 In preparing something to talk about for this conference, we wanted to include something from the book we just finished writing. I was having a lot of trouble finding something I thought would work real well. I had four paragraphs from a chapter on tank design. After looking through all the chapters a couple of times, nothing else came up. Finally something popped up. In the book, we have a small piece that we put at the front and the back of the book. We really want you to hear this. This Samadhi philosophy defines our approach to the important job of relating to floaters in a center. It's two paragraphs. Lee gives you the first and I'll do the second. This is the first one and what you were going to mention is any time along the way, including the end, if anybody wants to come in with extra questions, we're totally open to that. This is the opening says we recognize our obligation whether we provide silence, another appointment, listening, responding, or something we haven't thought of. We're there to listen and help them explore their experience if that's what they're interested in doing. We realize that we best serve our customers and ourselves by reflecting choosefully in our own behavior the fundamental positive qualities of the tank experience itself. Our job is to remain open-minded, unbiased, centered, supportive, relaxed, personally responsible, and energetically aware. Really working in this way keeps our work a source of personal growth and evolution. The tank is a general purpose tool, not a design for something in particular. It is a powerful instrument for change, an environment for learning about oneself in whatever way one wishes without distraction. It does not tell us what to do, and neither should we presume to tell others what their experience should be, either before or after their float. We trust in the inherent capacity of the individual to discover what is best for themselves. We believe that the most effective experience occurs when initiative and power is left with a person, and we are there to encourage that. After floating, people are often in the present moment with the glow of present time, a sense of peace and well-being. We welcome this state. Lee, tell us about your mother. My mother was not afraid of the dark or the water. She was born and raised in New York City and is an avid ocean swimmer. She often came to visit us in California in February. We both have birthdays in that month. I can remember driving her to Venice Beach to swim. My three kids and I would stand on the beach in our winter coats, and she would stride into the water and swim joyously. At the time of this story, I was married, living in Los Angeles, and my mother's rule was that I could do no wrong. Everything I did was wonderful. She was sweet, caring, wouldn't hurt a fly. She came to visit when I had just become a partner in what she said was a very different kind of business. She knew I never did anything bad, and my new partner was sort of unusual, and it was called a flotation tank. I had one in my house, and we knew she would love it since it has to do with water. So we thought we would introduce her to it. I told her about it and that she could use it whenever she was ready, however, within the next two days, because she's only going to be here that long. We had the tank in our home office. I showed my mother how to let me know when she wanted to get out, of course, first I put her in, and I would lead her to the shower. I showed her exactly how the tank door opened and closed, had her feel its weight, left her light on in the room. My mother got into this flotation tank. What happened? I got into this flotation tank in less than five minutes. I heard the getting-out sound in the tank room. I came to lead my mother to the shower, and she remarked, she was so happy to have tried it, her hair was still dry. She was smiling and saying, what a wonderful time she had. It was kind of scary in all that darkness. How often do I use it? I reminded her that we call it a flotation tank, since you can float in there. The rest of her visit was happy. My next story is about a woman who came to float at our Beverly Hills Center once a week for seven months. That center was a little better than a year old. When her son was four years old, she began to bring him along. She was very interested in having her son feel safe and happy around water. She got permission from us, and she brought him to play in the space while she floated. He liked the place they brought his stuff to play with. She told him it was okay for him to speak with, and she was able to keep her weekly floats in place the way she wanted it to happen. It was a first for us and for them. She floated every morning, not every morning, but she floated in the morning, 10 a.m. for one hour. The four other tanks were full with long-time floaters. The open room was large, and her son was the only one in the room playing and had plenty of space. He had her permission to enter the tank room when he was asked to do that, and he had made friends with me many times when he had come with his mom. He would speak with me, and I would take him back to the tank room. He could leave on his own and let me know he had come out. He was working well. He had many favorite toys that kept him happy. He was very easy to get along with. It was about the sixth time he came. He packed up his toys and told me he wanted to go into her room. That was agreed upon. I walked him into the tank room where she was floating. It was a long hallway past the bathrooms from the entry room to the areas of the five tank rooms, and she always used room number three. I brought Henry back to room number three, and he didn't come out until he came out with his mother when her time was up. I greeted them when they came out and spoke to his mother privately, as soon as I could. It was the first time we had tried that at our center. She said he climbed into the tank with her and stayed with her quietly for the last 20 minutes of her float. Then I took some time to speak with them. He had said many times earlier that he didn't want to go into the tank. He was afraid of the dark. I asked him about his fear of the dark, and he said, oh, that's the bad dark. It was the good dark inside that tank today. He liked it. He was our youngest floater. It was great fun talking to a four-year-old fresh out of the Samadhi tank. So the next person is my best friend. This is Shorier. She was not an adventurer. When she or I was going to have a tank in my house, she was very scared. And she knew it was something she did not want to do. She didn't want me or any of her friends to know she was afraid. She thought she would do it for a few minutes, make an excuse, get out quickly. She knew I was sleeping town after she got in. And Bob, who had floated many times, would stay with her until she was ready to get out. Once she got into the tank and played in the skin temperature solution a while, she became more and more comfortable, relaxed, and stayed in for close to two hours imagining it had been one half hour. She was very comfortable when she checked with Bob to find out if it was OK for her to get out. She was filled and was especially happy to learn that her experience in