Have you ever walked into a room and immediately felt that something was off?
Nobody has said anything to you, Nothing has actually happened.
But someone is irritated. Someone is complaining. Someone is talking too loudly or has brought an energy into the space that you would quite happily have left outside.
And suddenly, you can feel yourself joining them.
The sauna is an interesting and sometimes a complicated place to notice this.
There aren't many places left where we sit in a small room with people we don't necessarily know, without a phone in our hand or somewhere else to look.
Most of the time, it's wonderful but sometimes, someone annoys you.
They talk too loud.
They complain about the heat.
They open the door too often.
They gossip.
Their language is awful.
They bring a conversation into the room that you really don't want to be part of.
And before you know it, their experience has become yours.
But here's something the sauna can teach us:
Not everything in the room belongs to you.
Someone else's bad mood doesn't have to become your bad mood.
Someone else's urgency doesn't require your urgency.
Someone else's opinion doesn't require your response.
And someone else's behaviour doesn't always deserve your attention.
This is easier said than done, especially in such a small space.
Our attention naturally moves towards disruption. We notice the loud voice rather than the quiet room. The irritating behaviour rather than the warmth on our skin. The one thing that's wrong rather than the ten things that are right.
But attention can be brought back.
In the sauna, you can practise.
Feel the heat, notice your breath, close your eyes, feel your feet on the timber.
Listen to the quieter sounds underneath the loud ones.
Try and bring things back to yourself.
Not in a way that pretends the other person isn't there, and not because poor behaviour should always be tolerated. Sometimes a boundary needs to be set. Sometimes something needs to be said. Sometimes you simply need to dob on them to the staff.
But there is a difference between
responding to something and carrying it.
And perhaps that's where the bigger lesson begins.
Because outside the sauna, there will always be difficult people.
The impatient driver.
The grumpy child that’s absolutely starving.
The stranger who is unnecessarily rude.
The family member who knows exactly which button to press.
The person having a terrible day who seems determined to hand a little piece of it to you.
We can't control who enters the room.
We can't control what mood they arrive in.
We can't control whether they behave exactly as we would like them to.
But we can become more discerning about what we pick up and carry with us.
Maybe protecting our energy isn't about building an invisible wall around ourselves.
Maybe it's simply learning to recognise:
This is theirs. I don't need to make it mine.
There is something powerful about being able to remain soft without absorbing everything around you.
To notice without reacting. Maybe this trigger is something that needs to be addressed in you?
To have boundaries without becoming hard.
To let someone else's storm pass through the room without deciding you have to stand in the rain.
To be compassionate.
And sometimes, the best thing you can do is return your attention to what is actually happening in your body and the knowledge that this moment will pass.
Perhaps that's one of the unexpected lessons of sitting in a hot room with strangers.
You don't get to choose everyone who sits beside you.
You only get to choose what you take with you when you leave.
Not everything deserves your energy.
And not everything in the room belongs to you.
Warmest and with love
Brigid
The Neighbourhood Sauna acknowledges the Whadjuk Noongar people as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we gather here in Walyalup, now known as Fremantle. We pay our respects to Elders past and present and honour their enduring connection to land, waters and skies. This always was, and always will be, Aboriginal land.