Choreographing Life- transcript

Recorded January 2017

So, I spoke with (counselor) today at work about what’s up for me, and I told her that last night, I was sitting, and it became very clear to me that I’ve been running for 2 years, since my divorce, and that I feel like it’s time to FEEL it. And I have all these things going on that are either distractions, or….it’s just all up for me right now.

She said, “I picture you, you know, making a dance of what you’re going through….like, choreographing a dance maybe around your divorce” and it really hit me hard..and I’m driving home, and it’s like…it’s pretty clear to me that I started dancing more and instantly I started shutting down, because when you dance, you feel more, you’re moving energy through your body, and you have to allow those energies through in order to dance, and just by the act of dancing, you open up channels that are maybe trying to be blocked…..

So, I’m just having an image of the therapeutic power of allowing the story to play through our body and to orchestrate that story and to be conscious of how that story is played out and how it WAS played out, and how we move forward into the world…and how our physical movement in the world and our energetic movement in the world, interaction with people, is no different…it’s no different.

And to choreograph a dance that illustrates the TRUE story of what happened could be profound. My first thought is to go learn about choreography more, and to dive into that, and about storytelling and the power of story, and find a way to combine the two in a way that can really empower people to understand what’s happened to them in a different way and to change their course consciously or to act out somehow what’s happening internally that they can’t put words to, because these energetic shifts… we can try and use our brain and rationalize it….or braini-ize it, or whatever you want to call it, but it doesn’t… at some point, you gotta just give that up, and the body starts talking. This might be a way to help listen to the body too. It’s amazing how one small suggestion, when I look at it, I see the potential for it, and that’s where dance therapy comes in ….

(sigh)……yeah…dance therapy. I like it. I wish there were more programs for it. I would be willing to see how to make that work.

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Pushing Up Against Myself – transcript

Recorded January 2017

So, I’m reading Soulshaping by Jeff Brown, and, um, he talks about the patterns …just kind of that person that’s really you. He says ‘there are more authentic versions lingering below the habits of daily experience. To identify them, we need to make real efforts to distinguish our personality traits from the deeper archetypal currents of our lives.’

I guess the words aren’t directly related to my sensation, but I have to wonder if the authentic me is a dancer if it’s just so hard to get back into it, or if I’m butting up against what I don’t want to feel by dancing again. (sigh)

I feel like..I was thinking of (Pdx friend) actually, and how he goes out dancing, and he doesn’t seem really impassioned by dance, but it fulfills a definite purpose, and so he goes out and he dances, quite a bit I think. And it’s a part of his life. So, that’s where I feel like I’m pushing up against something in myself to prevent dance from just being in my life, to prevent committing to dance, or a style of dance, and forgoing the other styles for a while. And granted, I live in a wasteland for dance, honestly. It could be a lot worse, but, …..yeah, there’s definitely not much here. So I am just wondering what I am pushing up against in myself.

It’s almost like someone’s standing there waving their arms in front of me, there’s a part of me saying “oh, no! Don’t go that way!” and I keep going….but there’s that resistance I’m up against…so, I’d love to figure that one out.

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Depressed – transcript

Recorded January 2017

(I really wish this audio was uploadable….because it really catches what I am feeling so much more than the words will… the pauses, the intonation, the sighs…etc)

My usual MO is to plan right now…to plan my mornings, find a goal, set a goal, figure out how to do it. I don’t want to plan anything. I don’t know if they call that depression. I don’t want to do a thing, and I have so much I could do…

Yeah…like,

“I could wake up early and go work out…” -what’s the point?

“I could get up and do yoga…- but what’s the goal?

“I could get up and dance” – but I honestly want to just sleep.

I don’t have a lot of energy. I’m tired of being sick.

something…..(sigh)…

.

.

I don’t want  to feel my body.

….

There’s something there.

(Sigh)….and if I feel my body, I’ll have to feel it. I can certainly sense my resistance…to feeling.

Ooooooh,…..it’s tough being human.

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Older dancer

When I do a search on Dancemagazine site for “older dancer”, I find an article blurb asking “Why aren’t we seeing older dancers more often?” and when I click on the More hyperlink,…..the article is no longer there….

Kind of like the remnants of a dancer’s life.

