When you dance, your purpose is not to get to a certain place on the floor. It’s to enjoy each step along the way.
– Wayne Dyer, American self-help author and motivational speaker
I have been having this awful cough and cold for more than a week. Don’t you feel just so lousy and useless when you are ill? I know I do… lying in bed trying to will it to go away and then feeling like half a human, struggling to get through life and back at your routines.
I sometimes forget in that short one week how it felt like to be strong and healthy and you cannot wait to get back to normal and do the simple things you took for granted.
I know when I am finally getting back to being me again – it’s when I want to dance. Every single recovery from the flu from the time I was a little girl until now had a standard comeback – I would put on the music and dance away in my room.
That upbeat feeling will come back, music was never sweeter, my body never felt more alive and then I would know – hey, she is back. Beatrice is back in action, get ready, world!
That primal need to dance says a lot.
It’s an expression where you throw caution and regiments to the wind and have a wild abandonment to the music inside your body to just dance. Do you realise that you can never be sad, unhappy or disgruntled when you dance? Your worries wash away, you sweat and move and groove and you just have this big grin on your face because you are being totally you.
This is of course when you are dancing in the privacy of your room and you can skip, hop, twirl and be totally disjointed in any direction you like. It’s different when you are dancing in public and have to care to seem poised and cool and dance a certain way that merits a nod of satisfaction from watchers.
But here’s where I am different. I don’t care. I will dance in shopping malls if the music is right and if it’s on the dance floor, I just do whatever the music makes me feel like doing.
Shimmy to the floor? You bet. Raise the hands up and down like a slithering snake? Sure. Twist and turn? Yeah, baby. You see, life is about living and enjoying every single moment and dancing for me, is the freest form of just connecting with pure happiness.
I guess that is why the first sign of recovery from an illness for me is the automatic desire to dance. It’s also a default go to when I am stressed or I need to just unwind or I need to take a break from the mundane.
I suppose there is a subliminal meaning behind it all. Dancing is about daring to take chances, to live beyond the ordinary, to grasp opportunities and always have a sense of wonderment.
It does not matter if you can or cannot move professionally, it’s about just going within and finding that music in your soul and fulfilling its wildest fantasies.
There is a song by Lee Ann Womack that I love so much and writing this article, it reminds me of how I first felt when I heard it. It just resonated with me as I am sure it will resonate with you.
It just made me understand why dancing is so underestimated and why it is so much a magical part of our lives and why we need to give in to that primal need to dance unconditionally with the music in our soul; and the music that connects to our soul.
Here is an excerpt of the lyrics but really I want you to go to YouTube or Spotify and hear it for yourself.
“I hope you never lose your sense of wonder,
You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger,
May you never take one single breath for granted,
God forbid love ever leave you empty handed,
I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean,
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens,
Promise me that you’ll give faith a fighting chance,
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.
I hope you dance… I hope you dance…
I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance,
Never settle for the path of least resistance,
Living might mean taking chances, but they’re worth taking,
Loving might be a mistake, but it’s worth making,
Don’t let some Hell bent heart leave you bitter,
When you come close to selling out reconsider,
Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance,
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance.
I hope you dance… I hope you dance.
I hope you dance… I hope you dance.”
The views expressed here are those of the columnist and do not necessarily represent the views of New Sarawak Tribune. Feedback can reach the writer at beatrice@ibrasiagroup.com
