I feel it everywhere. All the places that I should fit in, but I don’t quite. The office, the studio, the fucking coffee shop. I wait in line hoping that when I get there, magically my body will fit the puzzle, my mind will know the secret handshake, and I’ll be in. Like Flynn. But I’m not in. Because I’m not a cardboard puzzle, and there isn’t a secret handshake or a hidden passageway.

So I hated myself. And went on a diet. And beat myself up. And stayed too late at work. And tried to please my boss and my lover. I was even nice to the telemarketers that called during dinner.

I tried to smash my soul into someone else’s definition of writer, dancer, woman… knowing that I’d never make it fit.

And suddenly I accepted it.

I Don’t Belong

I don’t belong anywhere that I have to pretend I’m someone else. Pretend I like martinis when I actually want a scotch. Pretend I like Twilight when I really can’t stand it. Pretend that I care about having sex so loud that I wake up the neighbors. I don’t.

In fact the ONLY place I truly belong is with myself. My authentic, no bullshit, 100% pure, unadulterated self.

I realized, the only person that can ever know all the secrets that make you unique is you. Anybody that tells you they know you better than you know your self, is selling you something. And I’m not buying it anymore.

Be Selfish!

So today, I practiced not belonging. I practiced being selfish.  I practiced belonging only to me. I imagined a world where I filled myself up first. I gave myself Joy first. Love first. Compassion and Beauty first.

I chose the experiences that made my toes curl with excitement. Orgasms from a life well lived! And once I was full, then and only then did I share from a heart overflowing.

This is what it means to belong to yourself. To live by your own rules, instead of the rules society tries to impose on us. They say; Don’t dance in skimpy clothes.  Don’t laugh too loud. Don’t color your hair pink or get a huge dragon tattoo on your hip. Screw that!

No one knows what’s best for me. I’m going to say that again because it’s important.

No One Knows What’s Best For You, Except You.

Not your mother, or your friends, or your boss, or your lover. You may agree with them or they may convince you, but in the end, the person that has to live with your choices is you.

So belong to you.

Own Your Choices. Own Your Life. Stop trying to belong somewhere else; that ivy league school, that aerial troop, that advanced pole class. If you’re trying to fit in somewhere, you’re missing out on all the secrets hidden inside your true self.

Spend time to rediscover yourself.  What jokes make you laugh until you cry? What songs make you dance with fierce abandon? What turns you on and sends you over the edge?

Live for yourself. Dance for yourself. Love your body because it’s the most precious one you’ll ever have.

When you know yourself, your secrets, your true heart’s desires, you’ll finally belong. You’ll belong to your Self and no one else.

I sit immobile at a desk all day and complain when my body gets sore. I work out and dance and stretch and move and push it to the limits.  I punish it because I want my body to know how wrong, how bad, how unruly it is.

And it forgives me.

My Body Forgives Me

My body accepts my complaints, my fears, my worries, my aches, my pains, my childish demanding nature that wants it to conform to the tiny girls in the magazines that are 15 years younger than me and photoshopped within an inch of their life.

My body gives me permission. To try something new. To emulate a pretzel on a flat yoga mat.  To twirl and spin on shiny poles. To dance until I can barely breath. To smile and laugh until my mouth aches and my lungs burn. To run until my sweat turns pure.  To cry until my face swells and my throat dries up, and I simply can’t scream anymore.

My Body Gives Me Space

Space to withdraw into myself when I’ve said too much, gone too far, felt too judged. Space to watch the clouds drift across the sky.  Space to feel the sun heat my back and the wind caress my belly. Space to be whoever I want to be, whenever I want to be, with no expectations. Space to be held and loved. Space to share myself with the world or just one person. Space to choose.

My body is the one who listens when I rant and rave over something that I won’t remember a week from now.  It’s the one who knows all my deepest fears and doesn’t belittle me for them.  Who hears me and understands perfectly, even when I’m still figuring out what the hell I’m trying to say.

My body holds my memories, of the past that I’m not ready to let go of.  And the future I’m not ready to posses. It holds my dreams, my wishes, and my hopes with hands so gentle I sometimes think I’m floating. It’s the one who holds me until the sobbing stops even if it takes hours.

