Dancing our Bodies Back

Of all the places that I visited, all the things that I saw, and all the people that I met, I would have to say that the most special part of my journey happened right on the ship while I was dancing with my shipmates at Jenny Finn’s Spiritual Dance class. Although I only mentioned it briefly in my earlier posts, Spiritual Dance played a significant role in our shipboard community and contributed to my semester immensely. Perhaps, the only reason I haven’t described it more in detail is because there are truly no words that would ever be able to capture the beautiful moments and the transformation process that I experienced during those hour-long dances that happened every other A-Day in our student Union. In this post, I will attempt to explain the dance, or as Jenny would say, “the dance we call life.”



I was one of the 15 people who attended Jenny’s first dance class. Although I love to dance at parties and when I’m by myself with the music blasting, I’ve never considered myself a “dancer.” The only reason I showed up for Jenny’s class was because I had met her a few days earlier and something about her was so warm and inviting, I knew that I had to be around her. To this day, if Jenny asked me do anything with her, it doesn’t matter what, even if she wanted me to pick blades of grass with her for an entire day, I think I would do it, just because I would get to spend time with her. She is one of those people whose mere presence can light up a room, whose body and soul are intricately connected to everything she does, and whose heart is so full of love that it pours out onto everything she touches. But the reason why Jenny is so special is not because she is always happy or always optimistic. In fact, it is her willingness to allow every part of herself to “show up”, including her sadness and her fear, that makes her someone you want to be around. By letting her own vulnerability show in her dance, Jenny creates an environment where being vulnerable is not only allowed, but it is welcomed. So often our minds get in the way of us being ourselves. But on the dance floor, Jenny challenged us to be authentic. Using our feet and our breath, we began to dance our bodies back. What we found is that when we stopped living in our heads and started listening to our bodies, we were able to access the stories of our hearts. And those stories told us a message of LOVE.



Every dance starts with feet. We walk around on our feet every day, but somehow we lose this connection because we get so caught up in our minds. When we dance, we find our feet again. We begin by walking around the room. We feel our toes on the ground. We feel the weight of our feet with every step we take. We notice all of the places our feet go, all of the different directions we can take them. We then move from looking at our own feet to bringing our awareness to all of the feet in the room. Keeping our gaze on the floor in front of us, the attention is on our feet and off of our minds. We do this for a few minutes, without any music. It becomes a moving mediation, bringing awareness to our bodies and to our breath. The words fall away and there is only the noise of footsteps and breathing. And then we pick up our gaze…



As soon as we do this, our minds start going in a million different directions. The voices inside our heads starts talking to us. We might try to fill the silence with words or awkward laughter. Even passing eye contact makes us feel uncomfortable. Without even realizing it, we hold our breath. We are suddenly out of our feet and out of the moment. But before we can wander too far from the moment, Jenny has us place a hand on our heart. When we feel our heart beat, we are brought back to present. We continue our walk...feeling our feet, our breath, and our heart beat. And then we are told to find a partner…



A thousand thoughts start filling our minds… What are we doing? Why do I need to find a partner? Will this be awkward? …We are told to face our partners and stand hand-to-hand with them. We can feel each other’s palms and finger tips. We begin to sweat a little bit. We look anywhere but in their eyes. Again, we are holding our breath. We want to fill the silence. We will say anything to make it less awkward. We feel vulnerable. Just when it can’t get any worse, Jenny tells us to look into each other’s eyes and hold the words. We can’t do it at first. We start laughing. Our minds treat it like a staring contest—we see if we can look at the person while we distract ourselves from feeling the awkwardness, showing the vulnerability, or experiencing the intimacy. Our minds will do anything to take us out of the moment and instead fill us with a thousand thoughts, worries, and insecurities… How do I look right now? What is the point of this? Does this person like me? Do I like me?



Why are we so uncomfortable with intimacy? Why does it scare us to let others know what we are feeling? And more importantly, why are we afraid to allow ourselves to feel what we really feel? We live in a culture where it is not okay to be angry, where asking for what you need makes you look “needy”, where responding with something other than “I’m good” when someone says, “How are you?” is giving way too much information. The dance becomes our chance to explore the depth of our souls and welcome every part of ourselves. As Jenny would say, “It’s not about turning the volume off on our minds. It’s about turning the volume up on our bodies.” When we really listen to our bodies, we learn that our bodies want to feel that intimacy. We yearn to be ourselves, to open our hearts, and to be loved for exactly who we are.



