For Valentine's Day, or: Infatuation Is Really Underrated

You can dance with someone and really not be in sync.  You can be stepping all over each other.  But, if you really like the person or if this is a romantic relationship, it just doesn’t matter.  You delight in your partner’s goofiness or lack of coordination. 

After you’ve been with your partner for a while, you might feel that dancing together is not so cute anymore.  The stumbling no longer delights you.  It annoys you.

Remember when you met your significant other?  You were so in love that everything that person did and said was wonderful.  This person seemed perfect to you and for you.  It was bliss.

In the beginning of your relationship, you delighted in your partner’s little eccentricities and habits.  You embraced them, thought they were adorable.  Well now they are just irritating.  You sigh and look back at that beginning and think that you were infatuated.  You think that infatuation caused you to see your partner as perfect.  You think your infatuation was a lie, an illusion.

I’ve been through divorces (two) and break-ups (many) and I know that sometimes the relationship just does not work.  Sometimes it’s just hell and you have to get out. Now.

But, if you still love your partner, here’s a thought:  In the beginning, when you saw your partner as perfect and beautiful, that was the truth.  The little, petty annoyances are the illusion and the lie.  At the start of your relationship you saw, with a heightened perception born of real love, who your partner really is underneath the words and the veneer we all have.  That was not just infatuation; your partner’s perfection is the truth.  Your own perfection that lies beneath the words and the mask is also the truth. 

Love propels us to a higher vibration where we can see what’s true. 

That perfection is within us all.  We need only acknowledge it. 

Show Yourself

Dance is not really like other forms of movement.  You can spin or do a weight class, but they don’t really require that you show yourself.  In dance, even if no one is watching, you have no choice but to reveal yourself in the movement.  Music is emotional and dance expresses that emotion. 

We are doing a Valentine’s Day party at our studio.  And there are a couple of people who are dancing (on video or live) as a valentine for their significant other.  This is such a show of vulnerability, and vulnerability is an expression of trust. And love.  It is the sweetest thing. 

It makes me think of that phenomenon when a hunted animal shows its jugular to another, and the dominant animal stops attacking.  It’s a surrender and an admission of a truth: “You are physically stronger than I am and I acknowledge that.”  There is no shame in that acknowledgement.  There is real strength.    

I have been in relationships where I have deliberately shown my vulnerability, and I have had to pay for it.  I learned that the price of showing my true self to someone who can’t receive it means humiliation. In that relationship, I thought the best thing would be to lock myself away forever, so no one could see that part of me again.  However, that really doesn’t work if you actually want to have a life that is authentic. 

Have you ever noticed that when you have a negative emotion, airing it in the light of day, to someone you love, completely changes that thought?  Like the thought, “I am jealous,” when you actually express it, it loses its power.  Like a wound, if you cover it up, it can fester.  But if you expose it to light, it heals. When you admit, “I am jealous,” it can seem laughable, but you can also change that jealousy to admiration and maybe even inspiration.

Admitting vulnerability or saying to someone, “I want to show this to you.  I want to dance for you,” is an act of trust and an offering of love.  It is exposing yourself to the light; it is healing.

Let’s learn to really show ourselves to those we love.  It is a gift.  It makes our relationships deeper and it makes us stronger in the truth of who we are. 

Here is a link to Ted.com and a wonderful talk by Brene Brown about “The Power of Vulnerability.”

http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html#.Ts-JDW7F-C8.facebook

Dance, Sex and Death

When you are dancing, if you think about the mistake you just made, it colors everything that comes after it.  You cannot then be present in the moment to enjoy what you’re doing “right,” right  now.  The result of not letting go is that you end up re-creating what you do not want to re-create. 

Further, this is an age old theme.  I am a lover of Jane Austen.  In Pride and Prejudice, Elizabeth says to Darcy, “You must learn some of my philosophy.  Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.”  This is a simple iteration of what we hear again and again.  What we focus on is what we experience.  And if we focus on the unhappy events of the past we color our present with those unhappy memories.  There’s no escaping that.

It is always amazing to me that these concepts are not new.  We think forms of dance are new, but they’re not.  We think we are the only generation that discovered real, enjoyable sex as if our parents and grandparents didn’t feel what we feel. 

I was told by one of my insane grandmothers (no baking cookies or bedtime stories there) that “I would rather see you dead and lying in your coffin than know you had ‘Gone Wrong.”  (As in, “You know that neighbor’s girl?  She’s gone wrong!”)

