Emotions & Dance: The Value of Connecting Mind and Body
I love dancing my emotions. My emotional dances are not glamourous, they would not win awards for choreography nor would they provide entertainment on the stage, however, they were for me a life-changing joyful lockdown discovery!
Here’s why…
To dance my emotions I have to know my emotions. I have to think ‘What am I feeling?’ I have to have an answer to that question.
I have to connect my mind and body. I have to bring my feelings into conscious awareness and then I have to notice what my body wants to do with those emotions. Oh I’m feeling angry I want to stomp, I want to jump, I want to bring down my weight with force, I want to punch the air…
Movement highlights the shifting nature of emotions. I flow from stomping, flailing anger to a lifting of the heart, I open my chest to release it, only to need to huddle in, fear making itself shown, I keep moving what’s coming next? I’ve never experienced just one emotion when dancing. Their transience is clear!
My body loves connecting my head with emotion. My head loves connecting my body with emotion. Dance connects the two without a huge amount of conscious effort. It feels easy.
Shaking it off is actually a thing! Physically moving creates an awareness that enables release. It helps free stuck emotion.
I feel better. Emotions explored and dance through leave me feeling lighter and braver.
There is I’m sure much research done on this sort of thing. I am not a researcher, but I have read enough to know that our body is designed to feel emotion. We will not be harmed by feeling emotion. Our mind may tell us it’s dangerous because of what we have learned along the way, but the danger is in unexpressed emotion, in burying what we’re feeling or buffering emotions with food or work or hedonism.
If it feels all too silly or embarrassing to imagine yourself doing an emotional dance, start small.
Get interested in emotional vocabulary – Plutchiks Wheel of Emotions is a good place to start. Having the words for the emotion we’re feeling connects our minds and bodies.
Take a moment to pause and consider how you are feeling. If you don’t ask you won’t know!
Don’t try to change or suppress what you notice just give it a name ‘Ah interesting I’m feeling jealous.’
Observe what’s happening in your body - what sensations can you notice? Are they linked to the emotion you noticed or are they informing you of some other hidden emotion?
If you were able to dance what part of you would want to move right now? Move that part with as small or big a movement as you feel able to. There’s no right way to move.
If the word dance is intimidating and brings up images of having to be ‘Strictly’ ready, use another word that makes it more accessible – maybe exchange dance for movement.
It is still a work in progress to move with true freedom. There are still the voices that try to dictate a need for grace or variety of steps or curse the limitations of my body and fitness. I’m learning to tell them they are heard and dismissed! Once dismissed I can lead myself back to connecting the movement with my emotions.
Dance for me was the thing that helped and continues to help me connect with what I’m really feeling. Cognitively I was all too ready to bat away emotions but by noticing them while at the same time expressing them with dance, I am able to process them in a way that doesn’t feel scary. It helped me know that finding my real emotions was a step on the path to liberation and freedom of choice.
A step on the path to having the freedom to choose how I wish to parent.
