Be the change you want to see.

Today i let my therapist go.

I feel really good about this. Solid, confident, like this cycle of healing is done and I'm ready to be challenged by the next lessons in creativity, compassion, and empathy. \m/

Monday was a giant success in the Moving My Body department.
Matter of fact, I'm more than a bit sore today, in ways I haven't in weeks and weeks, so that's good.
(it's good because SORE is different than Injured or Impaired.)

Monday morning I met wrenb at the gym for to try a new yoga class. Hadn't had a Hatha Yoga class in, well, at least a couple of years. *shrug* been doing other things, haven't had enough interest to go there, and it had seemed that the so-called Gentle Yoga was serving my yoga needs... But this Hatha class was very enjoyable and a good amount of challenge while not being a huge strain. Even if the teacher did look at me among others (I think I was the only roundy woman in the room) when she asked if any of us were new to yoga, I didn't mind. I was mildly amused, and smiled gently at her.

And then it was quite a good and thorough workout. The sacroiliac joint, where my chiropractor was working on me previously, made quite the series of long crackly readjustments toward the end of the session during a hip twisting stretch before savasana. It never hurts, but it still feels strange, like ... like pulling apart warm rice crispy treats. Only with a crunch with every stretch.

After Yoga, I spent some time with wrenb, her husband, and her kids at a local park for part of the afternoon, then went home, took care of various personal and house things, and had something to eat before meeting wrenb again for dance...5Rhythms in Mountain View. They meet, WE meet, at the Masonic Temple and use their ballroom for dancing. It's a HUMONGOUS lot of fun, although it's also challenging. Claire, the teacher, encourages all kinds of heart-centered meditation practices, and often has us try new exercises meant to break through the walls around our hearts, or break through our fears and engrained habits of self-image.

Claire ran an exercise last night that I know as a theater game... Everyone circles up. Then the teacher starts with simple statements: Walk across the circle if you identify as male. ...as female ... as somewhere in between (two people I like, crossed the circle at that point, visually seeming as one of each gender).

Questions moved to a popcorn format eventually: Have you ever had your heart broken, have you ever been divorced, have you lost a parent, are you a grandparent, did you have a challenging day, did you have a good day, did you identify as other than heterosexual? (I walked for that one.) Have you lost an SO or a child? Are you now or have you been dealing with cancer. (I walked for that one as well, though a tiny bit of skin cancer hardly feels /worthy/, you know? But my little brother Scott died from cancer, so did my uncles Leo (leukemia) and Dino (skin cancer gone metastatic) and my cousin Jeff (testicular, he was only 6 months older than me), so fuck that, I will keep it in mind)

I danced a LOT. and I made an effort to dance with other people. 5 Rhythms isn't like ballroom or country dances, everyone dances alone most of the time, but people play together occasionally, in twos or threes or occasionally in hug-circles kind of things. It was good.

It wasn't an effort, like it usually is, to let someone come ask me (nonverbally) for contact or play. It flowed well, and was fun, silly, joyful. My native state. =D

More of this. Moving is joyful.

This is what I posted to FB last night just before falling asleep...

"Seems I have 3 rules for dancing at 5Rhythms:

1) dance in 3 dimensions
2) take up space
3) try to detach from thinking, just move!

Oh, and HAVE FUN & SMILE A LOT"

a FB friend said, well yeah, I agree, except those are my RULES FOR LIFE!

=D

Last night went AWESOMELY. Excellent flow, mostly I was out of my own head and just moving, doing some things I believe I have only seen other people do... (but I wasn't planning them or observing myself doing them, so I'm actually not really very clear as to what precisely I was *doing*, which is a very interesting state to be in...)

I did notice that I had more people "asking to dance" with me last night, in a way... that was also very interesting (people ask to dance nonverbally there, usually by eye contact and then joining you in the space on the floor)

At one point, after the lesson, Claire asked us to join other dancers in groups of 5... < anxiety levels rising, who will want to group with me? >

We had a group of 6 for a bit, then it shifted and the 3 that joined my/our initial group of 3 melted away and we were joined by 2 others... David is HELLA tall, and looks like a friendly, meditative Lurch from the Addams family, a shorter more choleric-moving guy whose name I didn't catch though I danced twice with him later, an ectomorphic blond girl, and a (relatively) shy-moving Asian girl. I was *definitely* the fattest in our group, and also the most uninhibited in some ways. I think I blew the petite blond's mind... we were taking turns dancing at the center of our group, and holding space at the edges when we weren't dancing (and also dancing, sometimes echoing whoever was at the center, interpreting the idea or quotation we'd selected to think about)... I've no idea what I was doing that made her face and eyes look all surprised and amazed while she was watching me, but I was grinning, and moving, and loving it.

My turn in the center turned out to be brief. I didn't talk about my quotation, I just moved it. I love that I studied eurythmy with the Waldorf program... it makes it so much easier to EXPRESS some things...

The quote paraphrased: Intuition is about Knowing, not about Thinking, and something about a battle with the Ego. Maybe that last part is something I will have to live my way into the Answers, later (thank you, Rilke) because I don't really understand what was meant by it, but the first part of the passage I can live now, in Dance, and in other Expression.

Moving While Fat is still just MOVING. I dunno why, but nobody gives me flack for being fat while dancing... and 5Rhythms is the BEST about being welcoming and fun.

Just DANCE, my babies!!

TEN things of joy... Feeling ambitious.

1) Waving g'bye to GW. *waves*

2) Breaking spurious_logic's brain last night when I told him that on Sunday we replaced the last things that were stolen from us in the burglary... ( wait for it... )

3) Test driving one of the items from number two, just a little earlier today. Thinking about writing a review. Should I?

4) Warm kitty-lap. Also, kitties curled up on me as I'm falling asleep.

5) Realizing that I probably won't get a hard-copy newspaper for today but also realizing that I won't mind THAT terribly much; more paper in a pile is a Do Not Want, even if it has very cool pictures and articles, I can prolly find over 70% published online. (CC times and SF Chron.)

6) a date to go have someone poke holes in me and my "niece", accompanied by dinner. (yes, odd that I am, I'm looking forward to that.)

7) light weight-lifting alleviates a muscle cramp. I will most likely do more of that tonight.

8) long and intense conversations with a friend who is very perceptive and trying to figure out some of HER stuff too. Perspective on situations in MY life that are helpful.

9) Chocolate in the mail.

10) Saying "no thank you" to even very nice champagne (I wasn't sure if I'd been handed a glass of non-alcoholic so I didn't drink it) with only the slightest twinge. It may be a very long time till my next drink. At least there is much joy in the rest of my life, enough so it's hard for me to say that I miss the (often dubious) pleasures inherent in alcohol.