Girl on Fire

We All Die

2013-06-18T06:00:00.000-04:00

Betty, on the right, dancing to Jack White, her favorite

I teach my healing dance methods to a group of women whose average age is 80, and on Saturday I got the news that I have known all along would come but was hoping would stay away for a bit longer: Flo, on the left of Betty in that photo, called to tell me that Betty had passed away in her sleep.

It was expected because Betty was having problems and there is her age but it was also simultaneously completely unexpected.

I guess all death feels like that.

We all die.

But we don't live like it could happen any moment. Not the majority of us, anyway.

We live like it's far in the future, no matter our age.

Betty...

Betty was my biggest fan. (Marcy would argue with that so we'll say Betty was my biggest fan not counting Marcy.)

Every single class without fail, even when she was coming twice a week, she would say something along these lines (and I will point out that Betty was pretty much the only person I would tolerate calling me Chris rather than Christine), "Thank you for doing this, Chris. You don't know how special this work is. Thank you. You are my priestess, Chris. You should have thousands of students! What is wrong with people? You gave me my life. I lived only in my head; I had no idea I had a body."

And week after week, she would gasp and add, "I had no idea that I could PRAY through this body..." and she would shake her head in disbelief.

Betty was a Catholic nun for the first 25 years of her adult life, so she knew a few things about prayer but she had no idea that prayer could be so spontaneous and physical. I am honored that I got to teach her this.

The Lesson of Betty...

I could write for many paragraphs about how the main lesson you can learn from Betty is that it's never ever too late.

It's never ever too late to heal the mind/body/heart and it's never ever too late to learn new things and explore unknown territory.

But that's obvious.

I think, too, that Betty teaches us something that we often don't think about:

It's never too late, but it's also never too soon.

We put things off that we "want" to do until tomorrow. (Intentional air quotes on want and you can think about why.)

Until the kids are grown.

Until retirement.

Until we are thinner/have more money/find the right pair of tights...((the excuses degrade to ridiculous rather quickly)).

But you have NO IDEA if you have that tomorrow to put things off until.

Betty danced in my studio a couple of times and wanted to get there again this summer. She hadn't.

We never know.

We never know.

We never know.

And we all die.

What dream is awaiting your courage and your commitment? It is never ever too soon...

How I am Finally Becoming the Person I Betrayed at 19

2013-06-14T10:11:00.000-04:00

1987

Yes. That is me on the left with enough mousse in my hair that I should have just purchased stock in Vidal Sassoon because it took about a can just to get it THAT big. My hair is very, very straight by nature, and so I was force-permed for most of my childhood. With a pick and all that moose, my 1980s self was somewhat satisfied. Daphne's hair just did that. On its own. Mystifying.

I am also wearing make-up because Daphne and I -- in our disturbingly coordinated outfits about which we were super excited (and for which we can thank my very large stock of blazers) -- were headed to a theatre department party.

And yes, you can tell this is my room not because of the Dirty Dancing poster on top of the door that almost every room had but because of the Duran Duran poster below it. And there were more. Everywhere.

This picture makes me sad.

I went to Penn State as a theatre major. At our first year-end review, I was told I should leave college and get myself to L.A. and start looking for work. That's how much my teachers believed in me. The professors were encouraged to encourage theatre students to find new majors (Daphne went into speech therapy, I think), but my teacher told me to get my ass to the west coast.

I did not, and in that moment, I made a big choice: I chose my depression and my anxiety and my ties to a dysfunctional family system over my greatest loves -- theatre and dance and song.

I would lie in bed from the time I was very little aching with the longing for that life. Telling myself stories of my inevitable successes.

But when push came to shove, I picked illness over happiness.

It's all I knew to do.

I was just 19 at the end of my freshman year and I had no idea how to take care of myself. I had never even been allowed to try. (There is more to this decision -- a violent, threatening more -- that I won't get into here but I was also scared and paralyzed by fear.)

I dropped my theatre major and floated through the next two years until I found that I could channel some of my core love of story into a literature major. I found teachers who loved my brain as much as my theatre professors loved my talent and I thought I had found a sort of sane safety.

But "a sort of sane safety," of course, is the same as "quiet desperation" and it's quite the opposite of sane.

I dropped my theatre major and found a boyfriend who preferred that I look like all the other girls so I donned jeans and t-shirts and no makeup and ponytails.

I put my True Self into a very deep and dark closet -- a dark closet with stairs in the back that led to a dungeon.