skin temperature water was so good. It ended with her wanting to use this floating in her life. This is a common experience with people who thought they were very afraid, afraid of what could happen in the tank. These stories are some examples of our early experience as float providers. Now something from our chapter on design. The purpose of this chapter is to share the thinking process that resulted in the design of our tank with some technical details on how we achieved some of the features. In our chapter on fears, we mentioned that Dr. Lilly requested that we prepare everyone to deal with a panic attack while floating prompted by an experienced floater, his wife, bursting out of the tank in a panic. It could happen to anyone. Also, he said it is most important to make sure everyone knows to use the tank in a way that is comfortable for them. It is important to know that senses operate in a changing environment. When we're still, our body slightly heats the surrounding solution. In order to remove all experience of temperature, we have to remain still until that has happened. In the tank, our body lies at the intersection of liquid below and gas above. If the temperature is comfortable and we wait a number of minutes until we were able to let go of that intersection, what we're floating in and what is above us is experienced as one and the same. When there are no distractions, we can let go of our body and become just a point, a point of consciousness to be, to do, to go anywhere. When there are distractions, we're tied to the here and now, the reality we all know. In order to remove all distractions, we have to remove our experience of gravity, all light, outside sources of sound and temperature. Next, I'm going to tell you about my oldest daughter, Lori, who has been helping us to edit the book. She has been a huge help and we're very grateful for her contribution. By the way, it was something we didn't know. I, her mother, had forgotten that she had graduated with a master's degree in English. So she knew all about editing books and so on and I had forgotten that. The way that she helps us illustrates kind of the way that we work. As a context, I had a stepsister who several years ago had not handled her upsetting relationship with my mother. Lori took me on several trips to my sister in the hopes we could help her resolve that relationship. Glenn, you want to say this? Lori had her own issues with her mother and was at least ultimately thankful to have the opportunity to process some of them on these trips. This helped their relationships sufficiently to allow Lori to assist us in the incredible way she does now. Having learned to talk from her mother, they really spoke the same language, a real asset. So as Leah and I were needing to interface with each other and we're having difficulty, we turned to Lori to help us put two very different visions into the book in a way that worked. When Lori joined us to work on the book by telephone using Google Docs in the midst of the coronavirus shelter at home, it was understood that we both wished for her to help us with our wording. If we didn't like proposed changes, it was always easy to say so. She never took offense. She was so good at taking my convoluted sentences, rearranging them and turning them into something clear. Often, the three of us could work on a sentence for quite a while after suggesting more than a dozen possibilities. One of us would offer a suggestion that we all immediately knew was perfect. I sometimes wondered if the book was already written somewhere in the ether and we just had to discover it. I can read a little more. When she comes across a piece that she feels, where did you go? We just lost our place. Okay, we'll find it. Excuse us a moment. Oh, it's coming. Yeah. When she comes across a piece that she feels is no good, this can always be tricky. There's a little pause, which I grew to appreciate as her working on what to say without creating an upset. Then she's able to tell us what she thinks with diplomacy. The most incredible part of her work was how she was able to stay empty like the tank. She had no agenda other than supporting us having the best book with my glance and my visions presented in the best possible way. She always left herself and her ideas and points of view out of the process. Sometimes, when the three of us were trying to come up with what we wanted to say, the three of us would be quiet for more than a minute. And Lori would just wait patiently. Most people would start to offer help. She never ever did that. We were so blessed to not have her distracting us. It was totally amazing. You want to go on? Other times what she was reading was not sufficiently clear to her. So she had to probe and explore to understand what we were trying to communicate. On several occasions, she even helped us go deeper into an area to understand something about the situation that was actually new to us. I do not feel this quite communicates the enormity of her contribution because I think she can walk on water. Yes. See, if I say how great she is, it isn't really understandable. This whole approach to working with us was a total reflection of how we work with a floater coming out of a tank. Personal agenda, no editorializing, no trying to help, no showing how smart we are simply being empty like the tank. The book is five or 10 times as good as it otherwise would be. If there are parts that aren't great, they are our creation. She couldn't correct everything. The way Lori works with us is exactly how our Samadhi philosophy is, which is. We recognize our obligation to make ourselves available to people after their use of the tank. Whether we provide silence, another appointment, good listening and good responding or something we haven't thought of. We're there to listen and help them explore their experience if that's what they're interested in doing. We realize that we best serve the customer and ourselves by reflecting truthfully in our own behavior, the fundamental positive qualities of the tank experience itself. Our job is to remain open-minded, unbiased, centered, supportive, relaxed, personally responsible and energetically aware. Really working in this way keeps our work a source of personal growth and evolution. Are you going to go? The tank is a general purpose tool. Thank you. Not the design for something in particular. It is a powerful instrument for change. An environment for learning about oneself in whatever way one wishes without distraction. It does not tell us what to do. And neither should we presume to tell others what their experience should be. Either before or after their float. We trust in the inherent capacity of the individual to discover what is best for themselves. We believe that the most effective experience occurs when initiative and power is left with the person. And we are there to encourage that. After floating, people are often in the present moment with the glow of present time. A sense of peace and well-being. We welcome this state. Anyone floating, interested in floating, afraid to float, interested in starting a float center, or already working in one, might enjoy reading our new book. Do out in November. Floating in quiet darkness. The end.