Fluid Presence™ is Warm-Water Holistic Therapy, which quiets the mind, relaxes the body and opens the heart. Through its watery transmission, Fluid Presence™ offers a gateway to our innate wisdom, healing power and provides us with resources with which to move more fluidly in life.
Entering the water sanctuary is like slipping into warm silk. The water wraps itself around you in a warm embrace and gently nurtures your body. You are gradually invited to rest back while floated and attended to in a peaceful, womb-like world. Gentle, graceful motion carries your body, mind and spirit into deep relaxation. Movement and stillness dance in harmony with the breath as you are invited to completely let go. The water embodies a living, clear mirror reflecting you back to yourself in sacred Awareness. The sanctity of this quiet, water world becomes a resonant chamber of heightened sensations and inner listening.
Each Fluid Presence™ session is tailored to what is alive in you and each session is unique. Together, we will reach into the heart of what wants to be explored and open ourselves to be guided on the journey that is right for you. Whether this is to stay at the surface of the water, or to explore going underwater, great care is taken to sensitively introduce you to this profound modality.
What are Fluid Presence™ Sessions helpful for?
The therapeutic effects of Fluid Presence™ Warm-Water Holistic Therapy can be profound and life changing.
A session can be an exploration of your Being on any level whether physical, mental, emotional, spiritual or situational. Anyone can derive benefit from Fluid Presence™ Warm-Water Holistic Therapy.
Sessions can be particularly supportive for:
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- Releasing pain, patterns, trauma, outdated beliefs, recurrent life themes
- Stress reduction
- Increased well-being & joy
- Liberating fixated identification
- Deepening connection with ourselves
- Releasing blocked life-force energy
- Navigating difficult emotions
- Post Trauma – Reassociating with the body in a healthy way
- Deepening connection to breath
- Reconnecting with inner wisdom and clarity
- Difficult life transitions (relationships, professions, “empty nest”)
- Dealing with loss & grief
- Healing wounds of separation and isolation
- Depression
- Insomnia
- Addictions
- Physical pain, discomfort and tension
- Gentle injury recovery
- Healing water phobias and near-drowning experiences
- Empowering an intention
- Meditative inquiry with an urgent concern
- Pregnancy
- Fear of death
- Increased creativity and inspiration
- Increasing spontaneity and authenticity
- Increased range of motion & flexibility
- Meditation practice & deepening inner Silence
- Developing & increasing trust
- Connecting with Source
“It’s almost as if it was like a birth experience into the no-self that was never born!” ~ Tom Rhodes
“I really felt like I was born anew or born again after the session. I know this is not your religion but you baptized me! By the Course in Miracles definition being ‘born again’ is to recognize your Self, the Spirit Self. Thank you for supporting that process for me. I have been writing at least one poem a day. My appreciation for life has increased exponentially!” ~ Thomas Dewey
“My heart is opened, in silence and peace.” ~ Salima Juliana Lara Resende, Psychologist, Advanced BodyTalk Practitioner
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“Deep gratitude for the healing touch and your words. Somehow you say things in a way that moves my heart, which is what I’m always praying for. . . I cannot tell you how incredibly well I feel since receiving the session. I have taken almost no pain medicine and my breathing is easy, no wheezing. I woke up this morning with a profound sense of peace and well-being at the cellular level” ~ Anthea
“Words are insufficient to express the session. I am not sure where I was/went but I do know that I was in a place of enormous beauty and peace. There were times when I did not want to take another breath because the place that I went to was so delicious. Thank your for doing this sacred work!” ~ Paul Flicker M.D.