You know the end of this story -- or the Big Turning Point. I turned 40; I started dancing again; I now have a new life -- or I have my old life back is perhaps more accurate.

I finally let that True Self out of her dungeon.

But I am used to having her in there. I am used to closing off parts of myself and so now I continue to hide just a bit but in different ways: I teach because it is that form of safe that I became acclimated to as the "best I could hope for."

I love teaching, don't get me wrong, but there is more I long for and sometimes it is so much a part of my shadow self that I can barely feel that "more"anymore. That is a little scary to me. When I gave up everything I wanted, I could still feel the desire and that was important to my survival. I don't want to ever lose that.

When I stopped living at 19, I betrayed myself and it can take a long time to undo that damage.

I am still working on it.

How to, the 3rd

2013-06-12T12:06:00.003-04:00

What's the Upper Setting on Your Joy Thermostat?

2013-06-11T06:30:00.000-04:00

I am writing this in the middle of a freak out, as anxiety is spilling in gooey streams from my pores, as my mind is trying to find something -- anything -- to focus on for this particular freak out. Money...it usually finds money worries pretty quickly and easily.

Now I know WHY I am having this freak out, though. This has not helped the freak out. Not yet. But I know it will eventually. I know this won't last and that I will move on. I will MOVE ON at lightning speed even if compared to how I would have moved on just last week. That is how fast recent changes have affected me.

So what happened a week ago? And what's going on right now?

We'll start with right now.

At 4 AM on Sunday morning, I woke up and felt like I had been ZAPPED with knowing and clarity. Like my eyes were fully opened for the very first time in terms of the work I do and love. It felt like a complete download of an entirely new operating system.

I can't overemphasize how BIG and AMAZING this was. I managed to go back to sleep and then Sunday was basically one AH-HA after another and talking it all through with Marcy.

You can see what's about to happen...

After big moments like that, well, we tend to crash a bit, don't we?

But for some reason, it always feels like a surprise.

I got up Monday morning and went to work with my choreography group, assuming that I would come home and just GET TO WORK on this finally deeply understood life's work.

Ha.

I came home and spun down through multiple levels of Anxiety Hell, but now I know why...I know that I hit the upper limit on my joy thermostat and so I had to find a way to bring myself down to where I am comfortable.

Joy Thermostat? What the what?!

Now we shall back up a week.

I read this amazing book and you can find it right here. (I am in no way getting any kind of payoff from telling you about this book, by the way).

He claims that we all have this upper limit problem. It's a problem because we have an upper limit at all.

We are meant to experience more and more joy and fulfillment and love in our lives. There should be no such thing as an upper limit. In a few rare healthy humans, there isn't, and you can tell when you meet them. (Take Marcy, for example. Whenever anyone new meets her, they know instantly that she is grounded and happy. Period. No blocks. Just love and joy. And I get to live with that!)

For most of us, though, we have upper limits established in our early childhoods.

Our upper limits get triggered by false beliefs like "I'm not good enough to have this much ((insert love or money or whatever here))..." or "I am inherently a bad person and I hope no one finds out..." or "If I shine too brightly, I might make other people feel badly about themselves."

You get the idea.

We get these moments of high happy joy joy or moments of utter clarity like the one I just had, and we PULL BACK.

You are wondering HOW DO WE STOP THIS!?!

The solution resides in the noticing. It's that simple (and simultaneously that difficult).

Worried? Check and see if the worry is real or just part of your usual way of approaching the world. Look back over the past few days and ask yourself if you are trying to "upper limit yourself."

Just notice.

It can be that you, for example, are feeling extra loved by those around you and that scares you on some level, so you pick a fight with a loved one. See?

The second I learned this stuff, the noticing began and it hasn't stopped.

Every time you notice, every time you drop the worry or the fear or the anxiety or the doubt in favor of the joy, you increase the upper limit of your Joy Thermostat. If that's not motivation, I don't know what would be.

How to be a Girl on Fire, the Second

2013-06-07T06:00:00.000-04:00

Share the flame...

Just Call Me Scarlett

2013-06-05T05:30:00.000-04:00

People who know me even half decently have probably seen that look more times than they can count coming from my face, but that's not why you can call me Scarlett.

Let's back up...

A student of mine who is quite wise (and who coaches) talks to people about their "upper limits." It's that point that we all get to time and again, in cycles, where we have been doing pretty well and maybe starting to feel a bit cocky, like we've dealt with all the damn demons and we Got This.

Then, BAM!

