Expression = release

Being an over-thinker is a blessing and a curse. It makes me naturally wired for curiosity and shifting my perspective, but it also makes me feel stretched because I'm making internal space for all these things I'm curious about.

Dancing is one of the few things I can immerse myself in that gives me full relief from the noise in my head. Even before I discovered shuffling and started learning and mixing different styles, simply listening to music was a greater escape for me than writing or playing it. I was just always afraid to label the way I moved my body as dancing because I had no experience with any professional or underground scenes and had never learned from anyone.

Thank heavens I've bene able to cross paths with the amazing teachers and artists who have inspired me to become more in touch with this form of self expression.

This discovery of movement and expression has also inspired me to embrace more aspects of my identity that I had felt the need to hide or tone down to make others comfortable. It's given me a healthy way to expand on my curiosity rather than feeling overwhelmed by my thoughts.

I could gush on about how movement has healed and saved me, but I really just want to spend my energy directly encouraging others to discover it for themselves.

Here's the deal - if you want to learn how to do something, find a teacher that you enjoy learning from so that you will enjoy learning. If you don't resonate with the way someone teaches, the beauty is that you can learn from anyone, even informally, even for free. You just have to be intentional about where your energy is going.