Like amazing dancers who just vanished from the dance world, with only pictures and memories. It’s as if they died, but we have links to them. The links are just dead.

When I have experiences like this, and when I look for classes in cities I am visiting, and they have JAZZ40 (Jazz for folks over 40 years old), I start to feel like a senior citizen. All this at the same time I am thinking of starting dance all over.

Part of me says this is impossible. The pragmatic, scared part of me knows that to simply follow a “regular” career would be the easiest route, the safest route, the predictable route, with only the pain of numbness.

Another part of me, the warrior side, jumps at the challenge. “I can do anything I set my mind to” is her mantra. I have accomplished most of what I set out to do, although I have not learned to sustain anything. But, this is not something to conquer, although I would have to use all of those warrior skills to ensure I am safe and consistent and that I push through those tough times. This part of me knows what it takes, and stands at attention, ready to take on the next challenge I give it.

The weary part of me asks, “when will all these challenges end? I am so deeply tired.” This part wants simplicity, no goals, just time to ponder, and sleep, and feel what comes up. She wants to slow down enough to feel nature, to breathe in her surroundings. Slow down until the air breathes her, until the rumblings of the earth are the rumblings of her body, until the vibrations of the universe are the music in her cells. And then, she will be rejuvenated, and then she will tap into the wellspring of mana and let it flow through her.

And a deeper part of me knows that this is not a labor of a year, or simply a challenge. This is not something for which I instantly drop everything else in a brave attempt to reclaim what I laid down in shame. ..Something I picked up again, and again, and again.

This is a calling to be fully embodied, not just to dance the form I know best, but to yet again be a channel of light and love. This time, with more wisdom, with more gravity, more balance and sincerity.

This is a deep act of self-preservation in a world so confusing and chaotic, so wildly unnatural in its attempt to curb our true wild nature. Our wild nature IS balance. It is a natural, instinctual response to the vibrations moving in, around, and through us. It is not a set of societal structures and rules, but rather an inner compass based on wisdom, heart, and deep knowing. It is sourced from our genes and our ancestors.

I know not where this is coming from, except that I know a knot inside is coming unraveled. It’s a big one, a gnarly mess of shame, grief, unspoken desires and abandoned dreams.

It’s time for something new to be born from an old passion. When I left San Francisco Ballet School and abandoned a full scholarship, I told them that dance was a spiritual thing for me. I didn’t tell them the truth, that I couldn’t afford to survive. And yet, I think in many ways, I did tell the truth. Dance is my way of connecting to source, to being a channel of the FULL experience of life. It rolls in the past, the present, and future. It rolls in HUMANITY. It can be shared or it can be solitary, and either way it connects us.

I trust I will find people who feel the same way as me on my journey. This journey started 33 years ago, when I discovered ballet. While I may not have spent all those years in the studio, I have explored movement in many forms, and I keep coming back to the DANCE….

Dance is Life is Dance

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The Power of Performance

When my body was suddenly covered in goosebumps, I knew I was on the right topic with my tea date. After nearly 2 hours of talking about life, career, parenting, politics, we came back around to performing, something that I know deeply, both as a performer on stage and as a person “performing” in life for love and career and social acceptance.

The world is our stage, and we can either sell our soul trying to appease this audience or that audience. Or, we can be authentic, and find that instead of feeling depleted, we are left overflowing with joy.

Have you ever been to a performance where the artist somehow brought you closer to yourself? Where you found yourself more deeply connected to your own body and sensations and emotions, and those of everyone around you? Where the light, the air, the sounds, are almost palpable?

I know that feeling, and I relish that feeling. It’s called being connected, and I witnessed it yesterday in untrained dancers “performing” in a Tantric Dance of the Sacred Feminine at Inlakesh Festival. After getting in tune with our bodies, eyes closed, we all formed a circle and held space for 2 dancers at a time. They kept their eyes closed, and just let the movement come, big or small. Amazingly, the smallest movements were certainly the most powerful. Why? Because they came from the center of their being.

Couple one was a large man with a sarong draped like a cape across one shoulder, and a petite woman, both of them coincidentally Asian. The man was quivering, so large and powerful, yet obviously intensely sensitive and sensual. The lady was very reserved at first, yet it wasn’t long before she was overtaken by something glorious, sensuous, powerful. Afterward, shaking and eyes alight with wonder, she said it was like the heavens poured into her.