The next lesson comes around and it feels...too hard, like too much, like, WHY ME!? ((insert super whiney ass voice here))

As if we are special and we can actually Complete Ourselves and never experience difficulty again.

Aren't we done GROWING, for God's sake? And the answer, of course, is no.

This upper limit is the point where we really feel the hit of our head on a ceiling and we aren't sure we have it in us to go through this again or maybe we just do not FEEL LIKE IT. ((whiney voice again))

We have two choices, of course: We can stop and say NO! and then regress (and I witness this choice every so often -- meaning, All. The. Time.), or we can pull on our Big Girl Pants and get to WORK.

I am at a ceiling of sorts and it's covered in slime and gunk and it is giving off some funky-ass smell so my ceiling is definitely WORSE THAN YOURS. ((dramatic diva whiney voice))

Seriously, this stuff is bad. It's core level sorts of stuff about self-worth and shame and all of that. The BEST STUFF EVER. ((sarcasm sign))

I have come to realize that I do not/cannot relax into the beauty and love and light of my life because I always think there is MORE that I should/could be doing.

I worry that I will not meet my potential. ((Insert rest of the typical over-achieving, perfectionist crap here))

I realized this: I could be teaching a dozen giant ass workshops all over the world every year. I coud be, like, famous even, and it would not. be. enough.

Because you know...a dozen giant ass workshops!? HA! What about TWO DOZEN giant ass times ten workshops?!

Where is that book you should have written, my demon yells! Followed by: Where is that NEXT BOOK you should have written!?

Where are your TV APPEARANCES!?

You get the idea.

I'm pretty darn clear on where all of this comes from. I could draw a map of the path I walked from the time I was born to right this spot.

I GET IT, okay?

But that doesn't mean I still don't have this struggle or that that damn ceiling dripping its stinky shitty gunk is not hanging over my head.

So...

I went to teach my elders and it was a small, intimate class, and when this happens, there tends to be pre-class discussion more than when the classes are their usual sizes.

I know that I have a great resource in my elders, so I talked to them about this, which led to them sharing their current gunky ceiling crap.

We were all just witnessing each other and also sharing our two cents and one of them shared the thing that she fears she is and I blurted out, laughing (of course), in a Southern Belle accent, "Just call me Scarlett O'Hara! Lazy, ol' Scarlett who puts off for tomorrow..."and in my regular voice, I explained how I was called that from the time I was little.

I did not even hear myself, people.

Shirley, a wise and kind elder, said to me, "So that's it. You think you're lazy."

Why yes I do, thank you very much.

And no amount of Not Lazy will ever wash that off my damn ceiling.

At least, it feels that way. I am betting, though, that there are some industrial strength cleaners out there and I am on the hunt.

Oh...and when I was finally old enough to watch and understand Gone with the Wind, I LOVED Scarlett. LOVED HER.

When she says her tomorrow quote, I don't hear lazy; I hear HOPE. Freaking HOPE. So there.

Ember: How Deep Is Your Love? Really?

2013-06-04T06:00:00.000-04:00

Though this entire TED talk is filled with brilliance, one of my favorite quotes is: "I don't accept subtractive models of love...only additive ones."

As I sat with this talk running through my mind for hours after, one place I ended up going was how we parent ourselves.

Many of us were raised with conditional love and we grew up with a deeply damaged sense of self, and then if we were lucky, we turned into seekers.

This turned out to also be a curse -- this idea that there is something outside of us that needs to be found and then all shall be well.

We know, now, because we are older and wiser and because Glinda the Good Witch says so, that everything we ever needed was in us all along.

We know intellectually but has that knowing translated into the wisdom that comes from our hearts? Or are we still seeking, kidding ourselves into thinking once in a while that we are "done" but heading right back to the book shelf or the therapist or the chosen addiction...behind our own backs?

But...what if we could parent in this way that Andrew Solomon talks about here? Not trying to fix or cure ourselves but really diving into this obsession with cure so that we might understand that it comes from an obsession with perfection. Then what if...WHAT IF...we let go of that and just accepted ourselves for the unique beings we each are.

AND THEN...(so many more "and thens...") AND THEN...after accepting ourselves just as we are, IMAGINE the collective power of that! Imagine what we could really do with these lives if we didn't see ourselves as broken or damaged but as already perfect and fitting for the purpose for which we were sent to this life?

Imagine.

