I just returned from an evening of dancing to live music. Live, danceable music always brings great joy to me. I love moving my body in harmony with the music, I love experiencing all the ways my body will move, I love watching others experience the same things. This evening it was reggae. Rock and roll, jazz, blues, yes even classical can inspire the same joy. When I am in a self-care mindset, I plan dance into my life. When I forget how it nurtures me, I misplace a vital part of myself.
My question is, why is it so hard for so many of us to dance with our whole body, mind and, yes, soul? For some, shyness interferes. Self-consciousness can take the joy out of being on the dance floor. I know someone who started life as a beautiful dancer. He was a folk dancer in second grade! He showed adults the steps! Then in sixth grade (painful age) he was dancing at his first school dance and looked out the window to see his friends pointing and laughing at him. At that moment his dancing stopped for many years at great cost to his joy.
If something has stopped your dancing, your painting, your mountain climbing, your writing, dig up the root cause , release the emotion of those events, reclaim your joy. The experience of ‘flow’, (being “present in abundance” according to my Google dictionary) and moving with whatever impulse inspires you is such a freeing experience, it is worth the work of overcoming those blocks.
You might be a musician, a writer, a swimmer, a teacher, a monk. Whatever it is that brings a smile to your face, that nurtures your being, I encourage you to do it, now, and as often as possible. This is what I believe is going to bring the world into the light. When you practice your joy, it spreads. The smiles on the dance floor tonight were broad and genuine. When I see others smiling, my heart lights up. Joy can: strengthen your immune system, regenerate your whole physical system, burn away impurities in your emotional system, disperse worries, anxieties, grief, greed, irritation and other negative emotions, sharpen your intellect and strengthen your memory, clear and balance your mind, expand your consciousness and understanding, and open you to receive higher impressions, inspirations, and transforming energies!
I encourage you to focus on creating more joy for yourself, thus healing the world. Powerful, delightful work.
Love the picture, Watt! And thank you for helping me with this first ULE effort. Makes me go, ” Hmmm, what to write about next?
Thank YOU, Glenna — for all you do to support art and health and spirit here on the coast.
It was jiggy to be out there with you and others on the dance floor. While we where moving around I was reminded that a person just can’t get the same perspective sitting down. Even if you like to watch people from the sidelines, there’s something uniquely transformative about stepping among the dancing bears. Once there, we say “oh yea, I remember!”
How soon we forget. It helps when a creative soul follows up here and gives us a twirl with words.
Sometimes, when the music starts, a large group of folks move onto the floor. Often I’ve observed that it takes a few souls to break through the stasis. If no one else joins us, it can feel a bit awkward. But the more we do it, the more grateful I am to be out there — here — regardless of who spreads the healing.
Everybody’s got a little light under the sun. Here’s a link to a song I learned to dance to in 1977, played over and over and over on a 45 rpm record, from the album “Funkentelechy Vs. the Placebo Syndrome” by Parliament.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0ZGNGBNIL8&feature=related