In a recent guest post here, Barbara Dunkel writes about the sauna experience as:
“…unity of body and soul.. as you give yourself to the heat and steam”.
Give yourself.
Surrender.
We are wired to never surrender, never give up. Maintain control.
Perhaps those that enjoy sauna have cracked some subtle code. Giving ourself to the heat and steam is a lesson in surrender. When we surrender we actually become free. When we are free, we allow unity of body and soul. (nirvana?).
All this may be heavy to digest.
A simpler way to look at it is, perhaps, from the negative. Those that “don’t like” sauna seem to be those that don’t like giving up control. “I feel claustrophobic.” or “I don’t like to be too hot.” Ok, but could these objections be another way of saying, “I cannot surrender myself in a sauna”?
And that’s ok because it doesn’t have to be sauna. Some surrender themselves in church, or on top of a mountain, but I doubt ever at a shopping mall. Wherever it is,
It feels great to surrender.
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Church, sailing and sauna
But not necessarily in that order
Another wild pitch on the topic: 15 million viewers have been drawn to Brene Brown’s TED talk on vulnerability, the first cousin to surrender.
Sauna is good training ground.
link: https://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability