Tag Archives: Dance of Life

DANCING TO FREE OUR EMOTIONS

Posted on February 1, 2012 | 11 comments

“Dance first. Think later.  It’s the natural order.”  Samuel Becket

Do you have difficulty sharing what you really feel?  Do you avoid expressing negative emotions?  Do you feel torn between being accepted and being authentic?

Physical Benefits of Dancing

Dance has often been at the core of my spiritual life.  Now, when I want to escape into joy or de-stress, I turn on music and dance around the house by myself.  It is a perfect way to lift my vibration and chase away the blues!  Dancing stimulates the release of endorphins which reduces pain and gives us a natural high in addition to increasing our metabolism and blood flow.  During the sixties and seventies when so many people I knew were doing drugs, I was never interested because dancing gave me a high in a natural way.

Emotional Benefits of Dancing

Not only is dance good for us physically, it can also affect us emotionally in very positive ways.  Over the years, I’ve met people who grew up in families where they were taught that any strong or passionate expression of emotion was not acceptable, especially if it was negative.  In other instances, people I know needed to hide who they really were or what they thought out of fear that the truth would damage their relationships.  Keeping our feelings hidden like this creates tension in the body and shrinks who we are, restricting our ability to express.

When we hide who we truly are and are fearful of expressing, we are denying our spiritual purpose.  We are all in this life for a reason, and understanding who we truly are reveals to us the purpose for this lifetime.  In terms of relationships, hiding behind what appears to be peacefulness also limits our relationships because what creates a more meaningful relationship is the ability to share what we truly feel and think.

Releasing Our Fear and Rigidity

There are many ways to release the fear of expressing emotions.  Therapy and spiritual disciplines may provide us with many tools.  Understanding why we are fearful is often helpful because understanding ourselves and our families allows us to let go of the need to protect ourselves.  Finding friends who accept our passionate expression reinforces the feeling that we are truly loved for being genuine.

But dance can be a valuable tool in this process.  Rigidity of body or mind is unhealthy for the spirit as well as the body, but movement stimulates the whole being to express. By using our bodies to release the mind, we become more aware of the mind/body connection and begin to feel a wholeness.  If we allow ourselves to feel the joy of the movement, we can connect to our spirit and the Spirit that connects us all.

The Wave

One of the most beautiful ways to explore the way that dance can aid our growth is in connecting with our spiritual selves through Gabrielle Roth’s 5Rhythms Healing Meditation known as The Wave.  There are groups around the country who meet to experience this together, but if you are not ready to move in a group, there are videos you can follow on your own.  Still, the energy of a group can be exhilarating.  Seeing others moving without inhibition often gives us the courage to risk a little more.

Connecting Body and Mind to Open

Dancing with music is not always necessary.  Moving in silence allows us to penetrate the silence and the barrier of our own bodies.  In that moment, the body connects to the mind, and we visit that place where body and mind are One.  If we allow ourselves to move and feel whatever comes up, we empower ourselves.  How can we possibly express what we feel if we can’t feel it?  So that is the first step, to feel in the body and then the emotions. Then we must be willing to take that information and use it to transform ourselves into a person who is not afraid to express those thoughts and feelings.  It takes commitment because it is not usually a brief process.

When we give ourselves to the dance, we stop thinking.  Fear, shyness, judgments drop away and we are just in the moment—mind, body, emotions and soul are all One.  In that moment, whatever we feel is just fine, and if we can’t express our feelings verbally, we can dance them. By dancing them, we may one day learn to verbalize them as well.

How often do you dance freely and let go of stress?  Does movement help you release the fear you feel about expressing yourself verbally?  Please comment and share your specific comments about this topic.

© 2012 Georganne Spruce

Related Articles:  (Fear) You Decide, Deepok Chopra’s 7 Steps to Release Emotional Turbulence, Feelings (spiritualhypster.com)

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DANCING FROM OUR CENTERS

Posted on January 25, 2012 | 2 comments

“People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself.  But the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates.”  Thomas Szasz

Who is running your life?  Is it you, deep from your center?  Or is it your family, employer or the mentality of society herding you into the role they want you to play?

