Ohhhh, The Sky Is BLUE!!!

When I’m taking another teacher’s class, it’s hard for me to catch on quickly to someone else’s choreography.  I find that the more I try to internalize it, the more it eludes me.  It happens to me when I’m teaching, too.  Even if I’ve danced a particular song hundreds of times, if I think, “Uh-oh, what’s next?”---it’s over.   Unless I can let go of my brain, I stop dead in my tracks and look around the room for help -- which I always get, because so many people know what comes next!

I am enthralled by the book, Dying to Be Me by Anita Moorjani.  It is about her Near Death Experience and what she learned from it.  One of the things she says is that we must love ourselves.  Okay, I know we’ve all heard it before.   But it is a central theme of her experience and I have struggled with that all my life.  Just when I think I’m okay (deserving of good), something happens (like reading Moorjani's book) and all my self-loathing comes roaring to the surface.

 

Anita also talks about “allowing.”  Instead of chasing what we want, whether it’s a job, a relationship, a dance step, or love, we can know that it is already there and allow it to come into our experience.  Chasing something, by definition, means it’s running away from us.

I read an interview of Bruce Springsteen by Jon Stewart in Rolling Stone.  Springsteen says that after he wrote “The River,” he worried that he had peaked, so he focused obsessively on his work.  His wife complained that he was not spending enough time with their children.  Springsteen realized that she was right.  He had it backwards: his children were going to grow up, but the music and words would always be in the ether and available to him.

 I love that.  It’s all available to us; we just have to know it.  Not believe, but know.

I know that in dance, the choreography is available to me if I just acknowledge it.  I understood today (finally!) that self-love is available to me if I just allow it.  I realized that I (all of us) are love. Love is who we are.  I don’t have to try to love myself.  I only have to allow myself to be who I am.  Loving oneself is natural.  Not loving oneself is what takes work.

Duh. (Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, the sky is BLUE!!)

All we have to do is take a deep breath, stop judging ourselves, and just allow ourselves to be.  What a relief to finally stop trying and doing.

So dance your dance and be who you already are!