My body is the one that remembers to breath. Inhaling deeply from the pool of living air that surrounds me. Exhaling and releasing what I no longer need. The loving breath, the angry breath, the shallow breath, the purging breath, the cleansing breath, the everyday breath.  My body is the one who takes a deep breath with me, right before I take the plunge that could change my life forever.

My Body Loves Me

It asks for almost nothing in return. Food to feed me. Shelter to protect me. Water to sustain me. And for this it showers me with pleasure, sensation, titillation, emotion, intelligence, understanding, comprehension, nothing less than the ability to experience life over every inch of my skin. My body fills me with boundless energy and lets me ride that fluid wave over and over again.

My body is dedicated to being with me, loving me, living only for me, until I take my last breath.

And I’m Not Going To Punish It Anymore

I’m going to practice loving this body. Moving with love. Breathing with love. Being in love.

I’m going to practice acceptance.

I’m going to practice experiencing this body without judgement while it laughs and cries.  While it learns to fly and sometimes falls down.

I’m going to practice giving this body permission to be whoever she is. With compassion on most days and trust on the rest.

Because finally after all these years, I think I’m falling in love with her.

As woman, as humans, we are made for pleasure.  Every inch of our bodies is covered with nerves ready to tingle with any gentle caress, any kiss from the wind or our lovers lips. Our senses are alive, poised to feed us every detail of every moment of every experience of our innately sensual lives.

A Cage of Tears

I used to fear this, the overload of sensation.  I used to block it out because society told me it was wrong to feel so much, wrong to sip in every sensation until I’m overflowing with bliss, wrong to receive as much pleasure as my body could take.  Society told me it was selfish, and for 25 years I believed.  I suffered at the hands of an invisible jailer, who doled out pleasure like crusty, old bread and made me pay for every stale bite.  Don’t laugh too loud, don’t sing in the shower, don’t have fun when you’re supposed to be working, don’t show your emotions. A self imposed misery under the guise of morality, of fitting in, of being a good little girl. For years, I believed this bullshit, insulated myself from people, from love, from the simple experience of touch, and couldn’t figure out why I cried myself to sleep each night.

A Rose By Any Other Name Would Smell As Sweet

I lived in fear of my own body, but it was my body that rescued me. At first I called it what everybody else called it; pole, yoga, exercise. Then I called it moving, dancing, stretching, breathing.  And then I stopped calling it anything at all.  I stopped naming things and started feeling them instead.  I started to believe in the simple truth of living IN my body, not insulating it.  I learned (AM learning actually) to acknowledge my own pain, accept my own pleasure, and express my own emotions.

We don’t have to subvert the experience of living just because society says it’s selfish.

I Am Selfish!

I love being selfish.  I practice being selfish with pleasure because no one else can feel what I feel; chemically, physically, mentally, and spiritually.  The subtle differences in every human body connected with the inherently chaotic aspect of time, leads to an infinite number of possible manifestations of life.  And I want to receive every drop of pleasure the chaos of life creates.  I want to feel every tingle, every wave, every goose pump, every sigh, every cry, every breath exactly as it enters my body.

And sometimes I’m still afraid of it, of being overwhelmed by pleasure (what a wonderful problem to have *wink*).  But then I remind myself (every day at 2:30pm) that I choose to be a woman who lives IN her body.  That I choose joy.   I choose to breath in as much life as I can, breath out whatever doesn’t serve me anymore, and fill myself up with pleasure. And if society calls that selfish, then I choose to be selfish too.

Because this moment, this one right here, right now, that is filled with the simple pleasure of breath dancing through my body, feels too fucking good to miss.

You should work out. You should lift weights.  You should eat less.  You should eat less but more often.  You should meditate. You must come to pole class more often.  You should dance like a gymnast. You shouldn’t dance like a stripper. You should do yoga everyday.

We all have goals. We all have a deep abiding purpose that fills us with passion to do something more, be something more, or create something amazing to share with those we love (and perhaps the world).  We want to dance, float, stream across the studio floor, but we’re not exactly sure how to become that PERFECT DANCER in our mind.  The media, the magazines, and the television say we can get there IF we drag our asses to the gym every day, IF we starve our bodies senseless, and IF we beat ourselves up because we’re not good enough.  So we try this, we try that, we try EVERYTHING they say.  But along the way, our bodies start to feel painful, cramped, damaged.  The PERFECT DANCER eludes us, and the INJURED DANCER seems to take her place.

