly the chatter that’s happening in our own mind. To not only just see it but meet it with compassion and acceptance. Being very curious and passionate about our own potential and the exploration of our consciousness the pod offers me a tool to dig deeper and create a little bit more space every time I’m in there. As much as I enjoy the time during the session, what happens afterwards is often just as fascinating and leaves me filled with an immense feeling of gratitude of simply being alive. A deep sense of peace. I feel my heart space fully open and a flow of unconditional love moving within and out of me.

I float because because I believe in and experience the power of stillness. When everything moves, with stillness you see. Floating for me is coming home.