Before there were rooms

Before Revival had a name, I was trying to understand why I felt so lost.

I could work hard, become completely involved in something and care about doing it well. I was also struggling with pain, sleep, anxiety and depression. There was a lot happening that somebody looking at my work would never have seen.

I'd been in and out of therapy since I was sixteen. Depression and anxiety were part of my life through much of my twenties. There were long periods of low self-worth, and I could be very hard on myself. I kept trying to find a way of feeling better and a direction that made sense.

I tried different courses and different interests. Engineering, computers, fitness, psychology, music. Some held my attention. Some I didn't finish. I was curious about a lot of things, but being interested in something and knowing where I was going were different matters.

When I talk about the story behind Revival, those years belong in it. They shaped what I was looking for long before I knew I would open a place of my own.

Sound was there long before the studio

Around 2009, I started listening to rain sounds, nature sounds and binaural beats. I was struggling with sleep and wanted something that might help me settle.

Then I began making sounds on the computer myself. Melodies, tracks layered with rain and white noise, things I could listen to at night. In 2010, I took a music production and radio broadcasting course.

I had a room in my parents' house that I'd soundproofed and filled with equipment. I could get completely absorbed in making something. Sometimes I'd still be there at four or five in the morning.

There was something in it that I loved. There was a cost as well. Staying up through the night wasn't helping my life, and my depression got worse during that time. Eventually I put the music production aside.

I didn't know then that sound would become such a large part of my work years later.

Nine years of shift work

I spent nine years working at a well-known manufacturing plant in Castletroy. Twelve-hour shifts, a month of days followed by a month of nights.

I cared about the job. I was a high-performing employee and got involved in different parts of the business. I trained across departments, worked with engineering and manufacturing teams, and became secretary of the sports and social club. Sometimes I came in on my days off to help with things.

I liked learning and having something to build or improve. There were people and parts of the work that mattered to me.

Alongside that, I was dealing with arthritis, disrupted sleep, anxiety, depression and burnout. I could spend a lot of my time off tired or sleeping. Those difficulties affected my wellbeing and, eventually, my performance too.

I was putting a lot into work while struggling with how I felt. Looking back, I didn't understand the full cost of that pattern while I was in it. I was getting through the next shift and trying to manage the rest of my life around it.

During a long period of poor sleep, the changeovers between days and nights were really affecting my mental health. I already knew about something called sensory deprivation, or floating. When I found out there was a place offering it in Cork, I booked a session.

Building Revival Float Rooms

I began working on Revival Rooms in 2018, while I was still working at the plant. In 2021, I left the job and opened Revival Float Rooms.

The idea was personal. I knew what it was like to be worn out, sore, anxious and unable to get the rest I needed. I wanted to create a place where people could take some time out, with floating and infrared sauna at the centre of it.

There was a long period of preparation before the doors opened. COVID restrictions and Level 5 lockdowns were part of that time. Rent and bills kept coming, there was work still to finish, and the loan money kept going down.

Opening a business can sound straightforward when it's reduced to a sentence. Living through that time meant delays, uncertainty and wondering whether it would work.

Even after opening, there was the builder to pay and the loan to repay. There were rooms to clean, calls to answer and all the ordinary work of keeping a place going.

Revival Float Rooms in Raheen gave me something I cared deeply about creating. It also brought responsibility and pressure of its own. I had changed my working life, and there was still a lot I needed to understand about myself.

Learning to notice what was happening

I'd heard about mindfulness while I was working at the plant. Later, taking a mindfulness course and practising at home gave me a different understanding of it.

At first, sitting down to practise could be uncomfortable. I'd follow my breathing, then realise I was planning something, worrying or replaying a conversation. Becoming aware of how often that happened was stressful in itself.

Over time, I became better at noticing and returning. I could begin to see patterns in the rest of my day too, including how my attention moved and how quickly I could get pulled into something else.

I've attended mindfulness days and retreats, and meditation remains part of my life and my sound practice. I'm still practising. Some days that comes more easily than others.

Revival Harmony and the books

By 2022, I was spending more time at retreats and exploring different practices. Sound kept appearing in those spaces, and I began paying closer attention to it.

I went to sound baths, bought crystal bowls and books, and started looking into training. The interest I'd put aside years earlier was becoming part of my life again, this time through instruments and working with people.

That developed into Revival Harmony, with a separate studio, sound sessions and courses for practitioners.

People seeing me guide a room now might not know how difficult I found that at the beginning. I could spend days preparing the space, getting the instruments, mats and lighting ready. Speaking to the people who came was harder.

In the early sound baths, I recorded meditations at home and played them during the sessions. I wasn't confident enough to guide them live.

That changed through doing the work. I learned to welcome people, speak in front of a group and trust my own voice. The confidence came gradually, alongside the nerves and the mistakes.

Now teaching practitioners is part of my work too. I can share what I've learned about preparing a room, listening, using the instruments and looking after the people who have chosen to be there. I'm still learning those things myself.

Writing has become part of that work as well. Some of it is about personal experience. Some is about the practical work of sound, and what I've learned through sessions, teaching and getting things wrong.

Over the last couple of years, that has included The Path to Harmony: 110 Lessons for Strength and Growth, Before the First Sound: Lessons for Sound Healing Practitioners and Understanding the ADHD Mind. I've also worked on gratitude books, cacao material and planners.

The subjects vary, but I recognise the same interest in them: trying to understand something well enough to explain it plainly to somebody else.

Writing makes me look more closely at my own account too. Sometimes I go back and change something because I understand it differently now. I have experience to share, and there are parts of my life and work I'm still figuring out.

Understanding myself differently

There was another part of this happening alongside the businesses.

Mindfulness and reading led me to question whether ADHD might explain some of the patterns I'd struggled with for years. Getting that question explored took time. A conversation with a psychologist and my later formal diagnosis were separate stages.

That understanding helped me reconsider things I'd treated as personal failings. I could become absorbed in a demanding project and still struggle to begin a small, ordinary job. I could care about something and leave it unfinished.

Running businesses hadn't removed those difficulties. It had given me work I valued, while leaving me with a lot to learn about managing attention, commitments and everyday life.

Where I am now

Revival Float Rooms, Revival Harmony and the books are all part of my life now. They grew through different interests and difficult periods, with a lot of work between the idea and the finished thing.

I value what I've built. I also still have days when I take on too much, struggle with ordinary tasks or find it difficult to stop working. Creating places where people can rest hasn't made rest effortless for me.

I run these businesses, and the services I offer sit alongside appropriate medical and mental health care. My experience is my own.

When somebody comes through the door, they don't need to tell us their whole story. They may want some quiet, warmth, a float, or time away from the things asking for their attention.

I know how much can be happening behind an ordinary working day. That experience remains part of how I approach the work.