Couple two was a younger girl, strong and pretty, who shook her hips and arms like one would “expect” to the music she was given. The other lady was tall, full-bodied with voluptuous hair well past her waist, a classic face with rosy high cheeks, an absolute pleasure to look at. When she danced, it was like watching Kali. She was soft and sensuous, yet in her dance was fire and brimstone, earthen love and watery seduction.

Fast forward to African Dance later that day, where the heavens again poured into and through me, and my movement became pure devotion. I reached a point in my dance where only the intent drove the movement, my body lit up with an electrical charge, and I had seemingly boundless energy that I poured right into the other dancers. At the end of a full and energetic (and SUPER sweaty) class, we took turns performing improvised solos. One of the movements of the class is deeply devotional and exuberant. In a gesture of bringing my hands close to my heart, and collecting all the joy therein, then offering it forth to each and every dancer in the circle, one at a time, I poured my heart and joy out, shared my love, and channeled an immense amount of energy. I looked directly into the eyes of each of them, some alight with wonder, love, awe, and some with uncertainty. They felt it. I gave all I had to them, and in that exchange, I filled up with more love and joy than I can imagine on a daily basis. 

mansare dance class

(Photo from Oneworlddance.com ….Sarah Mansare is the teacher and the person that really turned me onto this dance, this culture, this amazing affirmation of our potent life force and capacity for joy and giving)

I leave these experiences transformed from the inside out, each time more and more certain of why dance means so much to me, why and how it can be good for others, to connect to themselves and therefore to others.

There is little (or nothing) more vulnerable and empowering than dancing our truth, and in that instant lies the power of the heavens and earth combined.

Everyone can have that.

I hope for everyone to experience that interconnectedness, to realize that authenticity is the true pathway to connection.

 

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The Heavens Opened Up and Poured Into My Heart

**This post is 2 months old, and I thought I had to write everything before posting….silly me

Joy is timeless, so InJoy!

I don’t know how to assimilate all of the goodness that is flowing into my life.

I opened the doors to what I want, and it’s all flooding in at once…. conscious relationships, dance, community, career success, financial stability, and something I never imagined….. having my whole reality shattered by a weekend of African dance.

Sounds odd, but bear with me, and you will understand.

Sometimes, I can’t tell if written words or spoken are better. Here is my Bathtime Musing #5, in case you prefer to listen:

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Bathtime Musing #2: The Fall of Exaltation

You know the post-performance (or post-project) blues? They hit me within hours of the end of my first weekend of performances in 11 years. Here are my thoughts on that…. direct from my watery tub.tub

While I wanted to edit this one, I didn’t. Please pardon the abrupt ending.

 

 

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A Year to Clear

As is par for the course on a New Years Day, I slept in. Thankfully, I remembered to turn off my alarm, and at 10am, I awoke, with crusty eyes, swollen hands, and an internal panic of all that I “have” to do.

Insert big EXHALE here.

Let me start over. I know 2016 is going to be big. 2015 was huge. I let go of a lot and brought in so much that I now don’t have enough hours in the day to do all that I brought into my life and would LOVE to do! It’s a real problem, folks.

I wake up, and my mind starts with, you “should” do yoga. That’s a healthy way to start the day, every day. You shouldn’t drink coffee. It’s hard on your adrenals. You really should go play on your pole. Don’t sit down on the computer right away without stretching and being active first. And on and on… I think I have an internal mother on overdrive.

And then I think of all that I want to DO in my life.

  • I want to dance more, like full dancing, with jumps and leaps, and performing, and pirouettes, and floorwork, and all the pain and beauty I remember.
  • Oh, and I have a pole downstairs that I want to learn to use, but for some reason am not.
  • I want to write more, so I think a daily blog again would be good.
  • I started a fellowship, so I know I need to study.
  • Of course, I want to somehow turn that into a business where I actually help people be healthier, vs. approve medications that are prescribed by other people and that I know are making them sicker.
  • Oh, and I want to be healthy and strong, so I want to keep up the workouts in the gym, and of course the meal prepping.
  • Perhaps I might do a figure competition as well.
  • Somewhere in there, I really want to have more close relationships with people. Yet I am reticent to have a relationship outside of myself. I want to let people in….slowly.
  • I want to clear the clutter in my home….starting with the file drawer full of things to file…and I need to download my quicken for the YEAR and figure out what is biz and not…and organize so I can study, so my heartrate doesn’t quicken in panic every time I walk in the office….
  • And all of those things take Time, …and Focus…. and Presence.

