When you discover how life mirrors the rhythm of dance, you’ll learn to D.A.N.C.E. with life and find empowerment in every step!
I have been a dancer all my life. My journey began at the age of 4 at the Edith Ronay Dance Studio in Astoria, NY. I studied ballet, tap, and jazz and I was hooked. What I also came to understand was D.A.N.C.E. as an acronym. You see, when you first learn a dance, there are certain steps you take on that journey.
Here’s an overview of the D.A.N.C.E. Methodology:
(D) Discovery. In the discovery stage, you learn the steps, positions, alignment, moving through space, and emoting as you dance—which are the basic techniques involved in the dance.
(A) Assimilate. Through practice/repetition the steps become part of the muscle
memory of your body. You’ve “taken it in” and now you don’t even really need to think about it. Your body knows what to do.
(N) – Nurture. As you continue to practice, you develop nuances in your dancing that nurture you physically and emotionally. The discipline dance teaches provides mental training and spiritual transcendence. You become this wholistic expression of moving art.
(C) – Calibrate. In this step you learn to adjust, and course correct your movements as you integrate all the subtle nuances as you emotionally connect to the music you are expressing using your body.
(E) – Express. The more adept you become with the dance, the more you can get out of your head and allow your body to express with the music. The more you just flow.
Let’s go a little deeper so you can see how the D.A.N.C.E. methodology can support you in navigating life. In the following example, I share my grief journey to illustrate how the methodology supported me.
When Brad, my first husband, passed away my world was shattered. Life as I knew it was never going to be the same again. I felt lost, betrayed, and alone. Sure, I had my family and my children to raise yet I felt my children were being gypped as Brad was the better parent and they were “stuck” with me. At my lowest point, I didn’t want to live without him and even made plans for how long I had to stick around until my oldest would be able to care for her sisters and I could go and join him. Needless to say, I did decide that I wanted to live and wanted to live well. As I moved through my grief, what I was really learning anew was how to dance with life and how each stage was a movement in the overall choreography that is my life.
So, from the above experience, let’s look at the acronym again:
Discover: Just as you learn new steps when you learn a new dance, I was discovering the new steps of my life. What did I desire as I heal from the loss and move forward? Who am I now that I am no longer Brad’s wife? Who is Elaine now? How does Elaine wish to BE as she lives this life? What does this new life even look like? All this falls under the process of Discovery!
Assimilate: The more I learned as I continued the journey, the more information became assimilated into my being. New ways of thinking and being became body memory as new neural pathways were created for new beliefs that were chosen, mining the gifts that the experiences of my life held and continue to hold for me as I move forward….the gifts from his passing, and there were many but the one I want to highlight here is that I was not the bad mother I had led myself to believe. He always knew that. I just didn’t believe him and yet, he was right. Everything you live and experience leads you to become who you are in this now moment and who you will evolve into as you Assimilate what you learn, truly “take it in”.
Nurture: Just as you Nurture your dance through practice, it is of vital importance to Nurture yourself. It is important to make time for self-care – especially for those of you who are Highly Sensitive and if you’re reading this, chances are that you fall under this category. You want to have practices in place that nurtures your body, mind, and spirit. A Spiritual practice can be as simple as taking a moment to connect with your soul every day. When you are depleted, you have nothing to give to anyone, so these practices are not selfish. They are essential! This is the step where you are treating yourself as a whole person…. body, mind, and spirit. You are not looking outside of yourself for what you need because you are taking the time to Nurture.
Calibrate: Calibration is adapting/course correcting as you go about your life. This is about being open, flexible, and detached to outcomes. Understanding “this or something even better” when it comes to the desires you co-create with the Divine. It’s about assessing what is working, what isn’t, and what needs to change and being willing to make the changes to keep you moving towards your desires.
Express: As you move through the previous 4 steps, your expression is inevitable. And of course, once you Express, you go back to step 1 and uncover new discoveries, new desires and the dance begins anew.
To review, when you D.A.N.C.E. with life, you are:
Discovering who you are, what you desire, who you desire to BE in this world and the life you desire to co-create with the Divine that is your unique and valuable expression in the world.
Assimilating and taking in all the information of life and mining what serves you and what does not. You create new neural pathways for the new beliefs you choose to adopt and the new ways of being.
Nurturing and creating the boundaries that honor your energies, the practices that nourish and nurture your body, the spiritual practices that nurture your soul and connect you with who you truly are and what you truly came here to express and keep you grounded.
Calibrating by being open and flexible, able to adapt and be led by the Divine when you don’t know “how” or the “how” you think is not the path of least resistance. The willingness to be led/re-directed to “this or something even better!”
Expressing your nature is to grow and evolve. You are not the same person you were 10 years ago, and you will not be the same person you are 10 years from now.
So, what does your D.A.N.C.E. with life look like?
