I’ve been in a tizzy all week. I missed my winter tire changeover appointment because I had covid (I’m all better now). My winter tires were on a shelf too high for me to reach, I was too wobbly to get to them, and if I even managed to drag one down with the rake, it would probably smash the basement stairs, and then where would I be? And no one could help me while I was C+. And the weather was getting rather assertively wintry. Yikes!
Last night my son (the one who put the tires on that shelf) said, Wait, aren’t there snow tires on your car now?
What?! No!
Uhhh… hmmm…
Damn.
This year was so wack, I never had the tires swapped in the spring, and never even remembered I hadn’t done it.
Yeah, it’s been real. I am fine; I’ve had family stuff that was, is… stressful.
Yet today is Thanksgiving in the USA. It has a twisted history, so I am sticking to the core concept of thankfulness. Gratitude. Finding what’s good, even when times are hard.
I have a lot of gratitude.
I am beyond grateful to the family members and friends helping us through. In particular, Corina, Ken, Stewart, and William, you are my heroes.
Thank you!
And today I am especially thankful for my friend Kristen. This was none of her ordeal, yet she stepped up when I could not–and turned the tide.
Thank you!
This Thanksgiving’s image is dedicated to her.
I’m also thankful beyond measure for you–readers of these notes, folks who buy classes and coaching, Secret Center members–every one of you has helped me through this year, just by being part of my world. You gave me reason to keep going, even when times were very rough indeed.
Thank you!
How have things been going for you?
Maybe it’s been tough for you, too? Sometimes it’s hard to find the good ;(
A friend recounted to me in exhausted detail everything on her (immense) to-do list, along with her frustration and overwhelm at its contemplation. She had recently moved into a new house, and the workload was indeed massive. However she had already transformed it from a wreck into a lovely home. Mostly alone. During Covid. Scrubbing grime-blackened floors on her knees. I mean… if it were me, I’d still be living in squalor. Her accomplishments were astounding! So I listed them. Take the time to celebrate what you’ve done, I said. “Oh,” she replied, surprised. “I didn’t know you could do that.”
Few of us do.
We discount our successes. We only see how we’ve missed the mark, made mistakes, or failed miserably. We focus on our flaws. We speak bitterly to ourselves.
It’s not our fault. We are socialized to do this. The vast majority of folks on this list are women, sensitive men, or somewhere in between; in a patriarchal society, we are seen as inferior, as less than, and made to see ourselves as such. We always need a new cream, or dress, or diet, or whatever garbage to improve ourselves. To be good enough.
We are already good enough!
My dear colleague Walladah Valadah made a meme to showcase this. I feel so honored!!
Sure, we can improve ourselves. All our lives.
Plenty of people who feel they are quite perfect can also improve themselves. We will never be truly perfect–we can’t. We don’t want to be. Perfection is death. Life is about becoming.
And with all that socialized attack upon our self-worth, it can be challenging for us as dancers to enjoy ourselves. To love ourselves. To relax, to savor, to relish. To be genuine, real, playful–Present. Especially in this specific art form, where these are our primary endeavor.
There are twin questions that, for me, come at the top of the list for dancers in our dance.
Is the dancer enjoying themself? Does the dancer share their joy with their guests?
If we are working too hard, thinking too much, fearful, freeze, worry we are not good enough, etc, etc, then we aren’t enjoying ourselves. If we aren’t enjoying ourselves, we can’t share our joy.
So how do we change this? What if we develop our Presence?
What is Presence?
According to Amy Cuddy, who wrote a whole book on the topic, Presence is “the state of being attuned to and able to comfortably express our true thoughts, feelings, values, and potential.”
Able to comfortably express our true thoughts, feelings, values, and potential.
How often do you feel able to do that–comfortably? How often are you able to bring that into your dance?
I’ve spent decades unable to do that, in life or in dance. It’s taken a lot of personal work to change that, to be able to comfortably speak my mind, to know my worth, to feel equal to the world. Cuddy maintains that we can self-induce Presence. Which is what I have been studying over the last several months to design CYGS–and what I am bringing, in dance form, to the upcoming FUN Class, Presence.
I’ve written recently about using the mirror and acting as if. We’ve been doing these in CYGS for the last few weeks; all the participants report shifts and breakthroughs. These strategies work.
Today I bring you another simple, yet powerful, strategy, also from Amy Cuddy.