The Importance of Repetition & Intention

2013-06-03T05:30:00.000-04:00

This month's edition of Meditate Like a Girl is out. The theme is "Making Everyday Sacred -- Celebrations and Rituals." You can read all the awesome right here.

My (written) piece this month is about the importance of repetition and intention. We don't speak of these ingredients often enough, and when we do, I feel like they are treated like the ugly step sisters. They get lost in all the fun of building the altar or choosing the practice or picking your mantras...but they are really what it's all about. (Click here to read it.)

Move to This

2013-05-31T05:00:00.000-04:00

I have found a new composer love. This piece took my breath away.

Elena Kats-Chernin was born in Russia and was moved to Australia at the age of 14. She is now considered one of Australia's leading contemporary composers.

What I love about pieces like this is how unexpected they are. How they go down pathways that you in no way were imagining.

Allow your movement to do the same. Let yourself be surprised by yourself.

Please Do Not Trip Over This Metaphorical Tutu

2013-05-30T05:30:00.000-04:00

Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes = Happy, Healthy Body

2013-05-29T06:00:00.000-04:00

This is one of my elder dancers who is approaching 80. She is strong and lithe and balanced and quick. Everything we all hope for as we age.

She is willing to try anything, to challenge herself continuously, to take risks.

That is a mindset that has nothing to do with age but everything to do with aging.

People just quit. They hit an age that they've been taught is the "beginning of the decline" and they use that as an excuse to not try anything new and to slow down, and then they complain that they don't feel as good as they used to.

Classic self-fulfilling prophecy.

But my elder dancers will have none of that.

They understand that change is the key to health -- of mind, spirit, and body.

Every Tuesday and Thursday when they come to class, they know that they have no idea what we'll be doing. Sure, some of it will be familiar but every week, some of it will be new.

This is how I approach all of my classes.

There are things we almost always do. Basic sorts of things that help us to warm up but after that...anything can happen.

I cannot put it any better than I did on Facebook recently and this I know for sure:

If you focus your physical efforts on a static formal paradigm (anything from ballet to yoga to martial arts to weight lifting), you will eventually create a static physical form in your body.

The key is constant change and experimentation.

I pride myself on my insatiable desire to learn more about human movement potential. I teach classes that are always changing so that your body can be its best, its strongest, its most radiantly creative. This fluid potentiality of the physical form translates to the same in your mind and spirit.

And you don't have to wait to be one of my "elder dancers;" you could start RIGHT NOW.

Transforming Early Life Trauma

2013-05-23T05:00:00.000-04:00

Very serious topics call for Peony Kitten in Tutu

When I was fortunate to go away and do an intensive about working through the body to heal trauma, the thing that struck me the most about all the information and the videos of experiments and the reading and research and the experiential exercises was the superiority of the arts in terms of efficacy.

I mean, as a dancer, I knew that moving in this body to music was THE thing that had finally helped me lead a joyful and fulfilling life after decades of depression and anxiety, but I thought this had a lot to do with the fact that I was finally doing the thing I was born to do.

That was true. I was meant to dance and not dancing was a large part of my inability to recover.

It turns out, though, that dance (and all the arts) is exactly what we all need, regardless of our ability level or if the arts are our life's work.

As a teacher, I see it every day: a "non-dancer" finds their courage and their brilliance and their worth again, strengthens their physical and emotional body, and overcomes one layer of trauma after another.

All without talking.

But here's where I think this stuff is Extra Big Magics: pre-verbal age trauma.

Some of the worst stuff that happens to us as humans happens when we are pre-verbal and when we have no way to construct linear, narrative articulated stories of what has happened. It all just happens on that primal level of body and feelings.

This becomes the DOS of our inner programing. It's the hidden software on which all other software is then built. It's the software that is inextricably intertwined with and embedded within our hardware.

HOW do you get rid of that?

I'm going to say something that's not very popular: You DON'T.

You know how sometimes a tumor isn't removed because removing it would simultaneously create health (i.e., the tumor is gone) and death of the patient (because you have to take something essential to get the tumor)?

That's how I think some of this pre-verbal stuff works. It's part of you. Period.

That is not meant to sound negative or fatalistic.

I think what is negative and fatalistic is telling people they "should" be able to "get over" absolutely everything with lots of happy thoughts and positive reinforcement.

Then when they don't get over it or when the same stuff keeps coming up over and over, they get to add shame and guilt and all kinds of other feelings of ick to their layer cake of self-hate.