Discombobulated

The world force feeds us it’s opinion and all we can do is say “Thank you sir, may I have another?” –Well Fuck That!

I believe that all that “should-ing,” “must-ing,” and “have to-ing” is the reason we’re all so damn confused in the first place.  We run around, looking for the quick fix, listening to everybody’s advice, and discount the small voice inside ourselves (so quiet you can barely hear her) that whispers  “Maybe, I could try something gentler, something more compassionate, something that just feels good.”

Dancing, yoga, and pole do feel good. They feel DAMN GOOD, but not if we push ourselves to the breaking point every time we step on the mat or wrap our hands around a shiny pole. Not if we force ourselves into death defying aerial feats (even though our shoulder is still recovering from that last injury, and our knees are still bruised from floorwork, and we suddenly want to cry for no fucking reason) all because everybody else is doing it.

At the same time the world is shouting at us (or worse we’re shouting at ourselves), our body is responding to all these forceful words in a very destructive way.  Our body is working overtime, causing all sorts of stress to build up under the surface.  Whether we notice it or not, the words we speak are a big reason why our lives our either frantic or fantastic. It’s chemistry.

Try This!

Stick your right arm straight out in front of your body with the palm facing down.  Now press on the top of your wrist with your left hand.

What happened?
Did your right arm drop or did it resist the motion.  My guess is that most of you resisted the motion even though it was perfectly safe to let your arm drop.

Our limbic/lizard brain instinctively resists any force we encounter.  And that’s exactly what words like “should,” “must,” and “have to” do to our bodies too.  Here we are, trying to fill our lives with passion, purpose, and more than a little sex appeal, and these simple words are communicating a force that our lower brain can’t distinguish from an enemy pushing us off a cliff or a dinosaur trying to eat us.  So we push ourselves to keep fighting because the media keeps filling us with the same No Pain, No Gain BS.  All the while our body resists, and resists, and resists. Until our jaw is clenched, our breath is shallow, our back hurts every morning, and our adrenal glands are exhausted from pumping out too much cortisol. All we wanted was to be the PERFECT DANCER, but now we feel like a BURNED OUT DANCER.

The Way Out is In

Luckily you’ve already got the solution. You’ve got an instant “NO-Should Zone” where you can practice releasing all those forceful words and all that caveman stress along with it. When it’s time for your practice, you can choose to let go of outside thoughts and listen to the compassionate voice inside you. You can ask your classmates to communicate their opinions without using “should,” “must,” or “have to” (and your teacher too).

You might struggle a little rewording things, but when we remove force, what’s left is the reason why so many of us dance in the first place; acceptance, freedom, permission.  We don’t “have to” be a perfect dancer, an injured dancer, or a burned out dancer…. we can simply dance because we fucking want to.

Remember, it’s YOUR practice, it’s YOUR dream, it’s YOUR passion, it’s YOUR dance.  Nobody can know what the right path is for you, until you decide to walk it.  As you glide and twist and turn and spin, take notice of whatever painful or forceful words you hear (whether they come from the inside or out). Try to remember that an opinion doesn’t have to be a part of you. All those forceful words don’t have to be a part of you.

You can choose to let them go.

You can choose to move with your body’s intuitive rhythms. 

You can choose to listen to the subtle waves of emotion and energy and truth already coursing through you.

It happens to all of us eventually.  You’re chugging along, working towards your dreams and life offers you an opportunity to do exactly what you were hoping for:  Try out a really difficult trick, expand your skills at an advanced workshop, perform for an audience.  At first, you’re excited, practically breathless with anticipation, but then you feel something swirling deep in your belly. The feeling intensifies, it’s painful, gurgling, unhappy.  Your heartbeat picks up and you feel fearful for no recognizable reason.  You want to run away from your pole and hide. You might even start to cry.

Suddenly you consider the possibility that you could actually suck at this.

Insecurity has come a’calling and she’s being a Bitch!

So you try to fight it off.  You stand up taller, stick out your chest, and tell yourself you’re not weak.  You tell yourself that you’re not pitiful.  You shout at yourself that YOU! MUST! DO! THIS!  But the feeling is still there, cowering in a corner, hugging itself, biting it’s lip to keep from crying.  Mine even makes a meeping sound.  Meep. Meep.