Write about your core values
What is important to you? What do you hold dear? What principles guide your life? They may be big or small. One of mine is to be warm and appreciative with “service” staff–waiters, cashiers, clerks, hotel housekeeps, and so forth.
What are yours? Make a list. Choose one or two that are most central to your identity. Write a tiny essay about it. Just a few paragraphs. Five minutes. What does it mean to you? Why are those values important to you? When in your life have they proved to be important?
This is called self-affirmation, and study after study has confirmed its effectiveness in helping folks saty grounded in challenging situations.
This is just one of the strategies we will use in Presence. We’ll use a different tool each week to help us bring comfort and joy into our dance–and our lives.
As it happens, Presence starts on Tuesday!
Presence: Joyous Connection in Oriental Dance
Our next FUN Class Deep Dive is alll about developing a joyful, confident, connection to ourselves, our dance, and anyone with whom we care to share it. We’ll use pinning, breakouts, and other strategies to increase our capacity for connection, openness, warmth, and joy. What we’ll do
Explore and embody Presence
Enrich simple combinations with joyous connection
Bring our confident movement quality to a range of musical styles, tempos, and genres
Make space for openness, warmth, and love
Practice grounded, present, agency
Presence runs Tuesdays at 4pm ET from Oct 4 through Nov 1. Each class is recorded (instructor view only). Each recording is available during the session.
Will you join us? It’s going to be joyfully liberating!
Maybe we are just so stressed out, so overwhelmed with what needs to be done, that we just don’t have it in us. We’re getting from day to day; isn’t that enough?!
Maybe we have survived sexual assault and any connection to sensuality feels unsafe. Guilt and shame whisper that our sexuality caused the attack….
Maybe we are alone, and have no one with whom to share our lusciousness. Maybe we have been alone a long time or just recently. Maybe we have lost someone dear to us. Why bother trying to feel luscious? We will still be alone…
There are so many ways we may feel helpless in the face of events we did not choose, that have been forced upon us by circumstance. So many reasons we may feel safer turning our back upon any lusciousness….
Baby steps…
Trauma is an inability to be in the here and now. We get hijacked by there-and-then. When we feel activated, we want to respect that. Our body is doing its best to keep us safe. It’s pointless to demand that it stop. It’s going to need some help with that.
The antidote is first to focus on the here and now. Notice our surroundings. Is anything bad or dangerous right here in the room with us? Yes? Get out. No? Okay. We could maybe settle, just a little bit in this precious moment.
That alone is huge.
Just looking curiously around our own space, noticing what is right here, right now. Look around our space. Feel our other senses. What we can hear. Feel. Taste. Touch. Scent. Rest in the here and now. Notice your breath (are you breathing?). Just notice. Observe. See what happens next., Maybe it will change on its own. Become a little slower. Or you may notice a sudden big exhale, maybe even some trembling. Or a yawn, belch, fart, gurgle in the tummy. All signs of settling.
Course correction
Over time, as we increase our capacity for settling, our Observer may come online. This is that calm inner voice that notes what’s going on in an unbiased, thoughtful way.
We may begin to notice when we are more or less settled, more or less present, or even when we are spinning in the trauma vortex. Just noticing is huge. And as we begin to notice, we may begin to make choices. The choice to be more present is a useful first step. As above, we notice our space, and slowly, gently, check in with each of our senses.
As we become more able to be present, even for small moments, we may begin to expand our use of interoception. This is our perception of what’s going on inside of us. We often push such awareness aside, as we navigate the dangerous waters of everyday life. As we begin to settle, we begin to increase our capacity to look inside our bodies, to acknowledge what’s going on in there, to be curious about it, to bring our Observer to bear.
Over time (and it helps a lot to have professional help on this journey), we can get curious about what’s going on inside our bodies when we get triggered. And as we notice what’s going on in there, we can wonder, What happens next?
Setting aside the pain, just for the moment
As we begin to dip a pinkie toe into settling, we often experience a sudden upswing of activation. The body, used to being on alert, distrusts this settling and leaps back to activation. Our fear, despair, anger, or grief may re-emerge just as we begin to feel differently. At first, this may hijack us (again, personal sessions with a qualified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner are of great help on this journey, to hold space, to notice the shifts, and to guide us through them).
In such cases, as our capacity increases, we become more able to acknowledge the activation and respectfully set it aside—just for the moment. So that our nervous system can learn that it is okay to cycle off. That not every moment is life and death. So that we can make space for pleasant sensations, for pleasure, for lusciousness, for joy.
