DANCE

How Dancing Energizes Us!

For most of us, when music gets into our soul it’s an itch that needs to be scratched and the best way to do that is to DANCE!

Now why would it be that dance has survived wars, pestilence, famine, strife yet hardly missed a beat in the life of our planet?

What is it that we and the thousands of generations before us get from moving, gyrating, bouncing, leaping, rolling and shaking our bodies to the sound of music. What is the benefit?

Well, we know that dance lifts our energy and inspires and allows us to express our feelings, of course we feel that, but wait – there is more! As our toes start to tap and our body feels that urge to let go, without any thought of restraint, there is something else happening. Something truly, wonderfully, magically helpful to the spirit, the joy and the happiness that lies quietly within us, waiting for a chance to express!

What? What’s that? Well, here’s the thing! Life can become so mundane when we stay in the same lane, every day – yesterday, tonight, tomorrow, next week. Nothing changes, and we become bored almost to death but still we hang on to our habits!

Why! Well let’s face it, those habits are comfortable and take no effort. We don’t have to think about what we’re doing, make changes, or be at all outgoing when we’re in our snug little burrows. We like our comfy habits, don’t we – and we’re happy with who we have become within them. Although we are possibly only half the person we’d secretly like to be, we are so super safe and secure where we are. Yes, life is a little stale, but why would we change when it feels so homey, so easy?

And this is when we stop dancing through life!

Every day, all day, we create and attract invisible, awful and damaging negativity into our physical bodies – it’s a part of life and it happens to all of us. That build-up of negativity, that we can’t see but can certainly feel, is what causes us to be stressed, angry, resentful, worried or just plain too tired to do anything more than want to snooze on the couch.

It’s an easy trap to fall into. We come home after work, tired, feeling worn out, and sink down with a big sigh of satisfaction and relief into that soft little hollow in the cushions we’ve created over time, and look forward to doing nothing – except eating, watching TV and making an occasional comment to our partner/family about the show we’re watching, as we veg out!

And do we perhaps see this as our reward for the day?

Mmmm….. but there are other things, wonderful things, to fill our evening and make us feel alive! There are so many things we can do to assist us to drop off a lot of the angst and nervous energy we’ve picked up through the day, and to get our body feeling amazing and our mind clear enough to make us wonder why we wouldn’t do them more often?

So, I won’t give you a list – you and your family/friends/partner could make up a list of all sorts of things to do in the evening or find some great suggestions in my ebook “Need More Energy?” (see in “BOOKS”), available on this website. TV is great – but a steady dose of it every night can sap our energy!

SO – TONIGHT! YES, tonight, is a night to be brave, be kind to kids, partners, family and any lucky friends that have happened to drop in. Turn the TV OFF! Yes – OFF! – and have a dance night. The kids will have a ball and so will you – so let’s break out of that cocoon and have some fun!

 

 

The easiest way is to simply tune your phone into your sound system and scroll through all the fast paced old and new gems that you’ve loved – and crank up the sound! Listening to music favourites that remind us of good times, makes us want to sing and dance. We feel it in our bodies, it gets into our bones! We sing, and get the words wrong, and laugh – and release our energy. At our house we don’t necessarily listen to the whole song but keep changing to next, next and next and we’ll range from the sixties to the present. Let’s face it, there are some great songs hiding away out there.

To really let go and dance, dance, dance as we sing, sing, sing frees our bodies from the tightness that comes from inactivity and treading the path of comfortable sameness every day. Here is where we discover muscles that have tightened up, and parts of us that have lost their wide range of motion (not much action required when we’re only reaching out to the coffee table).

We’ve all seen how a dog will furiously shake its body from side to side every now and then. They know exactly, instinctively, what they’re doing, and why! Dogs simply know how to jettison negativity – they do it all the time.  It’s their way of clearing tension and stress from the body.  They don’t think about it, they just do it, and it’s such an efficient way of dealing with unwanted energy! We can’t shake the way dogs can but we sure can dance and it can have the same effect!

For humans, a night of dancing, laughing, singing and letting go is one of the best ways I know to clear the body of stress, negativity, staleness and all the emotions and thoughts that will hold us back from living the life we deserve, that the Universe wants us to have, and that is right there in front of us. A fun night of crazy physical expression, a good glass or three of wine and lots of best-loved music is a stellar recipe for relaxation.

Dancing isn’t an every night sort of thing, but it is there as something that somehow just seems to happen when the time is right. Consciously turning the TV off can spark many results such as night walks, games, etc., but dancing in this way is a huge favourite for me! Clearing out the negativity in our body, mind and emotions works magic and I can tell you from experience – YOU WILL ENJOY EVERY MOMENT!

Happy dancing!