Last year was a tough one for me. I lost my father to an aggressive cancer and struggled to compute his sudden death. My grief made me numb. Tearless. Haunted by memories I wanted to forget. I went into coping mode, with no energy to process the change and all that I had lost.
Several months later, I knew I needed to do something about how I was feeling because apathy on that level is its own kind of pain. I’ve done journey work in the past, from gongs to breathwork and shrooms, and have found them to offer gentle healing. So when Jeanae Dumas, founder of One Flow Yoga and Wellness Social Club in Cape Town, invited Jeannie and I to join one of their signature sauna journeys, I didn’t hesitate to accept.
Little did I know that nothing I had done before could prepare me for this powerful 60-minute wellness experience that combines thermal therapy (two fifteen minute sauna sessions and a ten minute guided breathwork and cold plunge session) with light, sound, and aroma therapies.
What makes it so impactful? Think of it as a sensorial challenge that pushes you to the outer limits of physical and mental comfort. An experience in temperature polarities that forces you to feel. One moment you’re hot, too hot. Then cold, too cold. You go from sweating and stomping and punching the air in the sauna to goose-pimpled and gasping during the ice bath, your skin burning from the freeze.
There is nothing random about it. Our sauna journey in Cape Town was set to an intentional playlist; the meditations are structured around movement and, best of all, the guidance is themed. During our journey, we worked to Reflect, Release and Re-imagine our friendships, spirituality and love. It felt significant to me that this was exactly what I needed.
As the heat got hotter and the music got louder; and our group sweated and breathed and moved together, it became impossible not to feel part of a collective. Part of something bigger. Joined in the joy and the pain of being human. So much so that by the time Jeanae smashed a final snowball into the sauna coals, releasing an evaporation of fragrant oils that sent every nerve-ending into vibrational overload, I felt connected to a powerful lightness of being. That weighted sadness started to lift. I took my first steps out of the quicksands of grief.
This was the best kind of natural high: I skipped home, beaming at my family, then jumped into bed and slept soundly for ten hours before waking up, energised by the potential of a new day. A new day for living. A new day for loving.
For more info, visit One Flow Yoga and Wellness Social Club or follow them on Instagram.