The time we spend looking into our partner’s eyes feels like forever. Jenny tells us to bend our knees, feel our feet on the ground, and breathe. We do this and begin to allow ourselves to be present and experience the moment. Through this person’s eyes, we see their stories—stories of joy, stories of gratitude, stories of sadness. We see their beauty. Regardless of their mistakes and their imperfections, we realize that nothing they could do could ever change the fact that they are beloved—that we are all beloved. When we experience moments like these, it is hard to believe that anything in the world could be more important. Why else would we be on this planet if not to live every moment authentically?



After this moment is over, we are told to offer gratitude to our partner without using words. During the first few dances, we would bow to each other, but as time went on, the bow became a minute-long hug that expressed more understanding and love than words could ever convey. When we separate from this person’s embrace, Jenny asks us if we feel any different. We become aware of how the body feels after it connects with another person. When we return to our walk, we feel a kind of energy and a love that I can only describe as something we spend our whole lives trying to find—a Love that sees us for exactly who we are and still loves us. What Jenny tells us is that this Love we search for is looking for us more than we are looking for it.



As the music plays, we realize that the dance started well before there was music. The music only mirrors the dance of our bodies. We let our feet move however they want to the music. We do a foot dance with someone else. When we dance with others, we can sometimes hold back or come away from our own dance. We are challenged to see how authentic our dance can be. As the music picks up, so does the movement of our bodies. We begin to move into our legs, and then up into our hips. The hips are a place we often avoid. But in the dance, we welcome them. We stand in one place and see how many ways we can move our hips.



Then the dance reaches its highest point. Every part of ourselves is brought into the dance, including our heads and our necks which are the last things that want to let go. We move in directions and ways we never thought we could move. The phrase “dance like no one’s watching” doesn’t even begin to describe it. There are ways you can “dance like you are crazy” and still look good doing it. And then there is that dance that you would do if you had no insecurities and all you knew was a beautiful, beloved body—that is what this dance looks like. For the few minutes we are at the peak of the dance, we allow every feeling we are having come to the surface. We welcome every part of our bodies—the parts we love and the parts that we criticize and judge. Every part of us moves through the beautiful process until we are so full or so empty that our bodies begin to slow down.



As the music slows, we come back to our walk. We place our hands on our hearts to stay close to the moment. And we come back to our feet and our breath. Eventually, we find a place on the floor—standing, sitting, lying down—whatever our body wants, and we come to stillness. We notice how our bodies want to react to stillness. Is it uncomfortable for us to be so intimate with ourselves? To sit with the emotions and the feelings that just came up for us? Or do we welcome the silence and the time we spend exploring ourselves with open hearts? I realize now that every dance is different. Sometimes we feel alive. Sometimes we feel lonely. We cry, we laugh… sometimes we don’t know what we are feeling. But every dance brings us home to our hearts.



As Jenny has told us many times, “spiritual dance” is only the vehicle we use to access the Big Love. Even the name “spiritual dance” was only given to the practice because people started calling it that on the ship. The beauty of the Big Love is that it exists inside each of us and it is waiting for us. Through our passion and through our creativity, we can spread that Love to the world.

My trip these last four months was filled with emotion. I experienced joy, fear, happiness, some of the most incredible moments and some of the hardest realities. I could not imagine a more meaningful way for me to process this journey than through the practice of dance with my wonderful shipmmates, particularly Jenny Finn. Best of all, it allowed me to visit one of the most beautiful and precious places I’ll ever see—and that is my heart. I learned that no matter where I go in life, as long as I put my feet on the ground, take a deep breath, and feel my heartbeat, I’m never that far from home.





On a separate note, Jenny will be auditioning for the Oprah Show. PLEASE VOTE FOR HER by going to, http://myown.oprah.com/audition/index.html?request=video_details&response_id=1764&promo_id=1

To see a great video of Spiritual Dance by Toby, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA5zXHp8N3w

For Jenny's Videos, http://www.youtube.com/user/jennybfinn


And to see more of Jenny's work, visit her blog, http://movingmama.somamovement.org




*Photos taken by Oliver Wolfe