Acceptance

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acceptance, accepting what is, Believing, challenge, courage, Courageous Vulnerability, dyslexic, empathy, evolve, faith, growth, love, Soul to Soul, spirit, transformation

After all this time I have come to accept that being dyslexic is actually my super power. For so long I have hidden this aspect of myself and did not even know what it was or that there was a name for why I saw things, spoke the way I did or wrote the way I did. All this time I just lived with the shame and humiliation that there was something wrong with me or that I was just not intelligent enough. 

And now, I am opening myself up to simply accepting it as something that has truly been an asset and as a secret super power. Yes, my brain works differently than others but because of this I see, sense and experience the world in a way that has heightened me being an empath and healer that I am. Not to mention the creativity that I bring to making dances and building kinetic worlds. 

The other rather interesting thing that has come of coming out as dyslexic is that I have successfully built skills to work with it and through it to write and express myself better. The 30 day challenges I have given myself have helped to simply practice these skills and to build confidence in making small shifts in my courage to write. 

We know that we are able to change neural pathways and use neuroplasticity as a tool for remapping and relearning things. Because of this, folks don’t have to suffer in silence or believe themselves to be inferior or broken. It’s like many things we hide to avoid shame but in reality, if we open ourselves up, we find it possible to heal and to work through what is in fact solvable. 

What would it be like if we supported so many others on whatever journey they were on? What would it be like if we lead with acceptance and love rather than expectation and fear? Would we not all be more open and supportive? Would our lives be that much less difficult? It seems to me we all could live with a lot less trauma and a lot more acceptance. 

Why is it we as human beings feel a need to only feel safe when we are all the same? Why do we do this to one another? What is so comforting about being like everyone else and othering those that we don’t understand or fear? Don’t we in fact learn so much from our differences and grow because of them? 

I know for me there would have been a lot less mountains of healing to climb would I really have known that all of who I was/am was always good enough and embraced. If I was to say anything to my younger self it would be to not fear who I am and to live unabashedly unashamed. Live loud. Live big. And most of all, love yourself like no one could ever love you. 

Perhaps we all could find it within ourselves to encourage this in ourselves and in all of those we come into contact with. Perhaps we could practice acceptance and sometimes learn to live with what makes us uncomfortable at times. There is a lot the body can teach us when we lean into our discomfort and find out what is hiding within that. 

More and more I try to find out what is lurking in the uneasiness that needs my attention. Facing those moments and bringing them into my awareness is where the transformation happens. And trust me, there is a lot of transformation still to happen. 

I have found that admitting who I really was and facing what being dyslexic meant was a moment of great freedom and oddly great pride. Like many things in my life, I am relearning how to live with great pride and acceptance of the fullness of my being. 

Finding Your Legs to Stand On

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accepting what is, ambition, Ballet, contemporary dance, courage, Courageous Vulnerability, Dance, drive, heart, Modern, patience

One of the most fascinating and most fundamental concepts in dance is the ability to stand up. I find it interesting that we figure out as tiny babies how to find our feet and manage the art of standing up. It is such a momentous feet and yet we do not stay there long enough understanding truly how to gain our balance and find stability. What is far more important, and highly imposed by parents, is the moment of a baby’s first step. So significant is this moment of pressure to move that it denies any opportunity for a child to understand the beauty of stillness and staying in one place to understand the moment of “here” instead of always wanting to be somewhere else fulfilling someone else’s wishes.

 

This stays inside of the child’s psyche and is carried into many situations. For us as dancers, we want to move, jump, turn and do all those fancy tricks. Now, just because we want to does not mean that is a bad thing. It is a great thing that dancers are listening to their desire to move. What is disheartening is that the teacher reverts to their own childhood and ego and does not have the courage to share with their students one of the very most important technical concepts a dancer needs for meticulous technique. It is crucial for every dancers success to understand that before learning to artfully and gracefully fall through space, they must learn to stand on two feet solidly rising through their center line and understand what returning home means.

 

If a student does not have a solid understanding of what it means to stand up, be on two feet, and be comfortable with being in this place of living and breathing performing simplicity, they do not stand a chance at then learning how to take our body weight and transfer it along the vertical axis to begin the articulation of the rising and falling of a plie. If a student can’t find the depth of existence deep inside themselves by actively standing balanced on two legs, regardless of the position, the student will never fully realize how to activate external rotation to then track the quintessential art of the plie which is the fundamental action and foundational movement practice for dance.

 

If we cannot learn to quiet the mind so that we can quiet our heart, the noise of the outside will pull us off our stable foundational base of our standing legs. If we find ourselves in this place, we are in conflict with the ability to activate a structurally sound alignment practice that will keep us healthy and prepared for steady growth and development throughout our career. If we are in conflict with this, we then our in conflict with our hearts desire to dance. Learn to stand. Learn to be. If you are able to master this, you will be able to tame your desire so that it can unleash your wildest dreams.