You attempt to trudge forward, but the Meep keeps raising it’s sad little head at all the wrong times.  That exciting new invert you just barely got yesterday – Meep? A burlesque performance – Meep. Meep.  A pole competition – Meep!  You find yourself procrastinating, avoiding that awesome opportunity, deciding it’s not worth the pain and suffering. And then, the opportunity is just gone.

But that annoying Meep? It’s STILL crying in the corner.  (Please note that the Meep is different from the NGE Monster. The NGE Monster is mean whereas the Meep is usually frightened and sad)

What can you do?  What does anybody do when insecurity shows it’s sad, goofy face?  Ignore it?  Bluster though it? Yell and scream at it? Kick it into submission? — No.

The Cure For Insecurity is NOT Anger

Pushing through the insecurity, fighting it before acknowledging it, will only drive it deeper into your subconscious. That’s why it keeps coming back; meeping and meeping when you really need to be focusing on the task of working towards your awesome, awesome goals. (I know they are awesome, because they are yours!)

Many people push their fears so far aside that they can’t even remember why they are freaking out, even though they are freaking out ALL THE TIME.  They are living in a fog.  And it’s really damn hard to decide which direction to climb if you can’t figure out where you’re starting from. That’s how people fall off of mountains and poles.

However, once you accept that you are feeling insecure and fearful, you have actually stepped into reality.  Now you can deal with that 15 foot tall obstacle of shiny metal, and the present moment, from a place of clarity and honesty. This is where you are [upside down on a pole].  This is what you’re feeling [my arms are shaky because I forgot where to put my hands].  This hurdle [pole trick / performance / dance troupe interview] is an opportunity for you to learn something seriously cool about yourself and really shine. Let’s deal with this.

Hug Your Meep!

The first thing I do when my Meep pops up (once I get past the crying fit) is to really notice it.  I take a soft deep breath and pay attention to how my body is reacting to this moment.

• Are my legs tight or wobbly?
• Is my breath shallow or fast?
• Are my hands clenched or shaking?
  

Then, (and this is the weird bit) I offer some compassion to my sweet Meep.

Feeling insecure doesn’t have to be your enemy.

If you take your Meep, offer it a glass of chardonnay, and give it big, loving squeeze, you’ll realize that it just needed some reassurance.  Your Meep just needed you to recognize that you are growing beyond your boundaries (which is scary AND exciting).  You’re learning something new, becoming stronger, becoming wiser, feeling sexy, feeling liberated, and tapping into your deeper self. Whether that deeper self is a Sexy Minx, sweet Miss Mary, or ass kicking Rocker Chic is up to you and your Meep.

I know it can be difficult to turn an annoying Meep into your new BFF and coo sweet things at it.  Sometimes they won’t stop crying.  So, I usually think of my Meep as a heart shaped puff ball of fur with small doe eyes and a huge smile. Then, I shout “Meep! Meep!” (yes, really) All of which makes me smile and laugh at my own playful audacity.  Simply imagining my Meep like this makes me want to pet it until everybody feels better and we can all Get On With The HOT HOT Pole Dancing!

Acknowledge! Clarity! Action!

So the next time you feel insecure, look for your Meep, share a cocktail, a laugh, and a hug (acknowledge!).  Use clues from your body to figure out what is really going on (clarity!) and decide how you’re going step over those hurdles (action!).  Then get ready to fucking shine and kick some serious pole dance ass.

Sometimes it’s not beautiful…

Because it’s new and you’re learning.

Because it’s old and you haven’t done it in a while.

Because you’re tired and feeling clumsy.

Because you’ve forgotten the steps.

Because your muscles feel tight and your mind feels sluggish and your soul just doesn’t have the same passion as yesterday.

Sometimes it’s not beautiful…

But YOU still are.

Sometimes you need the world to recede. You need to hide from it because it’s simply too much to bear for one moment longer. And your practice slows down. You stop dancing so hard, so fast, so strong. You stop stretching to your maximum potential. You stop meditating everyday. You just need it all to STOP because it’s spinning too fast for you to handle and you’re just trying to remember how to Breathe.

So let it STOP.