“It was a magical journey through a whole kaleidoscope of emotions and inner movements, releasing blocked energy, expanding my awareness and nurturing my entire Being. Each submersion felt like dying and being reborn, showing again and again that death is only a passage into the light.” ~ Guido Ryckaert
“The healing work that we’ve done together on my body has profoundly affected me on all levels of my Being. You have been so trustworthy and safe for me that I have been able to breakthrough and heal areas that have been waiting for a long time. I understand that this is happening because I am ready and I also know that to find someone who can help me do it is a miracle. Thank you.” ~ Faith
“As one who comes from the northern plains where stoicism and keeping emotions and comments in check are the norm, I was really surprised how quickly you were able to get through that shell and make me feel comfortable and willing to be more open. Your ability to establish a connection elevated a warm-water therapy experience from good to one that puts the client in a dimension of being at one with the water, air, and another being.” ~ John
“To Shantam who loved the child in me and sensed the insecure, frightened part of me and made it sacred just to be as I am — touching me at the source of my vulnerability — the fear of being safe while going underwater was like going out into the world and witnessing my openness with tears that flow into joy! Thank you.” ~ Sharri
What’s a Fluid Presence™ Session Like?
We begin on land discussing what brings you for a session . . . (Read More)We begin on land discussing what brings you for a session and if there is anything in particular that you would like to explore. If it is your first session, we will also review your intake form and health history. Upon entering the pool of warm water, we will continue with meditative inquiry and allow the greater intelligence to guide the way. We will give space to allow entrainment to the water’s fluid transmission in synergy with
evoking the molecular and energetic structure of the water to form itself around and reflect your intention. Most people report that at some point, they become aware of the water becoming the primary facilitator gently coaxing forth their deepest presence.
You will be seamlessly guided and softly eased into being securely supported while lying on the surface of the water in distinctive “holding positions”. You will be given space and time to sense into the experience of being supported by the water and feel the buoyancy of your own breath gently moving your body. You will discover the extraordinary quality of pristine silence that this unique healing environment offers. Depending on what we have discussed and what reveals itself, a session might include massage, breath encouragement, structural release, energy work, dynamic movement, Biodynamic Cranial Touch, timeless stillness, energetic releases, meridian holds, sound or color therapy, and potentially even further dialoging and inquiring.
One of the most powerful aspects of Fluid Presence™ warm-water therapy is an attention to the breath rarely experienced in any other modality. It becomes the giver’s meditation to empathetically tune in, support and encourage the receiver to relax into a deeper awareness of their breath, body & beyond. This degree of breath connection and presence elicits a quality of rapport between giver and receiver, which many report having seldom experienced before. A profound level of trust and surrender can then become the key to safe passage through the doorway between the two worlds above and below the water’s surface.
If you choose to slip on a nose clip and go under the water in peaceful harmony with your breath, you will feel a more heightened and palpable connection to the motion of breathing throughout every cell of your body. I can’t tell you how many clients have said that they “don’t breathe” throughout the day or wish they could breathe more deeply. When the breath is attended to and physically supported in such a pleasurable environment the nervous system wants to cooperate. Breath connection is an effective and powerful tool to support the flow of energy in the body and more mindfulness overall.
Each session is offered as an integrative meditation, a living, unfolding dance between stillness and movement. It is not uncommon to quite effortlessly realize that we are in truth, unlimited spiritual beings and find new joy in our unique manifestation in form.
We complete the session with a conscientious, gentle transition back to terra firma giving your body time and space to reorient to the upright point of reference. Depending on what your unique pilgrimage reveals, we may explore possibilities for how what you accessed can be integrated into your life on land. At times, out of our shared “field,” it may be obvious that there are some areas to bring more awareness to and meditations or practices may be offered as “homework.”
“I am honored to share Fluid Presence™ with you and support you in accessing your own innate wisdom and ability to love, heal and live from a place of wholeness and completeness. This is a return to the heart, a return to the innocence of who is underneath whatever beliefs you may have held about yourself. Remembering who you truly are is rediscovering the freedom, joy and ease of your True Nature. From here, your life, your purpose, your work – everything – becomes an inspired flow.”