The last time I visited the Biltmore Estate and met the Tina Turner Chickens, I also observed a sheep dog herding sheep.  I had seen this on the nature channel, but I’d never seen it in person.  As the dog herded the sheep together, they were so close they were touching, moving like one being.  After herding them to a particular area, he left, but the sheep remained sandwiched together as if they were afraid to each step out into their own areas.

 The Dangers of Conformity

I immediately thought of people and conformity.  How often do we allow something outside of ourselves to limit our capacity to be who we really are?  Conformity isn’t all bad.  It’s only negative if it forces us to be someone we are not or causes us to hurt others in order to be accepted.  The McCarthy trials of the 1950’s are a good example.  Neighbors reported neighbors for being communists and whether it was true or not was irrelevant.  People lost their reputations and employment by merely being accused.

Inner Self and Ego

 I don’t know exactly what Thomas Szasz intended when he made the statement I quoted today.  But I suspect he was referring to the ego/personality level of who we are, for the spiritual level that is deeper is something we find only when we let go of ego and go deeper.  It is eternal.  We do not have to create it.  But we do create the person we are in this lifetime based on the choices we make and the way we think.

Creating Our Personalities Based on Our Eternal Selves

If we are in touch with our eternal being, the choices we make from that place, rather than from external influences, tend to be wiser.  In modern dance, the pelvic area of the body is the center of our body and this core must be strong in order for the dancer to perform the off balance tilts, falls and swings that are unique to modern.  Without a strong core, the dancer flounders.

If we make choices from that loving center within us that is our core, our choices will have integrity and compassion, and will enhance our lives and the lives of others.  That deeper self is the basis of our personality, but making the right choices can lead us to an integration of the two.  When we dance from our center, we are One.  But if we always allow others to dictate how we think and act, we are being unfaithful to ourselves.  We are letting life happen to us rather than creating the life we want.

If we spend our whole lives hiding behind the temporary high of buying things or being entwined with a dysfunctional family’s dictates or constantly searching for a quick fix to happiness, we will never find who we truly are.  We will not discover that by following someone else’s lead in the dance of life.

Lead Yourself in the Dance

When you create yourself, you become the dancer and the leader.  You look at each opportunity in life and decide if it contributes to who you are or want to be.  You find the courage to step away from the flock and follow your own path.  You love yourself enough to take charge of your own life.  If you have not found yourself yet, perhaps you are not looking deep enough.  Perhaps you have betrayed who you are in order to keep peace and have security.

Fear always surfaces when we try to break an existing pattern.  It’s then we have to turn to faith. “When you have come to the edge of all the light you know, and are about to step off into the darkness of the unknown, Faith is knowing one of two things will happen:  there will be something to stand on or you will be taught to fly.”  These words have comforted me more often than I like to admit.  Have faith and trust yourself to become who you really are.  You are your greatest creation!

What challenges have you faced in becoming who you really are?  What helped you take the risk?  Please comment.

© 2012 Georganne Spruce

Related Articles: Living Your Unlived Life: Coping with Unrealized Dreams and Fulfilling Your Purpose in the Second Half of Life, Being True to Oneself, Dare to Be Yourself

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TRANSFORMING THE FEAR OF CHANGE

Posted on September 14, 2011 | 8 comments

“People can’t live with change if there’s not a changeless core inside them.  The key to the ability to change is a changeless sense of who you are, what you are about and what you value.”  Stephen R. Covey

Fearing Change

We always have more than one choice in life.  Will we give into our fears in a situation or will we find that core within us that will give us the strength and guidance to go beyond the negative choices that fear dictates?  Carlos Castaneda said about difficulties, “We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves strong.  The amount of work is the same.”

