Oh, the blog title possibilities!
Dance like there’s no tomorrow
Dance like nobody’s watching
Dance in the Rain
Don’t Stop Dancing…or if you have?
Start Dancing again!
The message from me to you is the same, no matter what I call this post – Dance for your LIFE!
Last year after I left a 21 year marriage, I started dating a man who had also stopped dancing far more than I had. It broke my heart to see this, because I loved him; I saw the music in him….but he was a mirror to me, and it became an analogy to me for how people move through their world.
This man loved music to the core of his soul. But he’d let someone else walk on his beat, on his feet, and he’d let the seriousness of life layer regret on him until he couldn’t hear his own music or any of the real music of life around him. He couldn’t move, he wouldn’t dare to dance, and he couldn’t stop worrying what others thought about how he moved through his own world, his own life. He couldn’t love himself, his own music.
We didn’t make it, he and I. I had to leave, but not before I’d introduced him to the joy of dancing again, with the hope that it would help him find the music in the rest of his life, too.
Little Girl In a Store Mirror – When Will I Be Loved? (What a GREAT song to match this post!)
Here’s how I’d teach you, if I were with you, to dance again. I’d open my heart, turn off the lights and turn up the music. I’d move in your space without touching, I’d encourage you to do the same. I can’t see you, but you can get used to another person moving and breathing in a space of joy, without any judgment about how you move.
Then I’d turn up the lights a bit and keep my eyes closed. Now you can get used to someone being in your world that YOU can see, still knowing no one is watching you in return.
And as the music grew in you, and you began to feel safe, you would gradually became comfortable with me having my eyes open, facing you.
Little Girl to Madonna Song – Say You Love Me (I love you little girl)
I got it; I got where this man was coming from. I love music to my soul. I love the lyrics, the beat. I love the feeling of my piano keys under my hands, the beautiful music that’s available everywhere if our ears and hearts are open. But when I was unhappy, before I’d left my marriage, I’d stopped writing my poetry, playing my music, even listening…and absolutely I’d stopped any kind of nonsense dancing. And if I’m utterly honest, I’d turned into the kind of person who had something to say about how poorly the man I was with was dancing. I hated that person I’d become.
At one point not long after I’d left my marriage, I turned on some music. I felt so low I could barely lift my head to look around. I needed the beat of the music to replace the broken beat of my heart….and all of a sudden, from the depths of my core, I felt myself started moving. In my bedroom, all by myself, with nobody watching…I danced slow, I danced fast. And then I started to sing again, a sound coming out that was so awful at first, I’m sure it sounded like an animal being tortured. But the pathway was open.
I told my friends on Facebook and my friends on text that I was dancing. I might have posted some names of the songs. It moved me even more as I realized I could nearly SEE them smiling, enjoying, and then dancing themselves in their comments.
And me? I was nearly born again! I got it! I found my music and began to move back towards my life by moving my feet again.
I’m sure if someone had seen me, they could have said many things about how I looked dancing like that. Here’s the thing though. Those judgers? Those are exactly the people I was exorcising from my life. I’d committed to walking AWAY from those people. I’d committed myself to being FULLY ME, to finding situations in life and work and love that fit who *I* was growing into.
Pregnant Girl Dancing (this probably got her INTO this trouble. 🙂
I began to move more and more towards being a Lighthouse instead of a Flashlight Girl (I will write soon about this). I began to care less and less about what some unhappy drama bully might have to say about my “dancing”, and started caring more and more about how my dancing, regardless of its lack of grace or rhythm, could inspire other people who were stiff and dying to come alive and feel something, too. Maybe MY dancing, however awkward, could even awaken someone else’s “dance” again.
And ultimately before we parted, that man I was dating started sharing with me how he was now wiggling in his seat at work like he’d never done before in his life. I hope others saw him wiggling and got to wiggling, too.
Dance. Just do it. Turn on the music in your hearts, in your room, in your life. Move. If someone’s in your way judging, close your eyes and turn the other way if you must until you can face them for what they really are. The truth is most likely that they wish they were dancing too. Show them how it’s done.
Dance your heart out! Dance for your LIFE!
To start with? Give yourself 10 minutes and watch these videos. No one is trained or skilled or particularly attractive. I bet you smile at every one of these. And I want to know…did you do a little dance, at least in your heart?
Evolution of Dance – The 191,481,768 views on this video PROVE what I’m saying about the power of moving your body.
What’s the Evolution of YOUR Life Dance!?
This post is also available on my podcast, Glow In The Dark.
🙂