Freedom to Flow

“Flow” was always something that felt impossible, incompatible, foreign to me. You would think that as a dancer, I could claim flow confidently...second nature. You learn the moves, you do the moves, in order, the right way, but something still feels off...why? To an outsider, the choreography might look impeccable, and to you, smooth and passable - but it isn’t enough. A quiet judgement is born and grows...in the shadows...snowballing in your subconscious, making surprise visits when you sleep - apparently soundly, but dreaming in cacophony.

You know it. You’re doing “the thing”, but you’re not “in flow”, and it is bad. It is wrong. And you suck for feeling that way - even if you don’t dance, or if you dance at the office when no one is looking. No matter what your role is, who you’re performing for, how much you’re getting paid, or who can see your effort. You are not a bad person for doing you in your own time.

I think to move though the world with gentleness you must respect your own timing and trust it. Hear your own voice and feel your own vibrations - but you can’t really do that if everything is loud. In and around you, when the cacophony of anxious dreams shakes you dizzy, it’s easy to feel lost, and it makes sense! Anchors are for sitting, boring boats, and you wanna go, just go! To you I say: Stop distracting yourself from life. The noise is not your friend. The cake is not your friend. The TV is not your friend.

But don’t hate yourself, to smooth yourself over and go on, to the next step of the plan. Be your own friend, and find quiet time to do that. I started off this year by deciding I would no longer use my phone or my food to make me “feel better” about not being “in flow”. From now on phone and food are not here to speak for me or about me. I can hear and see myself dancing about that already.

The other day, I went outside, to my mother’s backyard for something I don’t even remember. But I will never forget that after a decade of dancing around with my body and wresting with my brain, I decided to ask myself a life changing question: What if you’re already in flow? What if it is already happening?...

I can’t say whether my dancing looked any different, moves more connected, transitions more fluid, gaze more focused, blablablabla... I don’t know. I can say I never felt more free to be myself. I was doing something I wasn’t “supposed” to be doing somewhere it wasn’t “supposed” to be happening. Even so, the whole experience felt right, and I hope the trees enjoyed the private show.

For me, it was a truly majestic thing. Years of putting myself down for being a jumpy little squirrel scatterbrain, surfaced and blew up like a supernova before my eyes. Commitments I couldn’t keep, appointments I didn’t make, wayward promises I’d made to myself again and again, year after year, gone! And the guilt about all that? Poof! I couldn’t believe that believing was the thing. That “flow” was already going and possible within me. In fact, I think it is impossible not to flow as yourself. It’s just what you do. It is nature.

And that is why I chose the jellyfish this year as my spirit guide! It honestly might even become a tattoo, seriously! I want to celebrate that I can finally embrace the magic of my own rhythm. And from the depths of my own heart, I wish that this year will be the year you decide that you can, too!