Dancing with fear
liberate yourself
“The only way out is through.”~ Gabrielle Roth
“I liked watching you dance tonight.”
It’s a Saturday night and my lover says this to me while lying in bed after an ecstatic dance.
I respond with something along the lines of “Mhmm” while I nestle into him and take a deep breath -
inhale, exhale.
A few moments later he says it again,
“I liked watching you dance tonight.”
and then he adds,
“I wonder what’s going through your mind when you dance like that.”
(Big pause - I know what was going through my head, but I’m feeling vulnerable and don’t want to share.)
He continues,
“It looks like you’re liberating yourself.”
and he’s right.
I am trying to liberate myself -
liberating myself from self-doubt, societal conditioning, anxiety and fear.
That night in particular, I was having an intimate and vigorous dance with and through my fear.
There’s a line from a famous Rumi poem that reads,
“Don’t move the way fear makes you move…”
But what I’ve learned, is that I don’t consciously move with and through the fear, it will surely continue to unconsciously move me.
I bring everything I’m feeling to the dance, and then I dance with it, for as long as it takes. I make doubt, fear, sadness, anger (all the emotions) my dance partners.
I do this
to free myself.
And to encounter
the ecstatic state.
(You’ve felt it before - it’s that unhindered experience of joy, love, freedom and clarity.)
When I work move though all that weighs me down, when I lay it down on the dance floor, pushing it through my feet, crying, sounding, and when it’s a really good dance, raising my arms and laughing in joy - feeling that moment when the Divine makes contact (having created space for her to do so), and remembering, THIS has been there all along -
my own Divinity.
I’m still nestled into my lover…
“Yes, you’re right. That’s exactly what I was doing. I was liberating myself.”
I wrote the above piece months ago in one of Deanne Vincent’s weekly writing hours. (A space I am so grateful for.) It’s been sitting in my drafts for awhile now, and now felt like the time to share it. I edited it this morning. Taking away, adding. Feeling into the heart of the message and removing the rest.
The word Liberation has been coming up a lot lately. I’m really feeling it with today’s Full Moon in Leo and, from the very beginning, it’s been a shared guiding intention our upcoming writing cohort, Write Your Heart Out.
Writing is another way I which liberate myself and connect with the Divine. I get it all out on the page, I let it move through, I surrender to the flow…
I let the pen or (keyboard) take me out of my head and into my heart.
I journal. I write poems. I share public writing like this. It’s ALL part of the liberation practice.
I also recently started painting again, and am looking forward to seeing how this influences my writing and my dance.
We are creative souls and our energy desires to expressed.
I’m going to say it, too many of us aren’t letting our self-expression flow freely.
“Write what disturbs you, what you fear, what you have not been willing to speak about. Be willing to be split open.” ~ Natalie Goldberg
Write Your Heart Out isn’t your typical writing group, and it’s not a drop-in/ drop-out experience. It’s a creative immersion, a loving commitment, an opportunity to experience writing as a sacred practice and liberate your creative magic.
Feeling called to write in this way? This is your invitation to come flow with us. (There may even be a couple *optional* dancing prompts along the way.)
We begin 2/25 for 5 weeks, meeting 1x a week on Zoom, with an online chat group to stay connected throughout our time together.
Early bird ends this Friday, Valentine’s Day. Use code CREATEMAGIC at checkout for $144. until February 14th.
Wishing you courage, freedom and playful self-expression on this Leo Full Moon.
Big Love,
Melinda
P.S. Have questions about the group? Want to share a thought or reflection? Feel free to hit reply, I always love to hear from you.