Connections Archives - Page 4 of 20 - Sacred Healing of Grief Wounds

Follow the Dance of Your Dreams

Follow the dance of your dreams. Then, when everything seems to block your path, take a deep breath and strengthen your resolve.

Follow the Dance of Your Dreams

Allow your path to flow around obstacles, thanking them for helping you see the importance of your desire to follow through to the next crossroad.

My path includes dipping my toe into my community. So when a new friend told me about contra dances, it was an obvious inroad to meeting people while enjoying a fun evening.

What is a Contra Dance?

First, I wanted to know the answer to this question. A search for “contra dances near me” returned the Boone Country Dancers. It’s almost impossible to describe the experience. The most important fact is that genuine joy permeates the dance hall.

A contra dance is uniquely simple yet deeply complicated. All dances in my area offer a minimum of thirty-minute pre-dance instruction. The caller led us through the basic moves without music, gradually added some live music, and by the end, we flawlessly executed a contra dance.

Perhaps This was a Test

After understanding the concept of contra dancing, it was time to find one. The next dance was the following Saturday night at the Blowing Rock American Legion, 30 minutes from home. As you may have read last week, I was overdoing so much that Spirit stepped in to help. With my energy so scattered, it wasn’t surprising that I experienced a severe, short bout of dizziness on Thursday afternoon as I started to step into the shower. As my week calmed down, there was more room to consider adding something fun to my life.

Perhaps the dizziness contributed to the next stumbling block to attending my first contra dance.

As I sat waiting for my hairdresser Friday afternoon, I searched for a funkier short hairstyle. The results included a photo of Jaime Lee Curtis. I’d admired her bold short style for years but pointed out a less severe option to my hair stylist.

We talked as she snipped, and before I knew it, the floor was thick with my hair! Was this another reason to chicken out of the contra dance?

The Theme is Fun

A bout with dizziness and an unexpected pixie haircut would not keep me from my plan.

I put a raincoat on, left 10 minutes early, and parked close to the front doors with an umbrella poised above me. It had been raining for over two days. But I wasn’t going to let the weather stop me now.

I paused undercover before the front door, shaking the rain out of my umbrella. As I hung up my coat and stashed my umbrella, I reached into my pocket for the ten-dollar bill, my final requirement for admission.

One of the Volunteer hosts welcomed newcomers and first-time contra dancers (like me) with smiles, encouragement, and a special button to wear. In addition to friendly faces, the button guaranteed helpful tips from experienced people while I danced. There were no mistakes. Instead, those experienced partners helped me catch up quickly as we flowed back into the moves.

My first partner during the pre-dance instruction was an experienced contra dancer in her late thirties. Many more experienced dancers came early to help the newbies. After a few dances, people filled the hall, and I sat down for a breather. Soon, a young man asked me to dance. I was back on the floor, remembering more and more moves.

The dances became more complicated as the night wore on. Then, taking a break, I filmed the feet of the dancers in this short video of the dance. The violinist had switched to a recorder, which he delivered beautifully.

My Takeaways

Even though I was one of the oldest women in the dance hall, three men asked me to be their partner. Two were young enough to be my sons. The smiles on their faces added to the joy radiating from both my face and my heart. My last partner was George, who was near my age. He has been contra-dancing since 1980 and calls dances in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. Their first dance is next Tuesday night. So I’m spreading my wings next week too.

Many small steps brought me to my first contra dance. You can do this too.

Reach out to a new friend
Listen to their suggestions to meet new people
Find an event near you
Step over each hurdle placed in your path
Follow through to the event
Walk through the door

How did I manage this when I’ve not followed through so many other times?

Going with the flow allowed my natural inclinations and strengths to ease me down the road to joy.

Connectedness – realizing the synchronicity throughout
Harmony – taking the time to listen to my friend
Input – the more information I gather, the easier it is to understand
Responsibility – showing up and walking through the door
Positivity – I saw the haircut as fun

It’s rewarding to look at my top five strengths from my CliftonStrengths assessment and see how they show up when I follow the dance of my dreams.

Do You Play the Role of Victim?