We live in a time of enormous change and fear.  The Universe, our lives, the structures of nature and government are changing and evolving.  Even Facebook has just made some changes.  Every time I go to the grocery store, I have to hunt for a product I have bought for years because its container has been redesigned.  Our DNA is changing.  Everything is evolving toward an experience of Oneness that will create a new and more cooperative world, but it sure is a pain sometimes.

At our best, we just give up and flow with what we can’t change.  At our worst, we fight the change every inch of the way building a wall of useless resistance.  We wonder if we will survive this.  We fear the consequences because the unknown is always a scary place, unless….

Finding the Spiritual Gift of Change

How often do you consider the possibility that the changes in your life may be good?  When I had to give up being a dancer, I thought, “Who am I, if not a dancer?  As the years passed and I looked at who I was more deeply, I realized what a narrow definition I had given myself.  I was much more than a dancer.  Now, if you ask me who, I will say, “I’m a creative and spiritual person.”  These aspects are part of my core.

When we choose to feel miserable about the changes in our lives, we choose to be less and see ourselves as the victim without any power.  Although this may seem like the easy way out, it isn’t.  Our most powerful strength is not the strength we use to fight against change; that will only defeat us.  What we resist, persists.  The strength that we need to develop in these changing times is unrelated to the exterior.

Awakening to the Strength of Our Spiritual Core

When we meditate or sit with Nature and escape from the external worries of our lives, we find that quiet, centered place where we connect with Spirit and our own soul, for they are One. When life is raging around us, being able to stand in a place that is peaceful allows us to make wise choices.  From this place, we can release our fears, separate ourselves from the outer discord, and look within our hearts and souls for the best answers.  When we choose to stand in our own inner power, we empower ourselves.

While I can’t say change never bothers me, I have learned not to fear most of it.  Many times I don’t know the answer to my most current challenge, but I know that if I stay in touch with who I really am, I will find the answer.  I know there are lessons in all experiences, and I know a significant experience may appear out of nowhere.  I have learned to see life as a wonderful mystery and I’m willing to take the ride, even when it gets bumpy.  I have had many challenging experiences in life, but whenever I have chosen to be strong rather than miserable, amazing opportunities and lessons have appeared.

What path do you choose today?  What do you think about Castaneda’s comment?

© 2011 Georganne Spruce

Related Readings:  How Simple Thinking Leads to a Brilliant Mind, The Change Paradox:  Transforming Fear into Excitement and Opportunity

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INSPIRATIONAL REFLECTION: DANCING DEEPER

Posted on August 31, 2011 | 1 comment

“Learning without reflection is a waste, reflection without learning is dangerous.” Confucius

Who Are You Really?

When I start feeling restless, I know I need to stop, quiet myself and go within.  My restlessness always comes from being too engaged with the outside world and not taking the time to reflect on who I really am and why I’m frantically rushing around.

Usually, when I’m rushing, it is because I want to be efficient or productive.  At that moment, I think it’s important to cram as much activity as possible into the day. It’s like dancing the salsa without the sensuality.  I define myself as the one who gets things done, the one you can depend upon to complete the task on time.  I buy into our cultural idea that being productive is what gives us value and that not being productive is laziness.  I am off-center.

Dancing Deeper

When we take the time to be quiet and go deeper, to save the salsa for another time and sit in silence, we find the dance within is smooth, a solo performed at adagio or lento, rising and falling with our breath.  What is unnecessary drops away.  We awaken to who we really are spiritually.  Here we can see that society’s and our self definitions are not who we are.  We are Oneness.

The book Oneness by Rasha points out the significance of these moments when we connect to the Divine.  “When one is in conscious alignment with the sum totality of one’s connectedness to All That Is, there is no limit to what can be experienced or created in physical form.”  (p. 230)

So here is the secret to infinite success.  It is inside of us. This is the connection that awakens us and empowers our dance of life to be all it can be.