The value of joy
After such a long time in high alert, the concept of joy may seem a bit frivolous. Even the notion of looking at the good, resting in what’s working, noticing our resources may seem pretty damn pointless, especially when we have been stuck in perfectionism, fault-finding, and a generally negative disdainful ethos.
I have a friend who has always been relentlessly negative, and is now currently suffering such a frightening time that it seems ridiculous to suggest that they might find it more endurable by noticing what is pleasant. Yet it is true. We humans are not built to exist in a state of constant suffering, anxiety, fear, anger, etc. Our bodies evolved to respond to immediate threats, and then to settle.
The more we develop our capacity to orient towards what is pleasant, settling, even joyful, the better our nervous system works, the more capacity we have to endure the challenges life brings brings us, and the better we are able to recover from them.
Act the way you want to feel
Even the most momentary vacation from high alert makes a difference. I Luscious, we will take some time each week for that vacation, in the privacy of our own homes. You are welcome to turn off your camera, if you prefer. You are welcome to just lie on the floor and listen. However is best for you to show up with your own self-kindness is good.
LUSCIOUS starts today!
Luscious runs Tuesday at 4pm EDT from August 9 through Sept 20 (no class August 16 or Sept 6). Each class is recorded (instructor view only). Each recording is available during the session.
Will you please join us? Dip your pinkie toe? It’s going to be… luscious ; ) Register here https://aliathabit.com/shop/#live/
I did my first ever Instagram Live yesterday. I had to look up how to do it ; ). The day went kinda south, so I girded myself with the improviser’s axiom, “Don’t Prepare; Just Show Up.” I had this idea of lusciousness, and that’s it.
So here is that IG Live. Skip in about 35 seconds to the actual start (lol, learning curves ; ).
Hub the cat kind of needs a fez. He reminds me here of all those dear guys in Egyptian movies, caught up in the music, gazing affectionately at the dancer.
This is what I’m feeling, anyway. I’m liking where we’ve been going, and I kind of want to stay with that for a while. The last one was BOLD and we did soak on the bold side of things (Sekhmet, anyone?). I like how it was a little bit challenging, gender-bending, pushing our comfort zones a bit. Gave us a taste of a different way to be.
I’d like Luscious to be transgressive in a different way.
I’ve had a lot of shame around sexuality to unpack on my journey. It took time and patience. We steep in the mixed messages of our social programming. Must not be sexy! NO! Must be sexy–for the other. Must not like sex! Ew, dirty! Must like sex or at least pretend to–for the other. Must not look sexy! Will get in trouble. BAD. Must look sexy! For the other…
And for us as dancers, it’s even more complicated–our costumes, the public side-eye, the even more mixed messages from the countries of origin. It’s tough to pick apart our own feelings, wants, and desires from the layers of shame and blame.
Folk of the culture maintain that this is a woman’s dance. Everyone dances this dance, yet it’s a woman’s dance. Interesting. Gender binaries aside, to me, this means egg energy as opposed to sperm energy. The sperm goes out. It rushes. It has a goal. Swift, like an arrow! Get out there! Make those calls! Go get ’em! Rah!
The egg…. attracts. It’s magnetic. It’s engaged within and of itself. It doesn’t have to go anywhere, do anything. It doesn’t even have to put on eyeliner. It’s that juicy and… luscious.
What if we don’t have a female body, or don’t identify as female?
Who cares? Sperm energy is generally valorized in Western culture–we’re allll expected to run around like little do-bees, busy busy productive extraverts. All the genders are expected to act like sperm, so why shouldn’t we all act like eggs, too? It might be a bit outside of our comfort zone–true learning is uncomfortable. And learning new skills increases our capacity for learning skills. So that pays off. And we could all benefit from seeing ourselves as luscious–self-love, affection, cherishing, magnetic, fragrant, mmmm….
And we could all use an hour on the sofa with with a nice little dish of bonbons. Right? And getting to enjoy those bonbons, as a choice, nibbling them slowly, for the creamy pleasure of it …
Lusciousness, Dala3, playful sensual/sexual confidence, is a core component of the cultural dance. It is NOT about the other. It IS about ourselves and our own self-love, affection, cherishing. Soooo…
Announcing! Alia’s Inspiring FUN Class,
Luscious
What we’ll do
Explore and embody lusciousness
Translate simple combinations into lusciousness
Bring our luscious movement quality to a range of musical styles, tempos, and genres
Make space for self-love, affection, cherishing
Practice grounded, present, agency
Luscious runs Tuesday at 4pm EDT from August 9 through Sept 13 (no class Sept 6). Each class is recorded (instructor view only). Each recording is available during the session.
