Dance Me Free

Before I came to dance, I thought that I was in my feminine because I was small, polite, petite, quiet, gentle, light, giving, and compassionate. Plus, I liked dressing up, putting on make up, and having a soft, “feminine” approach. At least that’s what I thought it was.

Little did I know that true, healthy femininity is not about the dresses you wear or being easy to get along with. In fact, it is often the opposite. And dance was going to teach me not just what that looked like, but more importantly, what it felt like.

When I got to partner dance, I was confused when instructors would comment that I was either too light or too heavy. One even said it was as if he was dancing with someone three times my weight, while others would say that I needed to connect more to the floor and to my partner. That they couldn’t feel me. Some fellow dancers would ask me what I was thinking about when we were dancing, others just looked bored. I started getting bored of my own dancing as well. I just couldn’t seem to figure out the sweet spot that would keep me in balance and flow like the other dancers.

I was working things out in my head, trying to figure out patterns and take in the instructions as best as I thought I could, so I could do my my part in the dance. But it seemed that the more I tried, the worse I got. It felt so forced, and calculated. Weighty energetically. I didn’t know how to be like the other girls who just made it look so easy, so natural.

But the more I would go to dance class, the more practice I was getting in connecting to my body, which was what I had been missing. Without a body connection or awareness, I was working so much out in my mind, which meant I was not able to access the leverage that my feminine energy could provide me. Real feminine energy is in our intuition, our senses, in our bodies. And if we are so far from our bodies, all of that power and depth cannot be reached.

I did not know how powerful feminine energy was until I came to dance. I would be asked to close my eyes in some classes, or to match the energy that my partner was giving me. The emphasis was on the senses, and dance class was making my senses come alive, making me very present. Whether it was listening to music, or feeling into the floor, or resting my palm in my partner’s and feeling his skin enliven with the energy between us, I started having that energy run throughout my body.

I could no longer worry about the future, reminisce or grieve over the past. I was in the moment, in those moments. And that opened up so many opportunities for me- in healing, in creativity, in sensuality, in tapping into my own inner compass, and hearing the calls of my divine guidance. When I would fall out of that presence, another dance class could bring me back to it.

So of course, I wanted more of that and my body seemed excited to feel my readiness. Dance was allowing me to become more aware of where my weight was, where in my body I would feel certain emotions, and what those feelings were indicating. It also helped me take up more space. To fill myself with myself.

It allowed me to recognize the power of the sentient being I am. And each time another experience added to these senses, I just couldn’t go back. I couldn’t go back to cowering, to being so quiet, to hiding. I was realizing that this is not what the feminine is. Femininity is strong, and grounded and connected. And it is also listening, trusting, flowing, not just to and with others, but first with myself.

Dance was helping me tap into being able to sense what was around me, using my intuition and my inner knowing. There was less of a need to think things through because I was now feeling and receiving. And even when I couldn’t explain in words what was happening, I was receiving the message louder and clearer from inside me. I felt less of a need to explain to anyone else why I was making the choices I was, or why I was walking away from something that just didn’t feel “right”, or how I just “knew” where I was being led, in the dance, and in life.

I had gotten so used to making things happen, forcing things. But dance started showing me that actually, when we are in receiving mode, when we trust that our partner is going to do his part to initiate and lead us, we can actually get more done. We can feed off of his lead. And if he gives up all the reigns to us, and doesn’t do his part, expecting us to do all the work, that’s very good information for us as well.

I needed to trust myself- that I would be able to feel this. But I first had to become familiar with how I felt. And I wouldn’t have known how to do this unless I gave my lead and myself the space to find out. Dance gave me that space.

It opened up space inside me, around me, and allowed me to honour the space I was filling. To say, “I am here.” Feminine energy is not about disappearing, or being in the background, and blindly going along with whatever someone else wants. It is active. The following is active, not passive. It’s not pushy or forced. It takes trust – self trust and trust in my lead. The more I didn’t trust my partner would do his part, the more I was depriving him of taking on his role and being in his masculine. In taking a lead role.

Feminine energy requires a lead to give us a frame, support and safety. But we also need to allow that frame to be built. I had been so used to DOING that I didn’t even know that I wasn’t actually in my feminine. I was so far into my masculine energy. I didn’t know how to receive, to BE. I thought giving and nurturing and “helping” or assisting was feminine. But the more I tried to help or do or initiate, the more I was actually robbing my partner of his role in leading.

I didn’t know how to wait to respond. The pauses in the waiting almost made me uneasy. I felt like I wasn’t doing enough because I didn’t realize that I was so used to doing too much.

I had seen so many of the beautiful, strong, women in my family do so much, for other people, for their kids, for their husbands, for their colleagues and even for community members of strangers. My mom even ended up having to take on the role of mother and father, and I just saw that as somehow necessary, or what women do. It was subconsciously ingrained in us as women to take care of everyone and everything.

That’s what I saw in the women I admired, but what I was also realizing was that they were often tired, and found it hard to give to themselves. And they were always putting others’ needs ahead of their own.

This had become my picture of femininity. That we don’t speak up, we cater. That we don’t argue, we accommodate. That we give until we are exhausted, and that receiving was somehow selfish.

But that receiver energy in our feminine is spirit driven. It allows us to give from a place of being filled up ourselves first. It allows us to connect to our inner being, our inner dancer, our superpowers. And the masculines around us get to feed off of that, and lead us in a way that makes for a dance that is balanced, beautiful, inspiring and unforgettable.

Once I became tapped into my feminine, even just getting tastes of it from one dance to another, I couldn’t forget it. Those moments built on top of each other, until I couldn’t go back. And my partners could feel when I was connected, when I was truly in my feminine, because they felt inspired to lead more powerfully because of it.

Dance helped me to take this new found feminine energy into my daily life, so that I am more comfortable receiving, and giving to myself, and trusting that I am being guided on the dance floor and divinely in life. The dance of life becomes effortless, pleasurable and full, rather than empty, stagnant and hard. And I revel in all the dances to come.