“Self-care is never a selfish act
– it is simply good stewardship of the only gift I have,
the gift I was put on earth to offer to others.”
_Parker Palmer
Love seems such an abstract concept. We only really understand when we start to feel it.
People with good intentions will sometimes tell us to ‘love our self’ – ‘put yourself first’ – etc. And then follow that up with some suggestions. Go have a massage. Buy yourself something nice. Eat chocolate – lots of chocolate! These are all lovely activities but they premise loving ourselves on DOING something. In reality love starts with FEELING something. If we are going to do anything to experience love then we have to do something that allows us to FEEL first.
When we dance we let go our thinking and our imaginings and we open up our feeling centers. To dance is to feel with your whole body – in fact body and soul. If the dance experience is positive and we feel good, we begin to connect to the positive feelings and open up the possibilities of loving our self. The positive effects of dance work on many levels. Releasing feel-good chemicals in our brain complemented with the relaxation and exhilaration we can feel in our body means that we can immerse into something like love – embody it totally so that it becomes part of who we are. We can dance ourselves into becoming beings of love! When we open the doors to pure love – it includes everyone and everything. Just as our experience is undifferentiated – so is our love.
Christos Daskalakos
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