Let it stop NOW. Right NOW. Let the world go. You don’t have to hold it together one second longer. You don’t have to make it all work perfectly. That’s not your job right now.

You’re job is to BREATH.

You’re job is to put your feet on the ground and feel the earth pulsing underneath your toes.

You’re job is to simply experience what it means to be completely and totally alive exactly where you are and exactly who you are at this second in time.

And then when you are ready.  When you can feel your breath moving in and out.  When the energy of your own life is gently humming through your fingertips.

Then and ONLY THEN…

Let it begin again.

But this time, look at it with a child’s wonder.  With a beginners mind.  To a child, every moment is a new opportunity to play, a new opportunity to learn, experience, grow, laugh, and love life with an open heart.

Open your heart to your true Self.  This is who you are.  This is how you dance.  This is how you spin and twirl.  This is how you bend and extend.

This is your body and this is how it moves. This is how it feels to fly.

Maybe it feels tired.  Maybe it feels energized.

Maybe it feels dirty.  Maybe it feels clean.

No matter how it feels, it also feels alive.  Because when you dance like a child, like a beginner, your dance comes alive.

Alive with truth. Alive with Breath. Alive with every emotion and experience you’ve had since your eyes first opened to this world.

And whether the dance feels beautiful or not, YOU, and the child inside you, are more beautiful than words can describe.

Twirl, Swirl, and Fly!

Sometimes your creative Muse is motivated, playful, filled with wild hip swaying, booty bumping energy.  Sometimes your Muse can’t wait to Dance, Dance, Dance.  Sometimes she has a love crazed hard-on (yes, I said it. Get over it.) to grab that pole and make the world beg for more.   And sometimes she couldn’t give a shit.

Sometimes, she looks at that shiny vertical shaft of steel (or titanium, or brass, or chrome) and all she can think about is how cold it probably is right now.  How she’ll have to pull out the yoga mat to warm up.  How tired she is. Or how long it would take to change out of her damn pajamas and into her booty shorts, tank, leg warmers, 6 inch heels, and sexy cover-up, let alone find all those things in her closet.  Le Sigh!

So instead, she decides to skip her workout and visit Twitter for a few last minute tweets before bed… and maybe a stop on youtube for a quick pole video from one of her favorite Sensualistas… and then over to Amazon to pick up that new awesome album by Adele…

But something happens.

Something unexpected, especially since she’s wearing slippers, a pink heart covered pajama shirt, and nothing remotely practical. A tingle, a tickle, an urge to move, travels slowly up her spine.  Now, the Muse is no stranger to random movement and assumes it’s just a simple reaction to Adele’s luscious voice singing “Turning Tables”  and “Set Fire to the Rain.”  But as one song leads to another, leads to another, she starts to feel constrained. Her body is too tight, with her legs folded and spine bent squarely, resting on the office chair. Her mind attempts to protest, “Dancing in slippers is simply too ridiculous, and, well, too  slippery.”  But the mind is too tired to put up a fight and the Muse, recognizing the unconscious call of passion, uncoils from it’s dark cave and says “Why the fuck not!”

The Muse still doesn’t give a shit; about training or warm-ups or working her abs or building her strength or any of that practical crap. It’s 10pm at night for goodness sake, and she’s tired.  But that doesn’t mean she’s uninspired.  In fact, now is her chance… to be Deliberately Lazy, Deliciously Dirty, Undeniably Sexy for no damn reason other than she fucking feels like it.

The conscious mind pops out of it’s sleepy stupor to remind the Muse that she’s in no position to be making difficult demands like inverting or pole ups and then goes back to sleep.  But the Muse has no need for difficult tricks.  She just wants to MOVE, BE, BREATH.  The Muse wants to remind us to Live in the Moment because it’s the only one we’ve got.

And so she slinks. Over to the pole for slow, delicious, pelvic circles that take forever.  No, longer than forever.

She slides over to the wall (even easier than usual thanks to her slippery slippers) and paints passion into the air.

Breathing deeply, living for movement, tugging on those pink heart pajamas, dragging her fingers through her hair.

Dancing with sweetness, dancing with compassion, dancing with the steady, slow energy of the quiet night until she can’t remember her own name.