Tools For Awakening to the Dance Within

There are many ways to experience reflection.  Sitting quietly or meditating is one.  If our quiet minds are disturbed by fears, then we need to direct our minds to release this fear.  During this quiet time, we may choose to ask for guidance or simply be open to whatever insights or thoughts emerge.  Walking or sitting in the forest or near the sea shore, any place where we have contact with Nature, may be very helpful.  This approach is what I would call passive reflection.

There are other, more active ways to reflect.  Journaling about events may stimulate new perspectives or insights.  Writing down our feelings is very healing and often inspiring.  I have been surprised a number of times when I wrote something, then suddenly thought, “That’s not true.  That’s my ego blowing this incident out of proportion.”  There are also times when I only become aware of a significant insight after I’ve written it down.

Similar things happen in the silence when we read from spiritual or inspirational works.   A truth suddenly appears in words we’ve hardly noticed before.  An idea that conflicts with our current perspective on an issue may shock us.  These discoveries are part of the dance too.  Reflection provides us with an opportunity to learn, as Confucius said.

Understanding Reflective Inspiration

An understanding of the lessons we need to learn from our experiences doesn’t always come at the time we are experiencing the lesson.  Time and distance often give us clarity.  Twenty years after a long-term relationship ended, I was still having dreams in which issues from this relationship were resolved or new insights appeared.  I had spent an extraordinary amount of time trying to understand the conflicts of the relationship soon after it ended, but it took years for my reflections on this subject to reveal the truths hidden underneath. Never assume that a reflection that doesn’t produce immediate insights is wasted.  Reflection provides an opening where wisdom may appear in its own time.

How do you make time for reflection in your life and what have you learned from it?

© 2011 Georganne Spruce

Related Sites:

Reflecting on the Divine Presence in Our Lives

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AWAKENING TO THE DANCE OF THE HEART

Posted on August 17, 2011 | 1 comment

“Out beyond right-thinking and wrong-thinking there is a field.  I’ll meet you there.” Rumi

Dancing As One

Today let’s talk from the heart, for only the heart can take us to that place beyond the rational mind where we can let go of ego’s need to be right.  When we live and dance from the heart, we are not limited to dancing with one partner; we dance the circle dance that includes us all.  The man doesn’t always lead, nor does the woman, because there is no leader.  There is room for all in the circle, for we dance as One.

As we dance, we may pull and stumble, but after a while, the movement begins to flow, all individuals moving in harmony as if the circle were only one body.  It’s not hard to see why circle dances have been a part of spiritual ritual since the beginning of humanity. They were powerful dances of community where all came together for the good of the whole.

The Dance of Cooperation

In many aspects of modern life we have forgotten what our ancestors knew.  We cannot survive without cooperating.  I’ve lived all around the country and been exposed to many cultures.  In some places, community is about conforming.  Everyone has to think and act alike. New solutions to problems are not welcome. In those places, I felt I was suffocating.   But now I live in a community that embraces individuality and revels in new ideas and innovative businesses.  Here we have found a way to cooperate and honor what is unique about each of us while we find solutions to meet the needs of the community.

Dancing from the heart as we live life takes us to that field to which Rumi refers.  There is no competition there, only cooperation, a field where we can act from the heart, a place where we come together and release our need to be right and feed our egos, a place where love of humanity is sincere.

In all aspects of our lives, we need to shift our focus from competition to cooperation.  Competition teaches us that someone always has to lose, but in reality, the only time we really win is when we cooperate.  Then we all win.  Working together creates healthy, wholesome bonds.  In this atmosphere, we are not afraid to think creatively and to consider the possibility of solving problems in a totally different way.  With this thinking, we move beyond what is a right or wrong idea and focus only on what works and enhances our lives.

Finding “The Field”

What would the world look like if we all lived from our hearts, our seat of wisdom?  What if our leaders created coalitions instead of blocks?  What if we embraced our differences instead of fearing them?  What if we could accept and love our partner’s eccentricities.

Where there is love there is peace.  With our hearts open, let us find “the field.”

© 2011 Georganne Spruce

Related Links:

Young@Heart, Heart-Centered Leadership

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