Floating Toward Healing Together
A LITTLE JOY FOR YOUR TIMELINE BY BLCK PRESS
n North Minneapolis, wellness is taking on a new form—one that moves, resonates, and quite literally floats.
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At V3 Sports, yoga instructor, comedian, and community wellness advocate Bruce Williams is leading a new offering: floating sound baths. The concept combines gentle flotation on the water with the deep, resonant tones of a traditional sound bath, and the result is an immersive healing experience unlike anything else in the Twin Cities.
A Practice Rooted in Intention
For Bruce, who grew up on the Northside, the focus of the floating sound bath is simple: intentional healing.
“So many of us are overwhelmed,” he explains. “We have mandatory focuses in our lives: work, stress, surviving. That can lead to depression, anxiety, and burnout. When we intentionally make space for wellness, even for a short time, it recharges us so we can go back into the world with a clearer mind.”
This concept is also part of a movement called healing justice, which is the work of repairing the emotional, physical, and relational harm that prevents Black and brown communities from fully accessing and exercising their civic freedoms.
“Caring for myself is not self indulgence,” poet and Civil Rights activist Audre Lorde once said, “It is self preservation, and that is an act of political warfare. If we are too sick, exhausted, self harming and hopeless, we are easier beings to control in the servitude of oppressive systems and institutions.”
For the Skeptics
“Just Try It.”
Soundbathing as a tool for healing
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Sound bathing is already known for reducing stress, lowering blood pressure, and activating the parasympathetic nervous system. But floating sound bathing introduces water into the equation and that, Bruce says, changes everything.
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“Water intensifies sound. Being in a sound bath is one thing, but being on the water, your whole body becomes the instrument,” says Bruce. “ Our bodies have certain systems that respond directly to sound, and so when they hear a certain frequency or a certain tone, it activates biochemistry in your body that maybe tells you to chill or tells you that you're safe. And when you feel safe, you can make a better choice.​
Bruce says that newcomers often arrive unsure of what to expect. And that’s okay.
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“All I ask is, come in with an open mind. And then afterwards, tell me you don’t feel more present. More rested. More at ease,” he says.
Participants have reported everything from deep meditation states to emotional release.
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“I felt real peace in my mind, and I actually ended up falling asleep,” said first-time floater and owner of Plant Bar Cafe, Philip McGraw. “Even with the many people in the space, I still felt safe, held, and regulated enough to relax deeply.”
“The atmosphere of just the BIPOC community coming together to get healing was amazing to me,” said award winning filmmaker Bianca Rhodes. “I have experienced sound baths a few times, but being on the water was so different. And the gentle yoga was relaxing!”
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Some float out in silence; others share tears and breakthroughs. Bruce calls the visible wave of calm that follows each session “the melt.”​
“People come in kind of tense. But when they leave, they look like a wet rag—just soft, relaxed, relieved. And that matters, because we don’t know what they’re going back out into. If they meet the world from a grounded place, that can change everything.”
Collective Healing
Photo by Imanim Mansfield
While individuals benefit, Bruce says the group setting is key.
“It’s like a choir. One voice is beautiful. But seventy voices together? That energy hits different,” he says. “When a room full of people chooses rest at the same time, the rest becomes amplified.”
Though he leads the sessions, Bruce admits something surprising: he hasn’t actually floated during one yet.
“I’ve been producing them. I just knew it would be powerful,” he says. “And we’re about to be everywhere, low-key.”
He laughs, but then turns serious: “There’s so much importance placed on doing things, hustling, moving. But it’s just as important to not do or to undo. Rest is part of the work.”
Two more floating sound baths, sponsored by the Minnesota Healing Justice Network, are coming soon, on November 30 and December 28 at V3 Sports. Tickets are on sale now. In a world that demands constant motion, Bruce is offering an invitation to slow down, float, listen, and return to ourselves, which is a powerful and necessary action to take during these times.
Photos by Imanim Mansfield
