Observing Inner Dialogue

One of my greatest loves in life is dance, an art form I always had a free flowing relationship with. That sometimes meant I had to make up my steps when I forget the choreography, or have the ability to infuse my own self-expression when the steps are familiar to me. Either way, once I’m out of the studio, I don’t really stress about the experience. Perhaps it’s because I know I won’t go pro, so I let myself off the pressure of achievement.

This log sheet tracked all the dance classes I have attended since 2016 at just one studio, not including other studios such as MDC, Step, Danzppl, Nasty Drills and more. Adding the other studios in would easily double the amount of classes I’ve attended since 2017. That’s over 100 hours of dance classes, spread out over 3 years.

It was interesting what came up for me next. As I looked at the sheet with a sense of accomplishment, an inner critical voice came up. It went along the lines of, “Only 30 hours p.a.? That’s like a drop in the ocean. No wonder you haven’t progressed much.”

I reflected on that voice. It was familiar, reactive, hurtful. It was also not helpful and poor psychological hygiene. If we can practice sanitizing our hands 50x daily as a preventative measure for physical health, why can’t we do the same for mental health?

I could fall into that judgemental thinking trap, or I could self soothe, practice loving-kindness and tell myself that it’s OK. I enjoyed every moment of class. I grew my dance vocabulary over the years, one class at a time. Those classes accumulated, 5..10..100. I didn’t realize how far I had come, from 3 years ago. The biggest improvement for me from taking classes was improved muscle memory. I’m now able to follow more complicated choreography with more ease. Its the same for our life journey too. We take it one step at a time, in a direction we want our life energy to head towards. Things may not turn out exactly as we expect along the way, but what I want to share is this: that things will be OK.