And yet, I am remembering going through some of my old posts last night after coming back from New Years festivities. So many of the posts are about Surrendering to the unknown, to letting the current image of things as we think they should be fall away. They are about Trust, Self Love, and BEing.

So, I sit down with my coffee, open up my computer, and this page is looking at me (which I opened last night)

A Year to Clear What is Holding You Back!
Premium on-line course by Stephanie Bennett Vogt
(9,538 people have taken this course)
 

This is a 365-day on-line course available from Stephanie Bennett Vogt. We will email you when your new lesson is available and you will be able to login and read each lesson on-line or print as they become available and click to listen to the guided audio meditations. Your first lesson will be available immediately after you enroll.

“The journey is the treasure.”-Lloyd Alexander

 

Well, I took it as a sign, and I signed up. Part of me thought, “Amy, there you go committing to yet one more thing,” and the other part of me said, “It needs to happen. It will help me focus on what is most important each day, help me in seeing that I don’t have to do it all every day, that it’s ok to let some things go so other things can come in.”

So, no New Years Resolutions, except maybe to ALLOW my Self to be all that I imagine and more, or less than I imagine, and to trust that letting go of what I imagine will allow something I cannot imagine because it is a whole new way of being.

I like the sound of that!

What is on your mind as we head into 2016? 

 

 

 

Heart songs and shit sandwiches…..What next?

Feeling the same downers as I did after a big show. You prep and prep, live the goal day by day, chip away at everything that is a distraction, until the big event comes. For me, it was always dance shows. This last time, it was the end of the Oxygen Magazine 90 day challenge and the hope of making the top 20, maybe even the cover. I didn’t make the top 20, by the way, but I am kind of glad. I needed a break from everything. Although, if I had made the top 20, I would have embraced it. Either way, It’s ALL GOOD.

I had knee issues crop up, and I was just plain tired after waking up at 4 am 5 days a week and busting my ass in the gym. I pushed hard, I didn’t miss one workout the whole 90 days. My meals and macros were on point pretty much the whole time. I didn’t drink alcohol for the last 5-6 weeks. I felt amazing the last official workout before I took my AFTER photos. That expression is PRIDE, pride in myself for seeing it through, for giving it my all, for committing FULLY to myself and my goal. No excuses, to me or anyone else.