Will you please join us? It’s going to be… luscious ; ) Register here https://aliathabit.com/shop/#live/
Yep, I’m reading another book. What to Say When You Talk to Yourself, by Shad Helmststter, PhD is alll about the power of self talk, both positive and negative. I’m not sure what I think of it, yet (I’m a little more than halfway through). But it has made me think, and you might also find this interesting.
As dancers, what we say to ourselves can make allll the difference between our shows feeling great vs feeling like a hideous disaster.
Background–I used to be very, very unkind to myself. I said things to myself that I would never say to another person. I hated myself and told myself so at every opportunity. (It wasn’t until I found Somatic Experiencing® (SE) that those cruel voices resolved, and stayed that way.) And I am not alone in this!
Perfectionist fault-finding and vicious self-talk is wayyyy common. Something like 50% of folks report feeling like imposters. So, of course I had to read this book (plus self talk is a piece of the puzzle I’m putting together for Create Your Glorious Self…) Anyway…
The advice is to first listen to your own self talk.
What are you saying? Is it self-compassionate? “There there honey, we’re doing okay. We’ll get through this!” Or self-empowering? “Wow, you did it! that’s awesome! Woo-hoo!” Or even, “Oops! Hmm. Okay, let’s try that differently next time.”
Or is it more along the lines of, you stupid cow, what were you thinking?! Or, I suck at this! Or, this is the worst day of my life!
The toxic rain of negative voices can be so constant we don’t even notice it anymore. But that’s what trips us up when we want to shine. That litany of, I suck, I can’t do this, they are looking at me, they hate me, that’ll never work, who am I to ____, I don’t know what I’m doing… is self-programming, and it is also self-fulfilling. When we think this way, we feel powerless, so we act powerless., so we feel powerless, and on and on, in a miserable feedback loop.
(Side note–I’ve had some serious dental infections in the last few years, and one thing I noticed was a rise of anxious, weepy self talk along the lines of “I don’t know what I’m doing…” So sometimes there are other roots (haha), to the problem.)
Anyway…
Listen.
What are you saying? How often do you say it? What happened just before the cascade of negative? Sometimes there is a trigger. Sometimes it’s just an all day party ; ). How do you see yourself? When you look in the mirror, what do you say to yourself? Do you have your own back? Or are you busy stabbing it?
Maybe you are lucky and you feel good about yourself! WOO!!! You can sit back right now and have a bonbon! Well done.
If not, take action.
How to Reprogram Your Self Talk
Helmstetter advises us to reverse the things we say to ourselves, in the moment that we hear them. I suck at this, becomes, “I am competent and I can do this!” They hate me, becomes “They don’t know me yet, so here I am!” Today is disaster, I just don’t have it in me, becomes “Today is a great day! I have plenty of energy, today especially!”
I have been playing with this, and sometimes I have to laugh at the ludicrous irony of these upbeat re-framings. So I have also been engaging in “interrogative” self talk, which means questioning my own inner statements. “Is this really the worst day ever?!” Um, well, no. “Do you really not know what you’re doing?” Well, actually, I am pretty competent. That’s been pretty interesting, too. If the affirming piece is tough for you, the interrogative option might be a nice bridge.
On the other hand, I recognize the value of the process, and I do find a lift follows the shift. Saying things out load makes a difference too, as does writing them down and reading them, and reading them aloud. However we get these new things into our heads, they get into our heads.
Next Steps
We can move on from reversal to general good news about ourselves on a regular basis, saying kind words to ourselves, out loud–and saying kind words about ourselves to others! Speaking of the mirror, I love the bathroom mirror to check in with myself, to smile and cheerfully greet myself and say some nice things. I’m in there several times a day, so that’s several times a day I can check in and smile at myself.
Plus there are practical applications….
Say you want to quit something–smoking (or playing solitaire on your phone, or whatever). Helmstetter advises saying something along the lines of, “I never smoke.” or “I no longer enjoy smoking, and I have quit” He suggests we say these things to ourselves, and out loud, and to others–even as we light up and inhale.