Do you play the role of victim? For example, the photo above portrays the young woman as a victim of bullying. Although we agree this is reality, damaging, and can lead to tragedy, is it preventable by choosing an alternative to the role of victim?

I never thought of myself as a victim. Yet, I willingly set up a similar situation I wrote about last week in Celebrating Your Shadow Side.

How Do You Play the Role of Victim?

I was playing the role of the victim in the Hartman Drama Triangle. This concept was unknown to me until a friend and life coach, Elizabeth Heiss, responded to last week’s letter. She asked me if I had heard of the Hartman Drama Triangle.

She also sent me a link to a video by Martha Beck that explains both the Karpman Drama Triangle and an alternative way of being.

Feeling Challenging Emotions

I write a lot about finding joy. Today I’m facing up to my difficulty feeling challenging emotions.

Feeling Challenging Emotions

It’s hard work finding who we are when we have hidden so much away.

I was a good daughter who always followed the rules and tried to make her parents happy. Guess which emotion was a no-no in our household.

Were You Compared To a Poem?

Did your mother read it aloud to you? Mine did. We had a children’s book, A Child’s Garden of Verses, by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. But she went further than reading to me. She told me I was like this poem.

There was a little girl,
Who had a little curl,
Right in the middle of her forehead.
When she was good,
She was very good indeed,
But when she was bad she was horrid.

My hair was indeed curly. And I suppose I got angry, as all of us do. But, the shame of this little girl taught me not to show anger. That anger was terrible. It was horrid. And I was a bad little girl if I was angry.

If I couldn’t express my anger, the only other choice was to stuff it down. Thankfully, my personality isn’t highly into feeling anger. I’m an INFJ-A. If I were the same personality but were likely to feel anger, I’d be an INFJ-T. The A is for assertive, while the T is for turbulent.

Current vs. Childhood Memories

My day became different than I expected as I was finishing this article. I was checking in to have my teeth cleaned when the receptionist asked, “Did you take your pre-appointment medication?”

“What do you mean?”

“Anytime we touch your gums, your orthopedic surgeon requires you to take an antibiotic.”

“That would be a no.”

“We can reschedule you for tomorrow at 11 am. Then, we will contact your doctor to have the medication filled at your pharmacy.”

Did I forget about this? I suspect I didn’t understand it very well and forgot about it. Could the same be true for some of my childhood memories?

A Little Research Helps

As I enjoyed a lemon poppyseed muffin and an Americano at the Local Lion, I investigated why we often have poor childhood memories.

Your brain needs to forget to grow. As a result, your body incorporates new neurons (one type of brain cell) into existing pathways. Unfortunately, this may block existing memories.

I’m always remarking that my brain is full of information, and that’s why I find it challenging to take on new data, especially technical information, or as above, forget about the need to take a preventive antibiotic.

Now we all have an excuse! You’re welcome.

Getting back to feeling challenging emotions, I found this article about understanding anger in specific personalities.

Why is Expressing Anger Challenging?

I think part of the reason for me is personal unfamiliarity. Everything in life is more accessible or familiar the more we experience it.

But I’m learning more about my anger.

How I’m Working with Anger

Although I am not someone with explosive fits of anger, I find it essential to acknowledge anger within relationships I value. I don’t stop mid-sentence during an interchange with someone and go through this list. But I do go through this process later, by myself.

I allow my anger to exist.
I ask myself, “Why am I angry right now?”
Become the observer of my anger.
Delve into anger.
What triggered the anger?
Taking deep breaths always helps.
Briskly walking disperses the anger.
I stopped venting (telling the story over and over).
A little distraction is good (I knit or watch streaming TV).
If it seems appropriate, I tell the other person about my anger.
I talk to my life coach about it.

In Conclusion

This doesn’t mean hurting others or yourself in anger is okay. It’s not okay. But it is okay to feel anger. After all, it’s just an emotion with a very short life span (90 seconds). It’s what we do with the anger that matters.

From The Good Therapy Blog:

“Anger is not just aggressive reaction. It often provides us with information that allows us to better engage with the world around us (as well as ourselves).”