Tuesday, March 17, 2015

100 Days

Today is a day of celebration.  I am choosing to celebrate as I choose to do most things -- quietly.  Because I am celebrating not only accomplishments, but also clarity.  The accomplishments bring me great satisfaction, and the clarity comes tinged with sadness.

But first, the celebration:  thanks to my ever-supportive powerhouse of a friend, I just finished 100 days of dancing.  Every day for 100 days I danced, videoed the dance and took the time to reflect on the good, the bad and the growth.  I got to share those reflections on our Facebook group, on what quickly became known as the "Wall of Positivity."  Even through travel, exhaustion and difficult career decisions, I danced, videoed and wrote about it every day.  This is what happens when resolve, love, and community support come together.

And because things come together like that -- today I also found out that I passed the testing for the Initiation Phase of Rachel Brice's 8 Elements training.  Resolve, love, community, studying, and delicious Portland coffee.  I am growing into this new community of beautiful artists -- and though I am not yet comfortable calling myself an "artist," I am comfortable calling these wonderful women my dance sisters.

So now, as I am succeeding at these challenges, and accepting new ones, comes the clarity.  There is much in my world that is unnecessary and unfulfilling -- habits, objects, obligations, and, most difficult of all, people.  I have shed my interior skin, and now the exterior is shedding.  Piles of stuff are all around me, ready to be carted to thrift stores tomorrow.  Obligations I kept around for fear of their absence are being collapsed and soon gently let go.  And the people.  One by one, I am removing myself from the people.  People I hid behind, or used like some people use video games -- to distract myself.  People whose support was really a way of draining time energy and attention I should have used on something else.

Like dancing.  Because look what happens when you accept a challenge.  Time to face my fear of the next one, shed more layers, and do it.



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