“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” George Bernard Shaw

It’s been two weeks since I have taken a class on My Body By Dance.  A difficult confession considering I am one of the founders of MBBD and committed to testing every class for experience and results. 

I am hoping that the MBBD dance community will log on almost daily to enjoy all the benefits that being a dancer has to offer.  To me, it is so important to be a role model and an example of success.  I want to be a representative of our mission and as a dancer, I am inspired about the positive changes that are possible.  I can see them and feel them, I am just not moving towards them.    

Examination

I was thinking about my inactivity this morning and subconsciously my brain turned into excuse mode.  My inner thoughts were, “I have been working 7 days and 85 hours every week in order to launch MBBD.”  Interesting psychology that my brain went right to making excuses for myself. 

My next thought was, “I’ll get back into the routine once I get on the other side of this.”  I knew right away that I was trying to protect myself from the idea of the failure of not fulfilling a personal goal.  How many times have you done this to yourself, and why do we impose so much pressure on ourselves? Isn’t there enough stress created by the world around us? 

Expectations

Sometimes I think we are setting the bar entirely too high.  I do get it. There is way too much that has to be done, and it can be impossible to escape!  But, the “I’ll take care of myself once I get through this” thinking has to stop.  We have to adopt the practice of putting ourselves first, even if that sounds cliché.   I am old enough to know that my particular thought process – of starting tomorrow instead of today – has unfortunately become a habit, and my reality. 

Age has given me the gift of understanding what is important, but it hasn’t gifted me the ability to implement and change easily or quickly.  Maybe you also struggle with the process of change.  The truth is, so far I haven’t found that it gets any easier.  What I do know, is that behavioral change doesn’t come from a single event.  Everything is gradual, strong foundations are built over time.  Regardless of how much we want to progress, it is impossible without change.  And, change isn’t linear, there are a lot of fluxuations, and if I examine my own pattern of growth, it is pretty scattered, quite messy, and totally ungraceful! 

Exclamation!

Here’s my thought. Let’s do this, but without any pressure.  No deadlines, no hard rules, no must do’s – let’s face it, we have enough of those things in our life already.  Let’s just have this space in our life that we reserve for MBBD.  A place that is reserved solely for ourselves.  A place to come without an agenda, a requirement, or expectation or guilt.  Let’s just dance. 

Let that be the one commitment – let’s just get to www.mybodybydance.com and dance.  Don’t count the times, judge the performance, measure results or add any other assessment to the experience.  Just dance, period!  Dancing will do the rest, the heavy lifting!  I’m all for this kind of positive commitment! 

See you on the dance floor!