What if I gave you permission to dance a jig in the grocery store aisle or go outside your office building and set up a howl?
Would you do it?
Of course not, you say. I'm not crazy. I know how to behave in public.
See? That's my point. Our society has conditioned us to be quiet and still in our cubicles at work, in our desks at school, in lines at the grocery store, in our pews at church, and at the dinner table. We call it "minding our manners." We are taught to keep our eyes front and our mouths shut.
Venues for self-expression are limited to the chosen. Choir members and celebrities have permission to sing and dance. Authorities with recognized credentials are given platforms by the media and the publishing industry. Socially acceptable movement is formalized and repetitive. Working out with weights at the gym; practicing certain stylized, choreographed forms like Yoga, Tai Chi, or aerobics; participating in athletic training; and playing sports are our choices. But the average human's need to spontaneously self-express is repressed. You just proved it.
Consequently, as a culture, we are rigid and angry (or depressed). We have manifested phenomena like drive-by-shootings and road-rage, and we have become an obscenely obese population dependent on alcohol, caffeine, nicotine, anti-depressants, and sleep aids.
I can't dance or sing, you say. There's the problem: you think it's about ability. It's not. You came into this world not only knowing how to move and sound, but doing it all the time, naturally.
While I affirm the necessity to teach self-control, and develop the critical thinking skills it takes to judge appropriate from inappropriate social behavior, I denounce the necessity for the rigid, industrialized, robotic, oppressive nature of the methods by which these behaviors are taught. In fact, I hold the barriers of socially appropriate behavior in question as borderline cruelty.
What you need to know is this: the body carries a cellular memory of every experience you've ever had, and somatic stagnation or holding feeds disease and breeds unhappiness. To dance and sing or writhe and groan however your body desires is your divine birthright and the kinesthetic key to your body's ability to self-heal.
In my work, I challenge individuals to move and sound through cultural barriers that stagnate and repress, and to transmute the term "socially appropriate behavior" into something more like "bio-dynamic, spiritual well-being." I encourage increasing somatic awareness through movement, sounding, Healing Touch, bodywork, and breath-work.
I offer you the permission here to reconnect with your body, to allow it to move spontaneously in its own unique, biodynamic, rhythmic wisdom and watch what happens. Blocked energy will move. Holding patterns will release. Your bio-field will expand. Ultimately, the spontaneous fluidity you cultivate will enable your body's innate ability and voila! Healing happens.
