By Arielle Giordano
Let the power of dance spark your inner fire and ignite healing in your life!
A former dance student recently told me that she used to dance when she was younger, but she had stopped. She also said she was trying to heal a major injury and had not thought of returning to dance as a way to facilitate her recovery. An inner fire opened in my heart after our talk, and I could see how the power of dance can ignite healing on so may different levels.
You come alive with movement! When you stop dancing, both in a figurative and literal way, you put out your inner fire.
Dance is a metaphor for passion in life. When you forget to dance, the fire within diminishes. The Spanish word duende means to ignite and spark the fire within the soul. It means a heightened state of emotion, expression and authenticity connected with Flamenco Dance. Duende comes from the inside out as a physical and emotional response to artistic expression. It is what gives you chills—makes you smile or cry—as a visceral reaction to an artistic performance that is very expressive.
Dance shapeshifts you into a new way of being because it touches deeper levels of your beingness. As dance touches your soul, you touch and inspire others! When you are dancing your dance, you motivate others to dance their dance. Dance reenergizes, relieves stress, shifts moods, stimulates creativity, balances the brain, increases flexibility, improves agility, and centers the body, mind and soul.
Dance is my passion and modality for healing. Dancing transforms. Dancing gives insights, new direction, centeredness and focus and takes me into new space. If I am tired or in pain I feel energized and invigorated after dancing. If am down, in a bad mood, unhappy, depressed or just do not feel like moving, I do it anyway because in my heart I know it will help.
Allow yourself to move and dance through whatever you are experiencing in the moment. Dance moves the whole body: muscles, emotions, mental states, bones, organs and cells. Dance heals what needs healing. Dance moves what needs to shift. Dance gives you what you need to receive. Dance transforms what needs to change. Dance makes you smarter and more intelligent, and it creates new neural pathways in the brain.
Here are five ways to dance a difference in your world:
1. Dance and Move. Your body needs to move! Get going. Let the healing begin. Our ancestors danced for every life celebration and occasion. Do you watch children naturally move when they hear music? Play your favorite song. Enjoy and experience the freedom of movement as you dance your dreams with your feet. Get all of your body parts moving. Body cells and patterns shift when you move; everything changes. Cells begin to dance as you dance. Healing happens as endorphins release—and they are nature’s happy drug. Dance with an open and soft heart to your own natural impulses and the rhythms of the universal heartbeat. According to an Albert Einstein College of Medicine study, dance can make you smarter, and it scored as the highest activity for prevention of brain diseases and mental deterioration.
2. Listen to Music. Music is healing. Listen with your body. Let music move touch and inspire you deeply in body, mind, soul and spirit! Listening to music soothes the soul and relaxes the body and mind. Connect to the power of music and let it move you. Dance to the rhythms of your heart, soul and body. Let dance and music rejuvenate you on all levels. Studies supporting “The Mozart Effect” show that listening to classical music alters and heals the psyche, helps plants grow better, helps babies become smarter and more intelligent and help cows give more milk. Baroque music played in a chiropractor’s office even aligned a patient’s spine without treatment!
3. Find Harmony. Dance gives us the beauty of harmony in its expression. Dance and harmonize to the rhythms and sounds of your heart and soul from the inside out. Get in sync.
4. Get Balanced. Movement stimulates the right and left hemispheres of the brain. Movement enhances mental clarity! Do you ever notice how you can think clearer after engaging in rhythmic movements and dance? Are you more focused, energized and balanced? Indeed, dance helps balance your brain.
Dance also helps to balance your body with good posture. Stand on two feet hip distance apart, lift up your rib cage and suck in your stomach and tuck your bottom underneath your hips. Relax and put your shoulders slightly back and down. Focus on elongating the spine. While in this position, lift one leg. (Place a chair nearby in case you start to lose your balance.) If you can balance yourself on one leg, then you have good posture. If you start to wobble, realign yourself and try it again. Sink into your body and as you shift into alignment.
5. Relive Stress. Dancing and physical movements have a huge impact on releasing excess stress. Dance invites you to be in your body and out of your mind. Dance can provide freedom from concentrating, mental pressure and thinking. It is a fun way to move to relieve anxiety and tension, enhance clarity of thinking and improve focus.
I leave you with a free-spirited dance exercise: Take a deep belly breath and rest in your heart. Let go of your everyday affairs. As you listen to your favorite music, move your body in your own way. Step out of your patterns, habits, thoughts and feelings. Enjoy being in your body and have fun.
Dance is like dreaming with your feet.
Arielle Giordano’s new book, Dancing with Your Story from the Inside Out, was released in March 2017. With a Masters of Arts and Masters of Education, Arielle is an author, professional dancer, inspirational speaker, certified Essentrics/Aging Backwards instructor, and workshop facilitator. She enjoys sharing her gifts and talents with an authentic style rich in the grace of dance, psychology, philosophy and the expressive arts. Her career includes: provisional psychologist, guidance counselor and substance-abuse therapist. As a Lead Faculty Area Chairperson and Faculty Member for College of Humanities at the University of Phoenix, she inspired students with her creative gifts. She also writes for Tampa Bay Wellness, We Woman and Transformation Magazine.