#FlexFriday This is the face of one HAPPY lady! I DID IT! I committed fully to myself for 90 days. It wasn't easy, yet it was, because I was ALL IN. See that picture on the right? That is PRIDE, .....pride in myself for a job well done. I haven't seen that face alot over the years. I had issues with my low back, my sacrum, my shoulder, and my knees, so I trained smart, but I always trained hard. I didn't miss one workout, and my food was on point! I learned the exercises, the meals, how to balance my macros, what protein powders to use and what supplements to use.. I dragged my butt out of bed at 4am every weekday, and if I woke up late, I got my #workout in somehow. I worked out six days a week and devoted my Sundays to rest and food prep. I invested a huge amount of time, energy and money (mostly for food) in this, and I am super stoked with the results. You know the best thing about this? I DID IT FOR ME, AND ME ALONE. Nobody suggested this, and at first I honestly doubted if I should go through with it, but something inside said it was not up for discussion. I am #foreverchanged. And what is really amazing is that by bettering myself, I inspired many others in my life to do the same. Now, that is something I didn't expect, and it makes me happy to know I can make the world a better place simply by loving myself fully. #ilovemylife #inspiration Thank you @oxygenmagazine , @erinstern5 and @amandalatona ! #oxychallenge #teamerin #teamboth #teamamanda #bodybuilding #fitat40 #fitfam #covermodel #covergirl #healthyliving #weights #noexcuses #trainhardyall #muscle #guns #biceps #gainz #oxygenexhale
Awesome, right?……………………
So, NOW WHAT??!!!
I think of doing a competition, and it’s exciting. I love the life, having a plan and sticking to it.
I love working on something similar day in and day out and noticing the changes in myself from day to day, week to week. When you do an activity regularly, you become more aware of how every part of your life affects your health. Then, my knees start talking. My adrenals start talking. Both are telling me to lay off of them a bit.
I started this so I could get stronger for dance, aerial, yoga, acroyoga, etc. YET, I didn’t make time for much of those. I got stiff because I didn’t stretch enough….huh. I haven’t started my Integrative Medicine Fellowship, but I am signed up. So much to do, so little desire to commit to anything right now.
Last night, I watched an interview with Elizabeth Gilbert. Lots of things hit me, but what really stuck was when she talks about the “shit sandwich.” There is often the desire to do something grand with our passions. As young’uns, we think we want to “be” so many things, and then we go to college and realize we have to work at it.
It’s not fun all the time.
Liz talked about the shit sandwich that every endeavor has. If you keep doing an activity despite the shit sandwich, then it’s worth continuing for you. For dance, I sacrificed so much every day, but the joy of dance made ALL of it worth it. What are you willing to put up with to do what makes your heart sing? If it makes your heart sing, does it matter?
It made me remember that dance is the one thing I am willing to put up with just about anything to have it in my life, so I am not sure why I am not doing it more. For now, I am just going to start there. I got stronger, I accomplished my first goal, now it’s time to figure out the next part.
I don’t need to decide right now what the next thing is. I just need to allow it to percolate. I will be drawn to what is right for me, bit by bit. Having that trust is hard, but it pays off every time!

Turning it around

In a half hour, a complete stranger helped me to understand a power struggle between my daughter Keely and myself that has caused us much strife over the past year. I left this call with a “stranger” able to breathe freely in a way I haven’t felt in months.

This person somehow, in a twist of celestial fate, showed up in my Facebook feed yesterday offering free 30-minute calls to people. She goes by April Dawn*, which I find even more interesting, as my daughter goes by Keely Dawn.

She reminded me indirectly of the mirror our lives are to our internal state. I expressed concern over my daughter’s ability to make things happen in her life for herself, and how I hate being in the position of having to decide whether to step up for her again or to let her feel the consequences of her lack of action. April said she sensed a lack of trust in my relationship with my daughter, and asked me to turn around my lack of trust in my daughter’s ability to make things happen. She asked if in some way I might be acting from the fear that I am not able to make those things happen in my life, and it hit me like a brick.

Yes, as always, it was my issue all along.

I let myself down when I was 18 when I quit San Francisco Ballet School. I have lived with that regret ever since. I have found ways back to dance here and there. I blamed circumstance. I pointed the finger at my folks for not financially supporting me when I needed it. But in the end, it was my responsibility to ask for help, and to find a way to make it happen, to believe in myself enough and to love myself enough to make my dream my life.

And I didn’t do that for myself.

And I project that regret onto my daughter, fearing she will do the same thing. And it’s not right, nor is it helpful.

The call happened twenty minutes ago, and already some of the details are fading, but the lesson isn’t. I have put so much energy into trying to “help” my daughter succeed at what I think are the most basic things, and all I really need to do is make things happen for myself. Live by example.

My fear of not being able to make my own dreams come true, has led me to put pressure on my daughter to make hers happen. Near the end of the call, April asked how I felt about making things happen for myself, and I remembered that in the past year, I have actually made some huge strides for myself in that direction. Lately, I have been feeling very stuck and impotent in that area, but reminding myself of the steps I have taken suddenly reaffirmed my trust in myself, and hence, my trust that my daughter will be o.k. She is on her own path, and she will find her own way. I sighed out tension I have been holding for months.

When I take away my fear of letting myself down and learn to trust myself, I suddenly trust that my daughter can do what’s right for herself. And when I am in that place of trust, I can guide vs push her. I can be there for her, but let herself do what she needs to do. I can allow her to find her own way, and remain available for her, but not intercept.

I can trust her because I can trust myself, and that’s a HUGE relief for both of us!

*April Dawn has a Relationship promotion going which I am happy to spread the word about. If she can help me reach clarity in a half hour on something I have missed for months, I can only imagine how she can help guide people in 4 months!

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