Just continue to say the words, as we continue to smoke. We became conditioned to smoking, and we will become conditioned to the idea that we do not smoke. It will take some time, maybe a few weeks or so. One day we will be lighting up, and our now-reprogrammed subconscious mind will say, then what are you doing with that ciggie?! Yuck!
The trick is remembering to do that. Helmstetter explains how much more valuable it is to generate positive self talk ourselves–but he has built an empire on pre-recorded self talk for every conceivable issue. Which is funny, but everyone’s got to make a living, I guess.
Anyway, I’m planning to play with this in the coming week <cough solitaire cough>. I invite you to join me at whatever level. Listening, reversing, questioning, or straight up affirming your wonderfulness.
Know that you are wonderful! You are beautiful and loving, and worthy of love. I invite you to say so to yourself, every day ❤️
PS Create Your Glorious Self is coming together beautifully! I’ll be doing some cool events leading up to it, so please stay tuned! (Registration opens at noon EDT on August 7, 2022. There are only 15 seats…)
I’ve been reading up on willpower for Create Your Glorious Self. The way to change behavior is to actually do it ; ). And that takes a certain amount of effort. New things are hard to remember and easy to blow off. So we have to design habits that are so easy we can do them even when we have zero energy. It’s all in the design.
I thought back to the questions. Many were along the lines of, “I always finish what I start.” Always? No. “I always do what I say I will.” Always? Nope. So, okay, if those are the criteria, I flunk. But something still rankled.
I’m enmeshed in the excellent Optimize Coaching program right now, and they are big on Self-Mastery, aka willpower. They ask, grandly, like this is the big reveal, “Who would you be, if you always did what needed to be done, whether you felt like it or not?”
Finally, it clicked. A PARENT. That’s who.
I am a parent. I’ve spent decades doing what needed to be done whether I felt like it or not. I got a couple of glorious years off from that, and then I was caring for my own parent. I still have family stuff that requires me to do what needs to be done whether I feel like it or not. And I do not feel like it, at all. But I do it.
The other day, my acupuncturist (without whom I would not be writing this newsletter), said, “Everything you’ve done, you’ve done on will alone.” All my available focus goes to things that need to be done.
And there are consequences.
There’s not so much left over for the things I want to do. Or that aren’t active fires (I now do my creative work first. Everything else can wait. More on this next week).
One of the things about willpower is that using it takes a lot of energy. Studies show that folks who use up a lot of it on one task will often come up empty for the next one. In one study, folks had to do a Hard Thing, and then were offered a snack–ranging from healthy to cake.
Guess what they chose? Cake all the way. Nothing left to say No to cake.
Maybe you’re in a similar situation. You don’t have enough juice to make yourself do all the stuff. But maybe you’re already doing a lot of Hard Things. And that drains your willpower…
Willpower is like a battery
It needs recharging. Hence cake–quick calories. So….
1. Plan in snacks! When we do Hard Things, we can include snacks to help us along (preferably lower on the glycemic index) for more sustained energy. AND there are things we can do to leverage our available willpower (so we can do some of those things we don’t feel like doing ; ).
2. Leverage willpower with Habits Last week, we talked about how to create new habits. The idea is to use willpower only to run the habit–the tiny, 30-second behavior that opens the way to the thing you want to get done. You build a routine that eases you from thing to thing, and you only have to push yourself a little bit, because the habit is designed to be ridiculously easy.
Of course some things (like finances, for me), are Hard. Not just to get started, but all the way through. When I hit a snag (there are lots of them) I veer right off into space-out mode, and that’s the end of that. So I have to ask myself, what causes me to “go away,” and how do I get back? And how do I make that a habit?
I’ve been paying a lot of attention to when I “space out” (aka dissociate). I’ve noticed that it happens when I feel overwhelmed. Dissociation is about escaping the present (uncomfortable) moment. You may do this, too. So how do we come back?
Three more options to increase willpower (and “come back” from dissociation)
4. Make a fist, or contract your muscles. Both have been shown to strengthen resolve.
5. Slow your breathing down to 4-6 breaths per minute. That’s 10-15 seconds per breath. Make the exhale twice as long as the inhale, while you’re at it.
Which one sounds best to you? How might that become a habit? “After I space out, I _____. Then, I celebrate!”
So that’s my practice for this week. I invite you to join me!
With love, Alia PS Hopefully next week we can get a peek at the CYGS webpage. I’m still fine tuning ; ). In the meantime, you might like some music to increase your willpower. Try it with Power Pose Flows.