And when the night changes it’s melody from the cooling tones of Adele to the butt bumping beats of Kanye, Katy Perry, and some kind of ET alien invasion…

She gives in to that too.

Sometimes you have to give in the Muse fully, completely, without fear and simply trust that your body knows exactly what you need, exactly when you need it.

No one critiques her.  No one holds up signs that say 8 or 9.5. No one would even consider saying something negative at a pole party (especially at the fabulous birthday party I went to last night at Siren Fitness.)

The Demon’s Playground?

But when we move this whole experience and rename it from Party to Class, our inner demons surface. Instead of playfulness we become overly serious.  Instead of experimental we become regimental.  Instead of cultivating acceptance of ourselves and our bodies, we become judgmental, critical, and frustrated.

One of the key issues that every teacher struggles with is how to create an environment where woman will let go of all that self judgment.  We use encouragement, positive feedback, and try to teach by example.  Some dance studios encourage Las Vegas Rules, ie what happens in class stays in class.  Students can share generalities and their own experience with their family and friends, but not the names of other students or whether Stacy’s invert is better than Jane’s.

The Big NGE

But in the end, everything still comes down to one woman and her thoughts of being Not Good Enough. And don’t kid yourself, every woman struggles with Not Good Enough.  Even if she has managed to slay this demon, the damn thing usually has babies and no matter how cute and fuzzy they may seem in the beginning, eventually they’ll start sprouting six heads, shark teeth, and menacing poison tipped spikes. (I know this sounds all doom and gloom, but I promise there’s a happy ending…no not THAT kind of happy ending.  Geez!)

You’re Not Alone

I’ve been pole dancing for 10 years, teaching pole for 6 years, taking dance movement classes since I was 12 years old and I still regularly experience Not Good Enough.  In fact, some days it’s all I experience.  I’ll go to class feeling relaxed and ready to experiment, attempt a pole spin I’ve done a million times and totally bomb it.  At this point, I can usually get up, dust myself off, and try again. But by the third try, if I’m still unsuccessful, my NGE Demon will shake itself awake and start snarling at me.  It’s beady red eyes will glow as it says “You’ve got to extend, silly girl! Look at how weak you are? I told you this would happen if you ate that slice of chocolate cake last Saturday!  At least try to point your damn toes and fall gracefully! “

However, for me, the worst of the worst, the nastiest of the nasty, is the Not Good Enough demon from hell that I experience when I’m teaching.  Now, I LOVE teaching.  In fact, I’m working very hard to make teaching movement my full time job.  But when I’m teaching, it is my job to make sure every woman in my class has an awesome experience.  I need to ensure every woman understands the technique we’re working on, the safety issues associated with it, and all the different layers that turn a mechanical movement into a sensual pole spin. I WANT her to have a good time…. but I can’t MAKE her have a good time. Which means whenever a student is struggling with her NGE Demon, I’m struggling with mine.  My Teaching NGE Demon says “Quick, quick!  Help her for goodness sake.  What sort of a teacher are you?  Can’t you see she’s struggling because you didn’t explain it well enough?”

The White Knight Comes to your Rescue

I wish I could tell you that after years and years of pole dance practice, the feeling of being Not Good Enough goes away.  I wish I could tell you that if you conquer the beast once, it will never rear it’s ugly head again.  I WISH I could tell you that, but I can’t.  And I wish I could tell you that some sexy, gallant man is going to ride in at just the right moment, shove a pike into the belly of the demon and whisk you away to a huge castle with a room full of Louboutin shoes.  Instead you’re going to have to learn how to strap on a sword… because You are the White Knight.

The only person who can rescue you from your NGE demon is you.  And here’s the light at the end of the tunnel: Slaying the demon isn’t easy, but it’s does get easier.

Arm Thyself, Sensual Warrior

The number one way I have found to kill the feeling of being Not Good Enough, is Aparigraha.  No, I’m not speaking in tongues, well maybe I am a little. Aparigraha is a concept from Tantric Yoga which basically means non-attachment or non-clinging.  For me, Aparigraha is the cultivation of acceptance that all things in life will change.  All things are ethereal. Today can never be exactly like yesterday and tomorrow doesn’t exist yet.  It means JUST FOR TODAY, let go of the past.  JUST FOR TODAY, let go of your judgment.  JUST FOR TODAY, let go of your fantasies for the future (also known as expectations). Because, if you hold on to everything with a death grip, you’ll lose the one ability that makes us alive, the ability to change.

