Emotional Wellness

Insatiable Hunger & Standing Belly to Belly with Fear

Craving. 

A hunger.

For what? 

For more. For different.

But, I see you. I feel you.

Your fingers reach with insatiable need.

You move from fear.

With the determination of solving.

Of fulfilling, of correcting, of making better.

But your very footfalls only affirm the terror you move from.

So I must pause.

And turn into you.

Against great resistance.

To stand belly to belly.

With you, my fear.

And I will breathe your breath and you will breathe mine.

And together we will become whole again.


Apr 18, 2022

What am I noticing?

I am noticing the constant restlessness in my system for stimulation.

Thankfully, over many years of work and practice, the stimulation I seek is more and more ‘wholesome’ - meaning it is more and more life affirming and energy and health producing rather than the opposite. Nonetheless, the restlessness for the stimulation still exists.

I notice it most in moments of pause or quiet. In moments of ‘looking for something to do’, looking for a goal, looking for a challenge or battle or cause against which to triumph.

But I understand now, that my work is actually much less grand, much more immediate, much less glamorous. My real work is to simply breathe into this. Without affirmation or acknowledgement from outside myself. Or some grand proclamation echoing in either direction about how great I am for doing so.  Without needing/wanting/craving it to be any different than it is.


Is this true for you? 

What do you sense as you bring your system to pause?

Where might you be moving into action out of fear? 

The Loss of a Man...

The Loss of a Man...

What happens when someone you love leaves this world? When a living piece of your reality stops being there?

The doors open, they pass through, and you don’t. Then the doors close and you can’t see them anymore. And you can’t feel them or smell them or touch them. You can’t hear their voice or experience their laughter. You cannot stroke the back of their neck or nestle your palm against theirs. You cannot feel the warmth of their body touching your own. You no longer experience them twitching softly as they sink into sleep.

When someone you love leaves this reality, you are struck squarely with the understanding of the interconnected nature of your identity as a human being because there is a raw, gaping hole in who you understood yourself to be, in what you experienced your reality to be.

The Myth of Failure

The Myth of Failure

In my journey of training and working as a professional dancer, the most harried learning curve I had to make it through was that of my fear of failing. It nearly broke me, and many times over.

What I realize today, many years later, is that while I did - thankfully - make it through that particular form of the challenge, everyday, every year, new and different shapes of this same challenge are showing up

I’m also realizing that, as I am able to see more clearly where and how the fear of failing is still present in my life, the very concept of ‘failure’ is starting to fall away. I’m not sure a more relieving experience exists than this, of gradually understanding that one’s worst fear - or at least one of them - is not even a real possibility but simply a misunderstood distortion of the mind.

Why your Greatest Ally Against Quarantine Stress is a Mindful, Expressive Movement Practice

Why your Greatest Ally Against Quarantine Stress is a Mindful, Expressive Movement Practice

Maybe you are someone whose stress levels have not actually gone up in the last weeks. If that’s you, that’s wonderful! For, me, though I don’t overly have reasons for my anxiety and nervousness to increase, I have still been feeling this at times. At times I wonder whether it is even my anxiety that I am experiencing or whether it is more my picking up on a sense of collective angst; an increase in the overall level of tension in society at the difficulty of less contact with others and the uncertainty of the future that every single one of us is facing. Either way, it doesn’t really matter. What does matter is that I do my utmost to keep my own system regulated, calm and vibrant. Here are two reasons why a movement practice is a powerful tool to do exactly this.

The Power of a Bow: Priming All Parts of Your Brain for Meaningful Action

The Power of a Bow: Priming All Parts of Your Brain for Meaningful Action

The wonder of movement is that it connects with and impacts both our limbic and reptilian brains. In this practice, when you connect the movement with your intention, you are allowing the impact of your intention to resonate through not just your thinking mind but the whole of your human self. In this post we explore the power of the bow as a means of powerful communication outward and inward.