I’ve been reading up on Behavioral Design (for Create Your Glorious Self). When crafting new behaviors, we want to automate their implementation. I’m a fan of BJ Fogg, Stanford researcher in behavioral design, and creator of the brilliant tinyhabits.com.
In the Tiny Habits model, there are three parts to new behaviors–the Anchor (something you already do that acts a springboard for the New Thing); the Behavior (the New Thing you want to start doing), and the Celebration! (in which you celebrate having done the New Thing).
Celebrate? What’s that?
How many of us celebrate our successes? How many of us celebrate anything?
Hmmm… I thought so.
We trudge through our daily lists, grimly demolishing task after task (or having another bonbon, because who can even look all those tasks in the eye? Not to mention the world crises). We’re running on willpower, maybe taking time to cross one task off the list before trudging up to the next.
Do we even remember what we did at the end of the day? I don’t. I wonder where the time went, and why I haven’t accomplished a damn thing, AGAIN. I do a lot, most days; I just don’t stop to appreciate that I’ve done them.
Fogg says that Celebration element of habit creation is the most vital. That Celebration will someday be understtod to be as powerful for wellbeing as mindfulness or gratitude practices!
Um… WOW. That’s pretty huge
The celebration releases a hit of dopamine, which is a factor in addiction–dopamine wants MORE. So that celebratory moment (12 seconds is the optimal time, I have been told), helps make the habit completion desirable to the body, because completion gives that sweet little rush. Hence, we are more likely to run the habit to get the treat.
Huh. What else would I like to do more of? Will a celebratory dopamine hit help me get that done, too?
Apparently, yes. And those things can also be turned into habits. Here’s the Tiny Habits algorithm:
After I <anchor>, I <new behavior>. Then, I celebrate!
Tiny Habits is based on the principle that the new habit needs to be stupid easy, so doing it takes minimal effort. Thirty seconds, max.
So the new habit is NOT, for example, After I eat breakfast, I practice for an hour and a half. That’s a high bar. The habit might be, After I eat breakfast, I turn on dance music. That’s pretty easy. Push a button on your phone. Boom.
And for things you’d rather not do, habits you’d like to overdraw with better habits, the more difficult and annoying you can make it to do them, the easier it is to let them go.
So my plan for the coming weeks is to celebrate. A LOT.
After I complete each phase of my day, each task on my list, I celebrate!
It will take practice. I will forget a lot of the time. But I will remember some of the time, too. And over time, I will remember more often. I know how this works. That’s how habits are built. One iteration at a time. So I can be kind to myself as I develop my new skill.
I invite you to join me in this.
And make it REAL! No half hearted eye roll and a sardonic woo-hoo.
Give 10-15 whole seconds to this. Chair dance! Or celebrate in the mirror. Make up a little song about it! I did it! I did it! I folded up the handkerchiefs! I did it! I did it! I did it, did it, WOO!!!!
Let’s let that feeling of BOOYAH!!! suffuse us, such that when we move on to the next thing, we still have a smile on our face and a song in our heart.
Let’s see what happens. We’ll check in next week. Or post below and tell me how it’s going.
Love, Alia PS BOLD started Tuesday. Here’s what folks said after the first class:
Bold felt good and solid!!
CH
Boldness on the inside made me feel stronger for doing more gentle moves on the outside too.
SM
Being present to the music and playing with attitudes brought out a lot spontaneous nuances and qualities in my dance that would be hard to do deliberately. I wasn’t trying to “dance”, the dance just happened as a by-product.
CL
BOLD registration is open through Tuesday, June 21. It is thrilling! The recording of the first class is up now. I would love for you to join us. Learn more and register here: BOLD
In times of trouble, dismay, and despair, it becomes ever more important for us to regulate our nervous systems so we are not at the mercy of the news, which is grimmer and more tragic every day.
Creative expression helps.
My life is not all unrelenting joy–I’m guessing yours isn’t either. And the world situation is harrowing. Though it seems disloyal not to suffer alongside the grieving, keening world, and we don’t want to make champagne toasts over the wreckage, unrelenting high levels of stress are harmful to our bodies and minds.
We aren’t doing anyone (including ourselves) any favors by being overwhelmed by suffering. Remembering what is good is vitally important. Taking time to feel good, grounded, safe, is vitally important. Letting ourselves settle into the present moment. Noticing what is around us. Feeling gratitude for even the smallest goodness helps.