The tricky part of pre-verbal history, too, is that crap feelings and unexplainable behaviors and severe dips in mood will happen and people won't know where they came from because there is no memory to pin it on and no way to articulate that which never was articulated.

But...

Here's where the hopeful sunshine rainbows part comes in.

The arts.

When we dance or we paint or we play or write music, we circumvent that language-reliant part of us and head directly to the feelings and to our core.

Things that were once inexpressible when we were limited to the tool of language are now being expressed with paint or movement or sound.

We can, through the experience of art, feel the depths of the feelings all without talking about that which cannot be talked about. We can know truth without having or needing to name it.

Like the initial pre-verbal traumas, the healing happens on the primal level.

This thing that used to overtake you and for which you could offer yourself no explanation? Now you have music or painting or dance to go to and through these more ephemeral means, you can express yourself fully and finally -- as you could NOT when you were so small.

And that is more than enough: the arts transform trauma and save lives.

Move to This

2013-05-22T05:00:00.000-04:00

THIS. This is what classical music needs to make it interesting again...

Gabriela Montero dares to ((gasp!!)) interact with the audience, giving them a say in her performance. She takes requests. IMAGINE. Then the real genius begins. She improvises these pieces that have become, in many cases, rather stale and makes them new again.

For this, focus on a part of the body you typically don't think much about when moving and dancing and allow that part to be the leader. The rest of the body is being bossed around by that part.

Perhaps you could try your elbow, your wrist, the top of your head, your left ear, the back side of your knee...you get the idea. But decide before you play the music and just breathe and allow.

(This piece really starts to do something magnificent after about 50 seconds when she takes a long, thoughtful pause.)

A Writing Workshop: Teaching What I Need

2013-05-21T05:00:00.000-04:00

I went upstairs to our "filled with books and musical instruments" room to take this photo, and as I unwrapped my 1969 manual Olivetti, the smell of typewriter key oil wafted up and I was overwhelmed with memory, yes, but also a sense of loss.

As my life kept changing and twisting itself to meet the needs of my depression and anxiety...as I got further and further from my essential, born-to-be self, I held onto some things as I put others away under lock and key.

One of the things that went under lock and key until four years ago, of course, was dance. I see my life now in two parts: Before Returning to Dance and After Returning to Dance.

One of the things that I held onto was my love of literature and writing.

From the time I was small, books were my life raft; books felt like a more peaceful way of subsuming my true self than drowning it in the stormy ocean of violent emotions around me.

In books, too, I got glimpses of other worlds, other ways of being, other possibilities for my life.

Books saved me.

The fact that I then thought I wanted to write them...well, that made sense.

But it was painful for me, this writing business, and I didn't understand myself well enough to do it in a truthful way, a way that means something to the reader and moves beyond trite or predictable.

But then...Marcy (Oh...it is always Marcy...) got me this typewriter and something about the physicality of a manual changed everything. I knew I HAD to use it and so I sat down and started and worked my way through 500 pages of a completed manuscript (too long!!!).

The finishing is so important.

The beginning is too, but it's the finishing that counts most. Anyone can begin. There are drawers and drawers full of beginnings all over the world.

I had always written in other genres -- essays, mostly, but the novel was some High Ideal that I could not forgive myself for not giving a go. And then I had. (And Marcy would assert that my Biggest Gift is poetry but that's another story.)

And then dancing came. (It's all so wrapped up together and complicated, isn't it? These lives we lead and the paths and the journeys.)

I barely write anymore. I write this blog. I do a bit of journaling to sort my thoughts.

Lately, I have felt the call of something more.

So it makes sense that I am offering a writing workshop at the studio, starting Wednesday, May 29th, for six weeks.

If you have started a bit of writing here and there or even just DREAM of writing, this workshop is for you.

We'll get past the crap that stops you and we'll work on outlining a project you can finish.

If you want to join us, details and payment information are here.

Gratitude: The Beauty of Honesty & Courage & Moving

2013-05-17T09:22:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was one of those days. One of those amazing days. (You thought I meant otherwise, right?)

From my first class early in the morning (Thursday is my busiest day) to the last class that finishes by about 7:15, I was given the privilege over and over and over and over again of watching all these little miraculous fires being lit, sparks flying, embers glowing extra hot.

I took a risk with my girls from the residential high school and had them do a paired movement experience, not knowing if I would just have to keep saying "no talking...just talk with the body..." I expected that, actually, and I expected a lot of nervous laughing.

Nope. What I got is indescribable and it gave me arms full of goosebumps. So beautiful. So honest.

