Life has a way of teaching you to dance with it or be
dragged along...
Something happened to me last November,
something that so pushed my edges of sanity I was literally swept off my feet
and not in a pleasant lovey-dovey dance-y kind of way. I've taught dance in the
Sarasota community for over 15 years and previous to that taught traditional
fitness for another 13 years. I've danced thru moving to a new city, being
married and divorced, and married again. I've danced thru two pregnancies and
natural births, raising my children. I've seen my husband through “breaks” in
his reality as he struggled with mental illness. I've danced thru many “leaps
of faith” including leaving a company I represented for 13 years and starting
out on my own as founder of Kai ( www.kaimoves.com ) a dance-based creative movement class that blends
authentic movement with simple choreography.
Dancing through these life changing events was
meaningful and I have to say having DANCE as a constant to check in with myself
was imperative to moving ahead in my life. My regular classes were my anchors
when life around me was changing so fast and I found myself struggling to see
the direction things were moving. Then this last November I began to experience
panic attacks. Out of nowhere, in the middle of the night at 3:00 a.m. or
simply driving the kids to get groceries, I would feel my heart start to race
and my breath increase in short gasps. A feeling of fear would grip my heart
and I would have to immediately stop whatever I was doing to try to slow it
down. The attacks were coming 3-4 times a week in November. The causes were
obvious. A combination of menopause hormones in flux, the end of a 6-month
romance that ended in a sudden perceived betrayal, and the simultaneous ending
of my 12-year marriage all conspired to disorient me.
Suddenly thoughts of darkness started to seep
in and I began to wonder if I'd be able to take care of my kids, keep my
business going, function enough to just get through each day. I started with
writing LIKE CRAZY -- expressing every crazy thought, every emotion and weeding
through the random chaos to get to some logic and comfort under the spinning of
my mind. The digging in unearthed fruitful life-changing wisdom. I dove in
fully, kept digging and found remnants of a teenage girl who was scared, alone,
and reacting to life with a variety of tactics that simply didn't work
anymore....and yet I didn't want to bury her....No WAY. A larger part of me
knew it was more about integrating and soothing, maybe self-mothering would be
a term. I recognized that current events were having me relive past trauma and
go into a space of reactivity. Knowledge is power so I kept digging.
Each time I danced Kai I knew I felt better, I
felt a deep inner peace and openness that helped me to breathe deeper, more
naturally. The students whom I've watched and supported thru the years
completely “got” the space I was in as their teacher and I felt cocooned. I
didn't have to tell the group what was happening, it was just a knowing. The
community had become sensate and wise enough that they knew, and they supported
me deeply. There was one class I walked in and gulped out “ today we will focus
on breath” before snorting out the ugly
cry and just dissolving it into the dance that needed to move me. No
one asked me what it was, they just knew I could dance thru it and that every
dance isn't the “happy one” even if it does feel so good to release years of
grief.
Another class felt like my inner teenager was
pissed off. Every movement of my arms created lines and boundaries as a fierce
warning that needed to be voiced NOW, after years of pushing it down in an
effort to be loved by another. Ugh, I feel sad and embarrassed saying that, but
it's true. The shame and self-judgment only made things worse. This was a new
dance for me and I knew resisting it wouldn't help, and I knew I couldn't do it
alone. I reached out and received…
Thru my
years in dance I've made the deepest and most heart felt connections to amazingly
talented people. I made appointments with my therapist, a coach who has taken
my trainings, with healer friends who offered everything from shamanic ritual
to essential oils and meditations. I scheduled private yoga with a gifted
teacher and I attended yoga religiously. I kept writing, kept reaching, stayed
with it. I took Spanish lessons to get my mind off things and to develop my voice
more. I began painting and slowly, ever so slowly I regained some focus and
perspective. I started with goals around eating, drinking water, daily
meditation, vitamins, yoga and dancing every day.
One
particular yoga class I remember telling my teacher how I felt a panic attack
coming on very subtly as I simply lifted my left arm and reached across my
body. Somehow in this awareness my heart rate slowed down, and that was the
last sign of the attacks. I danced in my backyard going thru the wild mix of
emotions that had brewed during the storm of panic... loss, disbelief,
loneliness, fear, abandonment, betrayal, anger, rage and more. I allowed them
to move my body and I videoed it. I shared it with trusted friends who
witnessed. A close dancing friend said, “ bring in more of that anger...try
that.” It was good advice, he could see where I repressed it in my body but
only spoke about it in my writing. I didn't want sympathy, but I wanted how
broken I was to be seen. I wanted to share my healing path. Something
inside me guided me to go thru it, not avoid it. To be real, authentic and that
included the extreme vulnerability of being seen this way. I knew in some way
it'd make me able to help others better - once I was better.
Each day I felt a little more whole though I
wondered if I would smile again as even the muscles of my face had changed. It
took effort to smile and I could not pretend something I wasn't feeling. I cut
my long blonde hair to a short boy cut and dyed it red. I wanted to be changed
from it all, an energetic clearing on every level. As I look back now, I
realize the many gifts and wisdom I received from “dancing with” what I was
experiencing versus pushing it down, ignoring, or toughing it out and not
letting the feelings move. I was able to heal some very old patterns that were
lurking under the surface in how I related to people, how I showed up in
relationship, and in how I attracted and picked the people I allowed into my
life and heart.
I am louder, stronger, more direct and still
have that angry inner teenager as my backup who has taught me that saying “f***
off” is sometimes the most brave, heartfelt truth and clearest expression of a
feeling. It's also a great and sometimes needed boundary of saying “yes” to
self-love and “no” to anything that feels other. I've learned how to love and
be gentle authentically.
"Life
as a dance" is a philosophy I teach Kai teachers-in-training. It's a
practice of looking at the cycles, stages, and events that life offers and
finding a way to dance with it all. To engage with life and view it all as one
big spiral that we can harmonize and dance with rather than avoid. On the dance
floor it's a practice of inviting the body's impulses, emotions, dreams and thoughts.
We allow it to have it's expression and movement, witnessing from a place of
non-judgment. It's a meditation of noticing what the body gravitates too and
letting it unfold.
Most often
when we dance we “think” our way into steps, patterns, and trying to find the
“socially acceptable” way of moving. Other times the patterns are so encoded
within us we just move like we do in life with armor and robotic movements.
"Life as a dance" is more conscious and allows one to soften into
what is happening, looking at your dance as a microcosm of what is happening
outside the dance room in life. In this dance room I can explore and peel off
the layers of training, fear, pain, or disconnect, revealing a vulnerable yet
strong core that feels so good, strangely ancient, and yet is new.... new,
fierce, creative, and edgy. It's in this dance room that I get to change and
grow.
Witnessed
by community with love and awareness, I found my new feet and now stand in a
deeper, wider space of self than I did before. I'm more open and available and present.
This is dance medicine at it's best and I am so grateful.
This is Week 14 of 52 Artists in 52 Weeks. Thank you for reading and sharing Kelly's story today! To see a video of Kelly dancing Kai, go to:
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