Emily, my current-but-soon-to-be-former boss at the yoga studio where I work, pulls up in front of my house and sends me a text, “Here!” 

I step out of my townhouse into the late August heat, lock my door, toss my bag into her car, and climb in.

“Cute shorts,” she says.

“Thanks!” I reply. 

They’re from the store—the other place where I work. The place where my heart burns when I see families come in to shop. The place where a lump forms in my throat when I fold the little girls’ clothes. The place where I stand in the basement and fill bins with items that need to be restocked and can let a tear fall, unseen. 

The place where I applied to work so I’d be out of my house and out of my head. But that doesn’t seem to be working.

I cannot stop thinking about him—the one who showed up in my doorway, married, who filled me with hope. Who said, “it’s fate,” and I believed that to be true—the divine explanation of why my husband left. So I could be with him instead.

But I’m not with him. 

“I don’t want anyone ever raising my kids but me,” he said, “A divorce right now would ruin them.” 

A month later he told me he wanted a life with me.

I didn’t know which version of him to believe.

Just like when my ex-husband left..

The shorts I’m wearing are from that place. I want to quit there too.

The yoga studio I’ve quit. I’ve already given Emily my notice.

“So… I wanna talk to you about something…” I said earlier this month, the week after I got back from Montana.

“You’re quitting, aren’t you?” she asked.

“Yes,” I replied.

“I knew it!” she exclaimed.

She felt it, when I got back from Montana. I was done, after just four months of working there.

“I knew when you got back from Montana you’d quit.”

She knew before that though. She probably knew back when I was talking to her that one time after the hot power yoga class I teach on Saturdays—one of the two classes I teach on Saturdays—when tears formed in my eyes. 

“It’s just so…exhausting,” I said, “Teaching this class, then having a short break to refuel and then teaching the other. I don’t know why it’s so difficult, physically.”

During those breaks between classes I’d drink a chocolate CorePower protein shake, walk to the neighboring grocery store and buy a grain bowl with chicken, rice, and veggies, eat half, and lay on the floor of the air conditioned yoga studio lobby to recover. 

Once, I posted a photo of myself like this to my Instagram stories. Within minutes, the one from my doorway replied with a flame emoji. 

I couldn’t resist.

“Want to come lay on the floor and eat snacks with me?” I asked.

“Yes,” he replied immediately.

I couldn’t resist him.

“What about if I add commas?” I flirted back. “Want to come, lay on the floor, and eat snacks with me?”

“God yes,” he replied.

I used to teach hot power yoga for years. But that was five years ago. I assumed I was just out of practice. So, I hydrated, and I fueled, and I rested when I could. 

Six months later Emily would say to me, “It was your body screaming to stop, because you had cancer. Two cancers. Your body already knew!”

In her car, on this particular August day—the day that would have been my eleventh wedding anniversary—I look out the window as she drives us to a recently-opened sauna and cold plunge place. The sauna and the cold plunge are her treat. 

“I can’t believe I’m going to do this,” I say in the car. I turn to her, “You know I’m just doing this so I can tell all these O2X guys I work with—all these special operations whatevers—that I’m tough too, right?” 

She laughs.

In O2X workshop, after workshop, after workshop I’d listen to these guys talk about the benefits of cold plunging, the benefits of sauna. Sauna I get. Sauna, I love. Sauna was a key element in repairing my mental health nearly 15 years ago when I was first diagnosed with depression and anxiety.

But a cold plunge? Not for me. I wear sweats and a hoodie when it drops to 68 degrees.

But I’ll do it. Just this one time. For the bragging rights. 

Plus, I need a distraction. I need to do something hard. I need to get out of my head.

“Besides,” I continue, “I kind of had a shit day yesterday.”

The day before, I met with a new therapist. “I’m recently divorced,” I told her, “I need to figure out who I am. I think I lost myself in my marriage. And,” I continued, “I made out with a married guy who was a friend and we had an emotional affair. I need you to help me stop obsessing over him.”

Right before my therapist and I met I had unfollowed him—the one from my doorway—on Instagram and removed myself as one of his followers. I deleted all of our DMs. I deleted all of our text messages. I thought about blocking his number. I’d never done this before—-cut someone out of my life. Not even my ex-husband.

I texted him after. I wanted to be nice. In case he noticed. 

No one likes to be abandoned, I thought.

“I just want to let you know I had to separate us on Instagram today,” I wrote. “I can’t handle seeing a life I want to be a part of so much, and am not. And I don’t like how I’m acting – posting stories just to see if you see them.” 

My body turned hot with shame as I typed that admission. But it was honest. And vulnerable. And seemed like the nice and kind thing to do. All things in alignment with my values—unlike everything else. It felt like the right thing.

He didn’t respond.