So please consider the following a little vacation, and the tools within some things that might help.
Each of these dancers had to discover what they they felt from the music, what they wanted to say about that, and then how to say it with their bodies. This goes way beyond steps–way beyond pantomime. Modern science has demonstrated that Behavior Creates Emotion. So when we behave as if we feel a certain way, we create that feeling in ourselves.
Think about it.
We move and hold our bodies and faces in very specific ways when we are in our various emotional states. When we celebrate a victory, our movement and affect is entirely different from when we feel defeated. It seems like it’s the context (experiencing victory or defeat), that creates the state, but it also works it the other way around. When we act as if we are victorious, we create the feeling of victory within ourselves (and vice versa).
The first time I tried this out, I was walking out of the grocery store, feeling grumpy, sore, tired–you know, #@^&%$#! So I thought, well, what if you act as if you are cheerful? My pace picked up, my head came up, a bounce appeared in my step, and I was humming a tune by the time I got to my car.
Whoa!
I started playing with these ideas in the FUN Classes
And people responded!
That was fun! I felt so relaxed! It really is powerful to just work with qualities, taking my time, owning the space, and not having to actually “dance.”I feel more confident about performing It reinforced the the value of trusting myself Feeling my individual dancing spirit free to shine through!💗 Going more into your own pleasure and then bringing it out/sharing it with audience.
We will explore these models deeply in the next FUN Class, BOLD: Archetypes and Attitudes for Oriental Dance, and in our upcoming, brand-new 10-week coaching immersion, Create Your Glorious Self. More information about these in the next week or so (I am SO excited!).
You can start right now!
How do you want to feel? ACT THAT WAY. Not pretend. For real. Immerse yourself in how that feels in your body, how your body and face show that state.
See what happens.
Alternatively, you can take how you feel now and show that in movement. Consider moving very slowly while breathing in time to the music. Slow movement gives stuck nervous systems an opportunity to reset.
Either way, let me know how it goes!
I feel so strongly about the power of this approach that I added it to Make a Dance in Five Days. The Templates and these somatic energy states fit so perfectly in with Day 4 that I updated all the information to reflect that. It felt really good. It feels really good to bring these simple tools to help us improvise more effortlessly–AND to improve our everyday lives! (Sneak Peek: Day 5 will soon expand into a complete month-long class all by itself!)
Speaking of which…
MD5 enrollment is open through Sunday, May 29.
Live coaching is available through June 5, so there is plenty of time to make your dance, with plenty of support–plus powerful new content!
Plus it’s fun to do creative things in good company ; )
Why not try it? If you decide it isn’t for you, ask for a refund. Easy peasy.
2021 was a big year for me in many ways. My Mom became very ill on Jan 28. I stopped everything to be everything to be with her. She passed away April 17, and was buried, which was her choice, April 28. Fortunately, a dear friend moved to Vermont just in time to help me though. But it was much harder than I ever imagined it would be, and I only did what could not be put off.
The rest of the year feels like one long lost weekend. I did what I had to do and nothing more.
But I did get some things done. And, to my amazement, they came out rather well.
The Promise
The FUN Class
We ran SEVEN Fun Class Deep Dives, each with it’s own special topic!
Open Heart: Improvisational belly dance infused with Dancemeditation and Somatic Experiencing®.
BEDROCK I : Re-patterning our foundation movement vocabulary
BEDROCK II: Improvisation with Transitions and Combinations
BEDROCK III: Improvisational Musicality
Entrancing: How to Improvise to Entrance Music
Visionary Veil–Beyond Tricks: How to improvise with the veil
Bobby Style!: Exploring Bobby’s class format from the 70s, small combinations, different every time. (Our next FUN Class will be Bobby Style II: With Zils on!)
SIX new classes!
SPARK*
Feeling Resistant to Creating?
How to Dance or Speak for the Camera
How to Write a Great Blog Post
How to Map Your Music from Fact to Fantasy
How to Make a Dance in FIVE Days
I’m amazed to have put out all this content. Plus the newsletter!
FORTY-TWO newsletters!
Most of them written this year. Which is pretty darn good.
