Dance

I am feeling quite content as I sit here penning this post, getting more comfortable with not knowing what wants to express and actually being curious. This is a new feeling for me, almost a shift from expressing what I know to who I am. And who I am becoming seems to be someone who is getting more and more comfortable with not having a preset agenda for what to say and how to say it. It is a deeper level of trust in my presence as being more than enough, in fact just right, for any situation I walk into.

This is reminding me of a time when I used to walk into different groups and gatherings with a set gameplan for how I should be because of the stories I had written about myself and everybody else. Often, I would tell myself people don’t get me and probably don’t like me or that I need to impress. That posture would usually have me shrink more into myself or work harder to get noticed, either by shutting down, expressing harder or striving more.  Seemed to have either a one-up or one-down energy, rather than just being at ease with myself. 

It was not until I truly became more comfortable in myself with myself that I started enjoying the process of what I was doing. And that extended to activities that typically light me up. As an example, I love to dance and have been dancing for about 20 years. Started with Zumba and then extended into different dance styles like jazz, lyrical, latin ballroom, flamenco, etc. I think back and remember how I would feel inadequate, try to impress, feel judged and ridiculed, feel insecure, feel unwelcome. You name it. And it was in doing an activity that lit me up. To have my mind hijacked in this way of feeling insecure and less than was a painful experience. 

Of course these were stories I was creating from painful memories. Of course I was not doing any of this consciously. Of course I suffered from drama on steroids. I was feeling unsure of myself and my lens was that everyone was judging me, didn’t like me, ignored me, etc. Of course the way I was feeling determined my experience in those situations. It was as if I had a pimple on my nose and I felt everyone saw it, pointed at it, made fun of it and shunned me for it. Boy was I a prisoner of my own thoughts and their machinations!

Yet, I kept showing up to dance. 

That is probably the most visceral taste of being guided by a force which I could not name or comprehend at that time. The enlivenment from dance outweighed all the self-critical narratives that were playing in my mind. And it had to be so. Otherwise, I would have stopped. And it had to be grace. It had to be something that knew my journey depended on continuing to dance. It’s oxygen and provided a space for me to connect with a deeper part of myself. Many of my healing experiences were catalyzed by dance, in terms of what I wanted to do but couldn’t with my body. There was a part of me that convinced me that just because I am not trained as a dancer that I could still find a luxurious and meaningful connection with dance. Bottom line is I am wired to dance, so dance I must. And I am so glad I continue to do it. As Pink said, “I’m never gonna not dance again.”

I continued showing up to dance – initially from a place of curiosity and aliveness before I was sucked into a place of striving and perfectionism and eventually come out of that intense period into more of an embodied enlivenment and expression of dance where body, mind and spirit is one.

In this sense, dance seems to parallel deep inner work. There is usually an excitement when we first begin.  Then, it gets very, very hard when our stuff comes up. When we can work through our challenges because it is for something we care deeply about, there is then a sense of integration and depth. 

That is how I feel when I dance now. There is a much greater integration within myself, from the moment I walk into the dance studio until the moment I leave. When I step into dance class, I am so grateful for this delicious dose of oxygen. I no longer write stories about myself or anyone else. I am present and aware and appreciative of the teachers, people in the class and all the interactions and energies that are organically exchanged. Often, there are playful exchanges. I laugh a lot and I am almost always smiling because I am actually quite tickled with how my body likes to express. It’s fun for me to discover what wants to express and emerge from my body. 

My aspiration is to dance through life where I feel enlivened and there is a rhythmic flow, content and connected – a feeling of being at peace and on fire at the same time.  

Everyone has their dance, I think, even if the initial signs are not as clear. For some, it’s running. Others tennis. And so on. We first have to show up for it, for what lights us up, for what makes our lives make sense or in some cases tolerable. And then, if we show up, with awareness and intention for the thing that lights us up, things hidden from us may get revealed. One recent example I can share is I had a client who was running a race and running is his dance. He was not hitting his stride. His legs felt weak. He willed himself to run faster which further slowed him down. Because he has been working on himself in a conscious and intentional way, he was able to become aware that he was defaulting to his usual self-shaming approach to motivate himself to do better. As he saw that, he paused and felt a surge of confidence in his body which propelled him to his personal best. As we discussed this, I saw an image of him initially dipping his foot into the rabbit hole of shame-motivated discipline but because of the awareness and strength that has grown from his deep inner work, he was able to not go too deep and lose himself in the shame spiral. Instead, he caught himself and pulled himself out of the hole and because he was able to do that, he felt a surge of confidence in himself, both from the awareness that for him to do well that the running had to feel fluid and integrated and that all his training is what he can tap into now, giving him further confidence. It was beautiful to see (in the image I saw) how he pulled himself out of the rabbit hole – we all have rabbit holes with different levels of gravitational pulls – and surged towards his potential. 

These moments and experiences are often filled with emotion – the relief of not defaulting to an old and unhealthy way anymore as well as the surge one feels when we know we have worked hard, shown up for ourselves and can be everything we are wired for. 

If what you've read resonates and you would like to explore the prospect of working together, please send me a message and we can schedule an introductory call.