I stare out the window of Emily’s car. I don’t tell her why my day was shit. Instead, I talk trash about the people who can afford to be members at this sauna and cold plunge place.

“Who the fuck are the people that can spend so much money on something like this?” I ask. “Like, to recover after they spend, what, another 250 dollars a month on their fucking pilates club membership, or their fucking Peloton, or whatever the hell else these rich people do?”

I’m mad. At something.

When we arrive, the owner greets us. She gives us a quick tour and teaches us how to safely do this—sauna and cold plunge. Contrast therapy. Do twenty minutes in the infrared sauna, get out, shower off, then cold plunge. 

“Just get in fast. Without thinking about it,” she says. “Don’t stay in longer than two minutes at first.”  

She instructs us that when we get out of the cold plunge we should avoid getting in the shower or back in the sauna to warm up. 

“Do a few movements that activate the big muscles in your body. That’ll warm you back up,” she says. “Your body already knows what to do.”

I smile. I understand.

After the instruction, Emily and I walk over to the lockers and peel off our clothes, our bathing suits already underneath. We grab towels and walk into the sauna. An easy twenty minutes pass and we get out, rinse off in the showers, and walk over to the cold plunge.

I look down at the large silver tub secured into the corner. A digital temperature display sits at the end. Fifty four degrees. I look at the little timer. Two minutes. At most. That’s the goal. 

“You ready?” Emily asks.

“Absolutely not,” I reply.

But I step forward anyway and onto the little platform above the tub. I set my towel down and I sink in.

And it’s terrible.

And I curse.

And I can’t breathe.

And my body is gasping for air.

And it takes everything in me to remember what I’ve taught for years—when you’re stressed, exhale. 

I close my eyes. I place my head in my hands. I exhale. I keep breathing out and breath by breath a little piece of me softens.

I remember a conversation I had with My Unlikely Friend. He had just gotten back from a 41-day program for veterans. They had to cold plunge every day. He told me that in the beginning he’d get in the tub and tense up. Then, a few days later, he realized he needed to stop resisting. He let himself shiver.

“Intention:” he wrote in his journal that day, “I have to stop fighting myself.”

I open my eyes and look at the little timer.

Two minutes have passed.

I look up at Emily and exclaim, “I did it, I did it, I did it!”

I press myself up and out of the tub and grab my towel.

I do 10 squats and get a cup of tea.

She takes me home.

The next day I go back. I put my stuff in a locker and step into the sauna.

After twenty minutes, I step out, rinse off in the shower, pace back and forth for a few minutes to get up the nerve, walk over to the cold plunge and sink in.

And it’s terrible.

And I gasp.

And I close my eyes. And I take a strong breath out. And I place my head in my hands. 

And I breathe in through my nose and take a long exhale through gently pursed lips. 

And I repeat.

And I wait.

And a voice inside me says, “You’re ok. You are safe here.”

I open my eyes and look at the little timer.

Two minutes have passed.

I get out, do ten squats, get a cup of tea, and sign up for a membership.

That winter I would be diagnosed with two separate, unrelated cancers. An elaborate treatment plan would be laid out that would consume the better part of a year. Between healing surgical incisions and the cold sensitivity caused by chemotherapy, I wouldn’t be able to cold plunge throughout treatment. 

My new favorite coping skill would be taken away from me at the time I’d need it most. 

But what I came to realize was that even though I lost the modality, I didn’t lose the lesson.

About halfway through chemotherapy, during a check-in appointment, my oncologist asked me, “How’s the icing going?”

Icing was recommended to help prevent neuropathy, another common side effect of my chemotherapy that can cause numbness and tingling in the hands and feet. Icing was optional, but I had already lost so much. I didn’t want to lose the ability to feel my hands and feet, too.

So, during each infusion I wore gloves on my hands and booties on my feet that were lined with ice packs for the two hours I received the drug that could cause neuropathy. 

My mom and nurses would swap the ice packs out every 20-30 minutes to ensure I was always getting the coldest packs possible. Once secured, I would lie back in the recliner with my AirPods and listen to a playlist one of my O2X colleagues made for me. 

In my mind, I would start by running through a list of things I was grateful for. Then, I would tell myself over and over again: “You’re ok. You are safe. Your body knows what to do.”

So when my oncologist asked how the icing was going I said, “Good!”

“Oh yeah?” he asked.

“Yes!” I chirped. “It reminds me of cold plunging!”

“You did cold plunging?” he asked.

“Yes!”

“Did you like it?”

“I loved it.”

My Unlikely Friend knew about all the other things I was doing to cope that summer and fall, while I was plunging. When I told him about the two diagnoses he asked me quietly, “Do you think this whole time you’ve been training? Training for this?”

In that moment my gut said, yes.

If you liked this post, you may also like “I Did That”

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