When you feel like dancing again, it’s a return to the body.
It invites you to move freely without thought. And that’s the key; *without thought. *It provides an opportunity to create distance from the constant noise in our mind, to reconnect with the pulsing rhythm in our bodies. But maybe it’s not just dancing. Maybe it’s returning to a practice that invites parts of you to step forward that are creative, innovative, explorative.
Maybe it’s cooking, painting, landscaping, journal doodling, bike riding. There are so many forms of movement that invite a deeper return to yourself.
I’ve noticed that every time I start dancing again, it’s usually because I’m coming out of a season where I’ve felt stuck. A season where life has felt heavy, overwhelming or disconnected. And it happens. It’s meant to happen. Because life is full of seasons.
Some seasons are meant for growth, others for turning inward.
When we feel overwhelmed or disconnected, we often live in our minds. We try to figure it out and understand why life is this way. Because the emotions and experiences we are holding or working through are painful, we try to rationalise and analyse so we don’t have to feel it. But this is the source of disconnection. When we have a sensation in the body, it’s urging us to listen. To turn inward. Emotions can be painful, because grief, sadness, loneliness, anger often arise when something in our life has triggered such emotions. And I can almost guarantee that if I asked you what was happening in your life to create this emotional response, whatever emotion you are feeling, it is valid. But when we push it away, we end up pushing ourselves into a space of deeper pain.
Movement gently shifts us back into our bodies. There’s no pressure to perform or get it right—just permission to feel, express, and be present.
Let’s explore the perspectives.
The Psychological Lens: When we live too much in the mind
When we feel overwhelmed, stressed or emotionally disconnected, it’s easy to become trapped in our thoughts. We analyse. We replay. We attempt to think our way out of what we feel. All in all; we are looking for a way out.
The mind becomes a place we live rather than a tool we use.
And a lot of the time, no amount of thinking can create the shift we are looking for. Because what we are attempting to shift lives in the body. Emotion is felt in the body. We might experience sadness as emptiness, grief as heaviness, fear as a knot in the stomach. These sensations don’t appear for us to run from, but to turn towards. What is the emptiness asking me? What is the heaviness showing me? What is the knot telling me?
Emptiness may be an invitation to reflect on something that has been lost or changed. Maybe that sense of emptiness invites an exploration of how to fill yourself up again. But this indicates that we have gone through a period of loss, of change. When we experience an emptiness deep inside, it’s often because we feel that something is missing. Feel the emptiness, so you can hear what it needs to feel full again.
Heaviness can show what we are holding. When we have experienced more than what we have capacity for, the body starts to feel like it’s carrying a constant weight. And it is. The sensation of heaviness invites you to explore what needs to be let go of.
When we have given ourselves permission to feel what the body is presenting, that’s when we start to come alive again. Periods of lows often place us in our parasympathetic system, meaning our ability to be creative, expressive and free become limited because the body isn’t feeling safe enough, clear enough, to engage in that way of being. It’s more concerned with processing the experience you are holding.
I begin to dance; often after a period where I’ve had to stop and allow myself to fully rest. And a lot of the time that period of rest looks like doing less rather than more, crying, sleeping, sitting in stillness. Periods where I am really giving myself and my body the space to feel.
And then the movement comes alive.
The body wanting to move shows us that it is coming into a new season; a season of flow and expansion. Whether it be dance, cooking, writing, painting - they all invite a similar awakening. Creativity, energy and freedom of expression.
The Yogic Lens: Movement as a practice of embodiment
Yoga has always understood the connection between the mind, body, soul and breath.
And movement was always one aspect of this. Movement practice, also known as Asana in Sanskrit (the language of yoga if you will), is a gateway between the internal and external experience. Through movement we begin to notice ourselves. We notice the breath. Is it shallow or rapid? We notice resistance. I can’t go into that pose, it’s too hard. We notice tension. Yesterday I could touch my toes, but today I can’t. We notice sensation. When I breathe into this space I feel more calm.
Movement becomes an invitation. To deepen. To listen. To learn. To release.
And yoga then becomes a form of embodied practice.
When you are truly immersed in movement, there is often less focus on worry. Your awareness is brought into the rhythm, the breath, the sensation.
Yogic practice may show you the benefits of movement. But movement will show you the benefits of a body that isn’t carrying and is releasing.
In yoga, movement is about cultivating presence. And presence teaches us to turn towards what we are needing.
The Spiritual Lens: When something within us becomes alive again
There are seasons when we lose touch with parts of ourselves.
We become consumed by responsibility, grief, heartache or simply the reality of surviving.
But as the seasons change, so do we. I’ve noticed myself saying this a lot lately, to myself and to my clients; We too are like seasons. Sometimes we have periods where everything feels bright, life is blossoming and there is an energy that feels uplifting and light. But sometimes we have periods where life feels low. Momentum feels at a halt, your energy sounds more like “I want to sit on the couch all day” and there is a heaviness inside of us.
But each season asks something different of you. And each season is necessary. Seasons of low and slow, the winter let’s say, invites a turning inward. An oppurunity to sit with and clear any emotions or experiences that have been weighing you down. And they will - that’s the natural flow of life. As beings living this human experience we get to experience the full range of it. The ups and the downs. Times of stillness and stuckness invite you to be present with what we’ve been holding. Life moves, and fast, that’s why sometimes we need to stop.
But then, something shifts. You start to feel more energized again.
You feel inspired. You want to create again. You hear music and suddenly, you want to dance.
These moments aren’t random. They are the quiet signs that something within us is beginning to come alive again. That the parts of us that have been frozen, hidden, or shut down are beginning to flow.
Movement becomes a way of reconnecting to a new season of you.
The Soul doesn’t need to explain itself in perfect sentences. Sometimes it speaks through tears. Release. Sometimes through stillness. Rest. And sometimes, through the simple desire to move your body to some music. Renewal.
Movement as integration For me, the power of movement lies in what it brings together. Psychology helps us to see that the mind attempts to help us by preventing us from doing the very thing we need to do; listen. It can feel scary when we move into a season of slowing down. We panic because there is so much to do, and the culture isn’t really equipped for this. But it is a season. A season for releasing, resting and renewal.
Yoga invites us into the body. To deepen the listening. To hear what the body is speaking. Because maybe your body doesn’t actually want to move at all, and that’s okay.
And spirituality. It allows us to connect with something deeper. It is in this space that we realise sometimes the movement is no movement. And in that space it’s listening to what you need. So that when the time comes and your favorite song comes on, your body says ‘I want to dance!’.
Movement is freedom. Freedom from the mind, connection to the body and integration of the Soul.
Love, WYSEbymonique XX