Session Information
1 Hour Sessions are $150 – $250 Sliding Scale (prices vary according to venue)
Longer sessions are available at a rate of $30 per 15 minutes
Students fulfilling requirements for Fluid Presence™ Provider & Aquatic Bodywork Modalities $120
This includes dialog and integration time. Longer or shorter sessions are available upon request. Receiving warm-water therapy can be very powerful and have profound effects so it wise to give yourself plenty of time after a session to maintain a slow pace. There are decks to lie or sit on at PremShala and a trail down to a private lake for meditative walks and quiet contemplation.
Many clients travel from afar to immerse themselves in the work and achieve maximum benefit. Contact Shantam to plan a personal retreat and schedule multiple sessions during your visit.
“I travel 4,000 miles every year to spend time exploring my “being” at the Water Temple. Time with Shantam is a sweet soul adventure with a healer, spiritual guide, channel of divinity, and Goddess that will “take you home”…right to the center of your heart. Don’t miss this one”! ~ Dr. Nick Gargala, M.S.S.W., C.S.W. Louisville Kentucky
Various levels of accommodation are available at PremShala, and nearby Harbin Hot Springs, and Spirit Lake B&B or by booking through Air B&B.
Shantam also gives sessions in other locations such as the Bay Area, the greater Los Angeles area, New York, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, San Diego and various other locations where pools can be found. Please see the Calendar or Contact Shantam with inquiries.
To find out more about Fluid Presence™ sessions, taking a class or scheduling one at your location, Contact Shantam or check out the Calendar and Course, Events & Retreats.
For those who may feel shy about stepping into such unfamiliar territory, the following is a very honest account from a first time receiver.
“It was amazing. At first it feels strange. You don’t know what to do with yourself, lying back in the water, allowing someone to do absolutely everything for you. You have to trust them so much and when you finally do trust, relax and lay back, your senses are enhanced and you can’t help but smile. : )
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As I began to feel more and more safe, I went further and further into relaxation. I felt everything and was aware of everything. The relaxation was growing and becoming so deep so quickly I thought I might take a nap. Also in the beginning I felt self-conscious. How did I look to everyone around me? Probably like a crazy smiling buffoon but even if I did I stopped caring and stopped trying to hold back the smiles, as it was impossible anyway. I surrendered and when I did. . . .it was beyond words.
Thinking of how strange this was didn’t matter anymore. All that mattered is the tension exiting my body and the deep relaxation I had never felt before but craved deeply inside all along without my knowing. Before the session, I had been agitated, defensive and 100% protective but afterwards everything was gone. And afterwards the need to snap and criticize and analyze I saw it for the waste of time and energy that had been in the first place. I felt sort of (what I imagined the feeling to be) like a child being born into the world, even my voice felt new and I wasn’t exactly sure how to get a sound out!
And when being placed down it’s like the trust and responsibility of your body has to be rediscovered and moving your legs proves strange and new as if you hadn’t done it for years, not 1 hour and even then they were moving, just not of your own accord.
Everything also felt so soft and smooth and everything was so bright! It was like seeing the world with new eyes. In other words, I absolutely loved this experience and hope to do it again. I would recommend it to anyone even the happiest, most relaxed and unstressed person in the world! I am so happy. Thank you, thank you, and thank you oh so much. ~ Elizabeth
Tip to newcomers/first timers:
“Don’t be scared and just trust! Also in the beginning you can’t stop thinking about anything/everything but amazingly soon hopefully at some point you do and the black darkness and quiet of your mind isn’t so intimidating. It is comforting and welcoming. It is something many have never truly experienced — 100% relaxation. Could help with writers block! Helps with everything. It is like the god of non-ingested medicines.” ~ Elizabeth
“I’ve always felt that your work helped me to heal my back. I was hobbled for 18 months and had trouble walking. My back was bent with scoliosis and stenosis and I was using my putter for a cane. Although we did not do a lot of treatments, I felt like the session was the turning point in getting my back spasms to stop and allow the healing process to begin. Now I am back playing golf and healthy as a 18 year old Swede.” ~ Steve Terre, Owner Owner, Sel de la Terre