So when the Not Good Enough Demon attacks you, pull out your sword (of compassion) and kill him with kindness. JUST FOR THIS BREATH, accept life without resistance because you still have the power to change. In fact, the world is conspiring with you.  That’s why it promises that this moment in your life won’t be anything like the last one, or anything like the moment before that.

You have the freedom to choose something new every time you take a breath. Instead of judging yourself as Not Good Enough, simply accept that something happened that you didn’t want to happen.  It already happened.  You already lived through it, successfully(!) and now you have more information, more knowledge, more understanding.  Let it go, learn from it, and make a new choice.

Queen of the Compassionate Castle

I know how difficult it is to accept yourself in the heat of frustration, as you fail to achieve that perfect pole spin, that perfect advanced invert, or that perfect extension in the pose. Try to practice taking a breath.  One breath, leads to another, leads to another. Take just a moment to feel compassion and say to yourself…

Just for this breath, I let go of self judgment.

Just for this breath, I am Good Enough.

Last weekend I was invited to a Pole Room Consecration, meaning there’s a new studio in town and I got to be one of the first to play on their fabulous new poles! Needless to say I was excited, especially since 5 of those beautiful, shiny phallic symbols spin and go 12 feet up. (AWESOME!) However, after dancing my ass off into the wee hours of the night and then throwing my exhausted body into bed, I woke up with a little ache in my neck and back.

Don’t Whip It Good!

Now, you all know I’m a huge safety nut (what exactly does a safety nut look like?) But I still love to let loose and play… unfortunately when I get REALLY excited, I sometimes whip my head a little too fast. In my imagination, this move makes my hair look “fabulous” for about 2 seconds, when in reality it’s more of an accidental headbanger moment.  It’s a little habit I picked up before I understood some of the finer points of injury prevention, and something I don’t encourage in any of my students.   Some studio’s call this an “accent,”  I call it a guaranteed headache in my future!

So, needless to say I woke with a lovely post coitus polgasm, but a sad case of headbangers regret, which did not improve as the day went along.

Now, I am a woman of many tricks (which you’d know if you tweeted me once in a while, *Hint* Hint*) and I’m certainly not above using my feminine wiles to get a lovely massage from my boyfriend.  But, he was off at work and my throbbing neck was not willing to wait.  So instead, I put on my massage therapists hat (well, it’s more like a box filled with pressure point balls, massage books and aromatherapy candles) and decided to fix things myself.

First I took a quick look at the Acupressure Potent Points book for neck and shoulder pain (this is one of my favorite books for knowing where to massage according to the meridian and energy systems of the body).  Then, I took a nice hot shower to get my body warmed up and ready for massage.  Warming up the area you want to massage is really important.  It’s one of the first things a massage therapist does to help you relax so your body can release it’s tension.

Get Tingley

Basically, it works like this; you lay down so that the racket ball is positioned on one of the sore spots in your shoulder or back.  Then, with your legs bent, you can roll around so that the ball pushes into the knots. If you find a super sore spot, you simply lay quietly and relax as the tension is slowly released by the pressure of gravity.  The smaller the ball, the deeper the pressure.

I love deep pressure, so for my shoulder pain, I used my favorite Foot Rubz, which are small balls with plastic nubbins that stick out.  And I literally rolled around on the floor for 45 minutes.  It was like heaven on earth as I felt my neck pain slowly dissolve.

Your Pain Prescription

Seriously, if you’ve ever woken up with pain from overly enthusiastic pole dancing, or any other sensual night time experience (*wink*), you might want to consider trying this remedy too.  It’s only got three steps:

1. Take a shower to get the body warm (& throw on a comfy long sleeve shirt & pants so the balls can slide easier)
2. Lay down with a ball right under the achey parts of your body
3. Roll around until you feel the tension in your body start to release

I’ve even used the balls to roll along the energetic meridian points that release all sorts of interesting ailments, like headache, nausea, and stomach cramps.

However, I still managed to coerce my sweetie to give me a lovely shoulder massage after he got home.   A girl’s gotta keep her feminine wiles in shape, which means practice, practice, oh sweet practice.