Category Archives: Dancing With…

Practice and permission

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I’ve been pushing myself really hard. Staying up until midnight every night, working through hangings-out with friends, constantly perusing my to-do list. Push push push. Go go go.

Launching my Big New Things this week really put me over the top.

I’m exhausted.

So today, instead of posting a dance video, I’m giving myself permission…

Permission to rest.

Permission to relax.

Permission to stop striving.

Permission to just be.

Permission to read something non-business related.

Permission to CHILL OUT for a few days.

Because, here’s the thing:

The world won’t stop turning if I go to bed early instead of working. Life as I know it won’t end if I spent a few days resting. And if I really want to create a joyful, soulful business, then I need to be 100% me when I’m creating it, and not some strung-out, zombie-brained, droopy-eyed mess of exhaustion.

...kind of like this.

 

In spite of all of my reading and journalling and chatting and posting about self-care, I’m still driven to push push push. Suffering under the burden of Never Enough. But practice is what counts, I hear, and this weekend I resolve to practice:

Practice resting.

Practice relaxing.

Practice doing things on a whim.

Practice being light.

Practice being easy.

Practice flowing.

Practice self-care.

Want to practice with me? What will you be doing this weekend to care for yourself? What will you give yourself permission to do?

(I’ll be back on Monday to see how it went!)

Cave Time

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I wrote this post last Saturday and then forgot about it entirely until today. But I just had to share it :)

 

I am sitting in an empty apartment on a Saturday afternoon.

I am sitting with a mug of tea and my laptop.

I am sitting…and trying to remember the last time I experienced complete solitude.

And I’m suddenly not surprised that I’ve been feeling not-myself lately.

 

 

Although I’m a total performer when it comes to dancing, I am a classic introvert at heart. I have vivid memories of a 2-day New Years party back in my 20s. By the afternoon of the second day, I was so overwhelmed by a desperate need to be alone that I went scrambling up the stairs to hide in a bedroom with a book while the party continued without me. My soul craves solitude, revels in silence. My creativity truly shines when I have lots of quiet, unstructured time to be with myself.

And it occurs to me that I haven’t had a moment of true solitude in months. I’ve worked in the dining room while Matthew put Xander to bed. I’ve worked (far too) late into the night with the baby monitor fizzing obnoxiously at me from the hallway. I’ve gone off into another room while people played D&D in the dining room.

…But sitting on my own in the stillness of a totally empty apartment and knowing that no one will require anything of me or interrupt me in any way for the next hour or so? Not so far this year, not to my knowledge. This is a first for 2012. Hell, I’m pretty sure it’s a first for 31 (and my birthday was back in October).

No wonder I’ve been feeling increasingly like running away and never looking back, or like throwing things through windows and screaming at the top of my lungs. Off-balance, off-center, off-kilter just…off.

I didn’t realize how badly I needed this. Not even when simple things like (child-free) people saying “Last night I sat out on my balcony with a glass of wine and watched the sunset” or “I took all of yesterday and worked on my Brand New Awesome Project from breakfast til supper” have been triggering bouts of painful jealousy and frustrated rage.

I love my family. I adore my son and my husband, but I’m coming to realize that mama needs cave time. Not just once a season, but regularly. If I could have a stretch of time like this on a regular basis…oh, the things I would do.

As I wrote on Saturday (or, 30 minutes ago in Real Time, since I’m also writing this on Saturday), big changes are coming for me and my family. I think that more time like this may be an unexpected and welcome side-effect.

And now that I know how much it revitalizes me, how it makes me feel like myself again in ways I forgot existed…well, I’ll try to make sure it is.

Dancing Words (a Bodyness Blog Wave post)

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I’m participating in Soul and Spice’s Bodyness Blog Wave! Every week, I’ll be posting something about “bodyness”: honouring, enjoying, and caring for the body (for more about the Bodyness Blog Wave, click here)

 

Two of my favourite things in the world are dancing and writing.

When I dance, I love the feeling of my body moving through space, the stretch of my muscles, the flow of my breath. When I am grounded, centred, and completely IN my body, I feel connected not only to my deepest core, but to the whole of the Universe. My cells dance in time to the rhythm of creation as I express my soul through movement.

When I’m writing, I can get to a place of similar flow and connection. Words I didn’t know I contained flow through my hands and appear on the screen. Images and phrases that delight and astonish me suddenly appear unbidden. My story emerges, dancing with the rhythms of life.

Sometimes, dance and writing collide. While reading a written piece out loud, I come across a word that I particularly enjoy. I take a moment to feel the  shape of the word, to roll it around my mouth and appreciate the dance of speaking. Or, while dancing, a word will come to mind and shape my dance with its meaning.

There’s the dance of the written (or spoken) word…and words that shape the dance.

Below is a list of 16 of my favourite dancing words. These words dance as they are spoken…and they shape the dance I do. Today, I invite you to take a minute to fully appreciate these words. Read them aloud to yourself and appreciate the way your mouth moves to produce the sounds they make.

Feel the texture and rhythm of the sounds—the crisp report of a P or a T, for example, or the soft hiss of a “Sh”—and notice how they feel. Appreciate the marvel of a mouth that can form these sounds, the wonder of language.

 

(Feel free to download the picture so you can play with it whenever you want)

 

And then take another minute to dance your way down the list.

How does it feel to twirl? How is it different from oozing or striking? Move your way through the words and see how they translate into your body.

There is no wrong way to do this…no “good” or “bad.” There is only you, your breath, your body. Give yourself the gift of exploring and enjoying them today.