The whole day was like that.

By the time I got to my evening Kundalini yoga class, I thought, well, it's kundalini yoga so it'll be good and it's my last class til my day off so that will be great, but what can possibly happen to even compare to the rest of my day.

Lots. Lots, it turns out.

A couple of students shared, in a couple of ways, that they had some leaps happen. One woman learned something new about her breath and her connection to her breath, for example.

And then there was this. Go read it. Amy is a wonderful writer, first of all, and the bare bones honesty of her struggle with grief over the loss of her (very young) father is courage in action.

On Fire

2013-05-14T06:30:00.000-04:00

There have been some videos over the last couple of weeks that have totally made my brain and heart expand in a million ways and just set me on FIRE, so I thought I should be sharing.

First up is this interview with a former OB/GYN. It's over an hour and WORTH EVERY MINUTE. Pay very close attention when she starts getting into details about her new book:

If you need a wake me up for your soul, here's what you've been waiting for:

As you can imagine, I watch a LOT of dance videos. And I get pretty discouraged (and a little mad) when I see some of the stuff out there that is considered "cream of the crop," and all I can think is, "REALLY? THIS is what is sucking all the freaking grant money!?!?" (This tends to be the case with most stuff I watch that is created in the U.S.)

But this? THIS is awesome. The piece at the beginning to the Violent Femmes. This choreographer? He deserves everything he gets.

Screw Gurus

2013-05-10T06:00:00.000-04:00

If that offends you, then my work is not for you.

This is for women who read that and say, "YES!"

This is for women ready to take full responsibility.

This is for women who have known all along the power that resides within...even if they've been hiding from it or have thought it was lost or diminished.

This is for women who are open minded and ready to learn but knowing that putting into action, that putting it all together, that making something of it all is up to them.

This is for women who get that their path is their path. Alone. They make it by walking it.

And there is no one walking ahead of them and clearing the way.

They wield their own damn machete in their own damn jungle and they earn every foot of their path.

Move to This

2013-05-08T06:30:00.000-04:00

I wrote recently about my dismay (and anger...) when I realized how little work female composers get (and all other female artists, really), and the result of that is my focus from now on in these Move to This posts on the work of women.

I am particularly fond of more avant garde forms of contemporary classical. Don't worry...sometimes these posts will just highlight some good POP!

But pop music is pretty limiting when it comes to movement work. I find that my body does more interesting and new things when the music is deeply unexpected.

This piece certainly fits the "unexpected" bill.

Stay with it.

Even if you feel like you hate it, stay with THAT and keep moving. (This is a metaphor for life, after all.)

This is a piece by Finnish composer Kaija Saariaho.

Just try.

Summer Schedule & WORKSHOPS!

2013-05-07T08:15:00.000-04:00

The newsletter went out today, and there are some excellent workshops announced for the summer months, including a 6 week writing workshop -- taking me back, temporarily at least, to being a writing teacher. If you've ever thought about writing a book, I can help you find your voice and your way.

Also, this summer, there will be workshops in movement for grief, natural movement play in the park, and Thai inspired partner yoga (no need to bring your own partner to this one -- ha!).

Workshops are now all pre-paid, so be sure to secure your spot.

The Thigh Edition

2013-05-06T06:00:00.000-04:00

(NOTE: I've opened up the comments so if you want to share a story or a photo or a link to your own post about this issue, please do.)

This is pretty much what I wear when I teach.

When I first started this work, I was coming from the yoga world to re-enter the dance world and so I wore the costume of the yogini.

But I have a lot of tactile issues and I started to get more and more uncomfortable in yoga pants as my own method of teaching evolved away from yoga to ideas more purely based in dance.

It hit me that dancers have NOT run out and started wearing yoga clothes so I started experimenting with tights again and finally came up with what worked for me. Tights but not a leotard -- layered shirts instead -- and either knit dance pants scrunched up (like in this picture) or yoga shorts OVER the tights.

My costume, as I like to call it, is based in comfort of the physical and emotional variety.

Because no matter how far I have come from disordered eating, the body dysmorphia still visits in waves, and those tights hide my most vulnerable space -- my knees and thighs -- from my own cruel eyes.

It can be bad enough that it takes my breath away -- this dark, hidden hatred of my own body parts when I teach other women to LOVE themselves, to care for themselves, to accept the beauty and strength that is their inherent nature.

But I think I teach this because I didn't get it...from the time I was very little, I was told that I had been unlucky enough to inherit my thigh genes from the wrong side of the family. Every summer, when it was time to wear shorts, I was reminded. Every summer.