I also had the good fortune to undertake
Scads of Professional Development
Dandash’s fabulous class series for Zara’s Zouk
Joe Williams’ monthly Delsarte workshops
Kathy Kain’s yearlong Touch Skill Training for Trauma Therapists
Ariel Giarreto’s brilliant Healing Sexual Trauma
The Transformative Power of Eros w/ Dr. Peter Levine & Kimberly Johnson
Eric Maisel’s yearlong Creativity Coach Support Group
Lisa Zahiya’s Make More Online (which I am just beginning)
Peter Levine’s Covid, Post ICU, and Ventilator Trauma
Plus half a dozen excellent trauma skill webinars produced by Somatic Experiencing International
A year of Dunya’s Dancemeditation classes on Zoom (heaven!)
Mary Bond’s superb body reading classes
And a bunch of other things I can’t remember right now ; )
On the personal fulfillment side, I bought a deck of Tarot cards. I drew ninety-five pictures on my phone (including the one above) I read over a hundred twenty-five books.
That’s a lotta stuff.
Especially for a year that felt like I wandered through in a fog. While navigating the bizarre cocktail of stressful grief-stricken scary weird shit with which we are all coping. And avoiding Covid.
So here’s to 2022!
Let’s make it the best year we possibly can.
I want to get better at self-care. Regain my health. Nurture my spirit mystic side. Come into my power. Integrate my interests into a full-featured rich resource to help us THRIVE.
What about you?
Where have you been? Where are you going? How will you get there? Let me know… Below↓
AND
I have a gift for you.
Well, two.
The first gift is SPARK* FREE
I’m giving this because it is about relaxing, rebooting, and nervous system regulation through movement. It’s about feeling better and trusting our bodies. You will find that here, and it will be available all year: https://aliathabit.com/2021-gift/
The second is an invite to a party!
Omicron crashed our local First Night. We usually draw thousands of folks to our little corner of the middle of nowhere.
So the event hosts are making it free, live, and online. Dec 21: LIVE streaming performances all evening. Artists and schedule here: www.firstnightnorth.org
We gotta have fun and enjoy what we can! Hugs and Love for 2022, Alia
I’ve been noticing ways in which I stay small. Keep my income down. Keep my voice down. Swallow my irritation. Deflect compliments. Endure.
I’m tired of being the bunny. Of hiding. Deferring to everyone else. Coming last in my own life.
In the Spark* class a while back, we played with expressing our inner predator. It made us uncomfortable. Because red in tooth and claw and all that. Eat or be eaten. Nasty, brutish, and short.
Which raises the question…
Predator or Prey? Eat or be Eaten?
Are we not beyond that? Are we not better than that?
Or is it a matter of definition?
We tend to conflate predator with malicious intent. Viciousness.
Power corrupts, right? Absolutely.
And we all know women are relentlessly socialized to be the bunny. To stay small and not draw attention, because… I don’t have to spell this out. While males are socialized to be the wolf. Go get it.
Eating others does not appeal to me. I’m not a confrontational person. If I had to kill my own meat, I’d probably be a vegetarian.
But neither does being eaten.
Does power always mean power over? Can we come into our own power, hold our own space, become our own ally?
What if we just reject this false binary?
Why is it an either/or? Would you rather be smart or beautiful? BOTH, thank you. We’re humans. We have both kinds of teeth. We’re not bound one way or the other. There is a spectrum. We can choose.
Instead of eat or be eaten, what about…
Cooperation?
Instead of fear or savagery, what about
Confidence?
Competence?
Poise?
I prefer cooperative, confident, competent poise.
I believe that our dance does, too.
With its focus on agency, expression and improvisation? You bet it does.
And if it’s been stereotyped into sexy, cutesy, winsome bunnies?
Enough of that.
The other day, someone said, Warriors protect the sacred.
I can get behind that.
In Spark*, we shifted to inner warrior. It sat much more gracefully.
I’m looking forward to stepping into my personal power, my inner warrior in the coming year.
Our dance, our creative expression, our power and beauty, our true selves, our collective joy–these are sacred to me.
I want to be ME: clear-eyed, real, true.
I don’t know what this will look like or how it will evolve.
I do know Somatic Experiencing® (SE) will be my friend in this, as that’s what’s gotten me to this point.
I’ve been waiting my whole life. For my turn.
It’s my turn.
Maybe it’s yours, too?
Let’s do this.
Love, Alia
Oh AND!!!
This Saturday, 12/11/21, 11am PST / 2pm EST / 7PM GMT I’ll be chatting with Roxxanne Shelaby, creator of the marvelous Fez Documentary! Will you please join us? It’s streaming via Facebook Live at https://www.facebook.com/MENAHTDancersCollective. Please do share!