In my home, “gone wrong” meant pre-marital sex.   Really?  Dead?  You’d rather I was DEAD?!?!” Hmmmmmmm.  Sex and death.  You wouldn’t think they’d be associated post-18^th century.  It’s a wonder I wasn’t the Mayflower Madam or Heidi Fleiss after all that.

My point is that no matter how traumatic or weird your past might be, it doesn’t help to dwell on it or believe that what your elders said was true.  If your dad was Atticus Finch, then maybe you should believe what he told you.  But if you are like the rest of us, just because there is a tape playing in your brain, it doesn’t make the words true. 

The past does not have to define you, unless you cannot let go of it.  I could be a whore or a nun, but I choose to be neither.  I choose to define myself by my own judgment.  And yes, sometimes that judgment is clouded by the past voices that still reside in my head.  But I know those voices are of the past and need not control my life now. 

At times, I have to literally say “stop!” to those voices and dig deep to find myself and my own reasoning in the choices I make. 

So dance in this moment; live in this moment.   You are who you are right now, judged only by your own internal compass, defined by yourself, regardless of the past.

You are who you say you are.  And that’s a really good start.

Just Be.

Sometimes when I meet someone and they express an interest in my dance class, they’ll say, “I’m not a dancer, but I really love to dance!” Well, to me, that means you ARE a dancer.  On the other hand, you can TRY to be a dancer.  You can take classes and practice and think about it. You can think about it a lot.  What you are saying to yourself is that I am not a dancer but I am going to strive to be one.  But what does that label, “dancer,” mean?  What qualifies you to BE a dancer?  Do you have to win a prize?  Go to school?  Be in a show? 

If you decide that you ARE a dancer now, everything you do is geared toward being a better dancer.  This is different than trying to BECOME a dancer by endless hours of TRYING.  If you realize that you are already a dancer, your intention is focused on becoming a more authentic dancer, a dancer who expresses his or her truth through movement.

When we try to “do” our way to happiness, love, or peacefulness it can elude us.  In the old paradigm of behavior (the one I grew up with anyway), you did, thought, and said things that you hoped would BRING you happiness, love, peace.  But when you think that way, the joy, love and peace are always elusive, in the future, a definite maybe. 

 

But if you decide, right now, that you are happy, you are love, you are peaceful, everything you think, say and do comes from that state of being rather than doing.   

When you decide to just be, you already are where you want to be.   

BE a dancer.  BE the truth of who you always wanted to be.  Right now. Simply decide to be it.

“You cannot ‘do’ your way to being…The way to ‘get there’ is to ‘be there.’”

---Conversations with God, Book 3, Neale Donald Walsch.

Core Truths

When you dance, you have many choices about how to express yourself in the movement.  You can move from the outside in.  Physically this means that you are mostly moving your extremities rather than allowing the movement to originate from your core.  Emotionally it means that you are more concerned about how it looks than about how it feels. 

Or, you can move from the core of your body so that the movement originates from your center and progresses to your limbs.  Emotionally this means that you are focused on expressing what is within you rather than what is outside of you.

Core movement in dance feels better and is much more beautiful and interesting to watch.  Core movement is infused with the essence of the dancer.

In life, we can express conformity to the majority, with our behavior reflecting the values of others.  Or we can decide to trust in what we believe to be right and express our own values and the truth of who we are.

Years ago, I became friends with a young gay man, Tom. (Not his real name).   It was devastating to hear him talk about his childhood.  He was tormented in his teenage years so much that he had severe diarrhea every day.  He couldn’t eat or sleep. 

His parents could not accept Tom’s sexual preference.  They did not understand and because they didn’t, they behaved in a way that was callous and rejecting.  Tom was on the verge of committing suicide.  However, he found help from friends and professionals.  His family, after several years, accepted the fact that their son is gay.  They have since built a new family foundation that includes Tom’s partner.

Rather than repressing his true nature to conform to a family script, Tom allowed his deepest truth to guide him to a happy, fulfilling life.  Tom’s parents allowed their love for Tom, the love that exists at their very core, to ultimately be their guiding force.  They accept Tom and love him exactly as he is.

Both Tom and his parents eventually acknowledged and expressed their own truth.  Because they did so, they can live authentically.  They all opened themselves to understanding what is true and they embody and express that truth. 

In the book, The Gnostic Gospels, the Gospel of Thomas quotes Jesus as saying, “If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you.  If you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.”

If you live a life of self-loathing and repression, you will break your own heart.  If you try to deny the love you have for another, you are crippling your spirit.  It is against nature to deny our true selves. We are on earth to embrace and celebrate our individual worth and beauty.  And no one is left out.

What’s your truth?  Acknowledging it allows you to live joyfully from the core of your being.