I internalized that voice and that shame and now I work with other women, hoping that I am creating a space in which those voices can be forever silenced or a space, at least, where the voices can't get us -- the safety zone of the studio and our togetherness.

Don't worry too much -- it is not like it used to be. I used to live 24/7 with those critical voices and so to have them visit only occasionally feels like a big victory.

But I do not feel victorious when I am surrounded by them. Yet again: Why am I here? Why do I keep failing? Why do I keep FALLING?

That place. I am betting a lot of you know this place. Judgment layered upon shame layered upon judgment...

So...

This past week, I went to the studio for my alone time, as I try to do twice a week. It was a warm and beautiful day.

I wore capri tights. Which I hate. They are also short waisted and I hate where they hit me. Very uncomfortable, but I thought footless regular tights would be too much and that I could deal with the capris.

Turns out that I could NOT deal. They were so annoying that I could barely move, much less really focus on the work at hand.

Fuck it. I went into my office and took them off. Put my dance shorts on. Over my naked legs.

Over my naked knees and thighs. My dance shorts. Which are, well, VERY SHORT.

I went to work.

Right away, I felt better. Those damn tights were gone.

Then. The. Mirror.

Oh. Those. Mirrors.

The studio only has a few little ones and most people are not near them in classes.

I think mirror-less work is important but I also think looking in the mirror, facing ourselves, facing those fears, is just as important.

I became mesmerized by the sight of my legs. And not in a good way.

Their size, first and foremost. The way they...moved when I moved.

I was almost crying. Getting to that point of the crying-trying-to-come-but-just-hurting-my-chest.

I decided to try something new. There is this floor work that I am practicing lately. Think of like dancing planks to the extreme. Takes tons of strength and focus and has been a place of wonder and discovery for me the last few months.

I went to the floor. And something shifted. My legs looked SUPER long. And twisty. And strong.

I stood and started to dance (still with the mirror...like I said, it's important...) and this time, I wasn't distracted. I was just back to being fascinated by my process.

I was proud of myself.

This issue is not gone, for sure, but I did not pack up and leave the studio at the first sign of this difficulty. Even when I was almost crying, I did not put my pants back on and go home.

I kept trying.

And in order to push myself WAY further, here I am in those shorts and no tights. This is NOT for you to comment on. This is to inspire the rest of you out there to share that body with which you find only fault -- or that part that makes you angry or sad -- share it and love it. Come out of the hate closet and into the light.

(You can share photos, if you like, over at the studio's Facebook page.)

Meditate Like a Girl: Let LOOSE those HIPS!

2013-05-03T06:00:00.000-04:00

This month's edition of the online magazine, Meditate Like a Girl, is up and filled, as usual, with awesome stuff.

The theme this month is the many faces of feminine wisdom, and so for my movement based awareness exercise, I take you through an exploration of the hips...the seat (HA!) of feminine creativity and expression. Go here and PLAY.

The Bearable Heaviness of Fear

2013-05-02T06:00:00.000-04:00

Tulip Angelique

This may seem strange coming from a blogger who shares quite a bit of herself, including lots of photos (got over that one!) and now videos (another fear marked off the "defeat" list), but I still have a lot of resistance and fear around being seen.

It's even stranger when you know that I went to college initially as a theatre major and have spent a fair amount of time on stage (in various capacities) and in front of lots of cameras.

It's strangest, though, when you know that the most recent time I have performed, the second I started, I knew with my whole being that that was exactly where I was born to be, what I was born to do.

But since that moment over two years ago, I have not performed again (unless you count the video work and other things I have mentioned).

I don't count that video work. That is video of me teaching, which is a sort of performance but also not at all the same thing.

As I work with my choreography group, as I create work for them to perform, I feel myself slipping further away from that thing that was so clear. It gets lost in a sort of day to day busy fog.

I am 44 and I have this sense that there really is no more time for pissing around.

Over the last couple of weeks, I have been -- in a few ways -- diving into the depths of this particular resistance and fear, and I have discovered, deep in the vents of that vast and dark ocean, shame.

Shame overcomes me when I think about allowing my Big Presence out. When I think about even showing this level of passion and desire and effort, shame rears its ugly head.

WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? is Shame's main mantra.

Regardless of where this comes from (and I am clear on that, for sure), I have to make a choice: allow it to control me or move on in spite of it.

Of course, I am choosing the latter.

Today, when I was journaling, I finally came up with the tool -- a mantra of sorts -- with which to respond to that shame when it decides to mouth off.

Now I will look at Shame squarely in the face and say, "My love of dance is bigger and deeper and way more sparkly than any fear could ever be!" At which point, I will stick out my tongue, make a face, and LEAP in the other direction.

Here's my question for you: What in your life is bigger than any fear? To what are you so devoted that fear has no chance? (Notice I did not ask "to whom?")

Fearless Dance

2013-04-30T06:30:00.000-04:00

If you're reading this in a reader or your email, make sure to click over to the actual blog today. I've updated the look (and if you're an in person student of mine, you might be in the header photos...).

(If you're liking, please snag and share.)

True Community: The New (or OLD...) Therapy

2013-04-26T06:30:00.000-04:00

One of the super awesome with candy-crunch sprinkles on top benefits that has come of having my own studio was a bit unexpected: the community of wise women.

It may seem silly that this benefit felt somewhat unexpected, but consider...

I have had far too many students tell me, after their first time at Girl on Fire, that other studios just feel like places you walk in and out of. That they went to this or that studio for the first time and no one even talked to them. Shit like that.

At Girl on Fire, you are integrated into the community and the community is a diverse and rich array of women from all walks of life, with a wide and deep interest and knowledge base. Have a need for something, anything? Advice? A massage? Tips for your business? Ideas for your child's education? There is probably someone here who knows about that or knows someone who does.

And this is especially true when these women start sharing their personal, life experience wisdom with one another.

I can hear them after class in the back room as they get their stuff together. Someone sighs a little too long and everyone perks up, gives her just the right amount of attention. I am amazed at their instincts about this -- how they know just when to flock to someone and just when to stand back a little and allow someone their space.

I think, "This is the way it's meant to be...not paying a therapist or coach to listen but finding what you need in the circle of people around you."

(Please Note: there are times when professional help of all sorts is necessary, but I think we've lost the ability to open up to the people right next to us and ask for help the old fashioned way...for free, as one human going to another rather than as a formal relationship with money and appointments.)

There is so much wisdom at our little studio here in Erie, Pennsylvania. So much SHARED wisdom.

Eat. More. Food.

2013-04-24T06:00:00.000-04:00

Okay...maybe not THIS particular kind of food, but candy is PRETTY.

I have written about how my disordered eating created a disconnect between me and this body and how dance changed that for me. (I wrote this post for eating disorder awareness week and if you see yourself in it, please get some help.)

One of the key things that happened as I danced more and more was that I had to figure out how to FUEL this body. I could not, or so I thought, deprive myself if I wanted to do this right.

Or so I thought... ((repeats for emphasis))

It turns out I was still falling into traps set by my history of disordered eating. I was still trying to control what went in my mouth, but I had myself convinced that I was doing it for reasons of health.

Never mind the fact that I was constantly complaining about not having the energy I thought I should.

I would think that I needed more water (not a bad idea).

I would investigate new vitamins to take.

But I never looked directly at the AMOUNT of food I was eating.

I don't count calories because of my history, I would say.

Well...here's the thing, if you don't know or have never known how much is enough how will you ever know how much is enough?

For a while now, I have been following Go Kaleo on Facebook. (She is worth following; even just having her pop up in my Facebook feed is good for me.)

The other night -- and I have no idea why I did this -- I started reading into her blog's archives.

And I came upon this sentence (paraphrasing): Your body does not run on nutrients but on CALORIES.

Calories are FUEL. (And at this level, the body doesn't even really care what nutrients are in the calories as long as there are calories.)

Duh.

Like, DUH.

How was I so blatantly missing this? I had fallen for the Paleo idea that you don't have to worry about calories if your food is nutrient dense.

And that is fine, if you naturally eat ENOUGH.

Which I don't.

And I am betting that I am not alone. (According to the World Health Organization, if an adult female is getting fewer than 1800 calories a day, that is considered starvation levels. To show how sick we are, look at this dumbass telling women to eat 800 calories a day to get skinny FOR AN OCCASION. ((barf))!)

So now? I am counting calories to teach myself what enough looks and feels like. (For me and my activity level, that is about 2300 a day.)

And I am stripping away a lot of food rules I picked up from the Paleo crowd. Not that I don't love them and not that I haven't learned a lot from them, but this dancer needs more carbs. She has classes to teach and choreography to create!

Are YOU eating enough? I bet you need more than you think.