The dance of surrender

That was an exchange I had with my husband a few weeks ago as I headed out for my weekly dance class. It may not seem that unusual or profound, but it demonstrates such a different approach and perspective  than many of us approach life with that I felt it was worth sharing.

It is all about surrender.

In so many places in my life my modus operandi has been to plan, organise, prepare and generally get myself into a position where I feel comfortable that I was clear on what I wanted to happen and had mitigated all factors which would mean something different might occur. Sound familiar? I have discovered that I am not alone! Many of us go through life thinking that the way to succeed is to be in control, to have a clear goal or destination in mind and to work hard to get there.

But there is another way and recently I have been reminded of what is possible and how much more joyful and easy life can be when I approach it differently. When I am willing to surrender.

I have loved dancing since I can remember. There is a picture of me in my mum and dad’s back garden when I was about 3 or 4 years old, I’m wearing a black leotard and pink ballet shoes and am doing my best to stand like a ballerina!  Even just bringing that picture to mind now connects me to a feeling of joy and happiness and delight.

Now, on a Wednesday night (and at the age of 47), I experience the same joy and ease that the image of my 4 year old self exudes in that photo. I don’t wear a leotard now and my shoes are not pink ballet shoes, however, I put on my more age-appropriate dancing gear and head off to the local studio with no expectations other than that I will have fun and will learn something new.

And that is the thing that is most curious for me. 

How is it that when it comes to dance class on a Wednesday, I am willing to show up and go with the flow but in other areas of my life (like running my business or maintaining my health and fitness) I seem to feel the need to  control, manage and force?  I have no idea what dance style we will do each week, what steps I will learn or what the overall dance is supposed to look like, but I turn up with an open and curious mind and take each step as it comes. And without exception, it is a great experience. Even on the nights when I can’t seem to get my body to move in the way our teacher is showing us, or I feel more like an elephant than a graceful dancer! It is always fun, uplifting, fulfilling and joyful.

What that brings up for me, and is the thing I offer to you is, how is it that in other areas of my life it feels entirely different? 

I observe myself needing to know how things will turn out before I even start, tying myself up in knots trying to work out how to achieve things, judging myself and criticising my efforts and becoming paralysed by indecision or rigid in my perspective of how things should be.

Our dance teacher, Cherysse, doesn’t show us the whole dance at the start, which I used to find strange, but I totally get it now. She starts with the first step. She demonstrates and then invites us to have a go. Once we have practiced it a few times she shows us the next step and so on. So, the journey towards learning a whole dance is simply a series of steps. We don’t know what comes next until we’ve taken the step before it and that feels like such a helpful way to think about anything we do in life. 

All we need to do is show up and be open and willing take each step as it comes.

It’s probably helpful to be clear at this point that I’m not saying never plan anything or think about where you are going. If you want to go on holiday, it’s helpful to have an idea of where you want to go or at least a sense of the direction you want to go in. Or if you are working with others, it is helpful to communicate what your purpose is and what you want to achieve together. By sharing my dancing example, what I’m inviting you into is the possibility that how you go about those things could be done with a different energy or perspective and perhaps create a different experience.

Dancing may not be your thing, but I can guarantee there is something in your life that you do now or have done in the past where you have a similar experience; where you get into a flow state and you are not thinking about what to do you just find yourself doing it, being guided by something other than a prearranged plan. That is the energy that you can bring to the areas of your life where there doesn’t feel like so much ease right now.

THIS approach is the path to success.  Not the pre-planned, carefully orchestrated, mapped out, neat version I used to think was.

Each week as well as learning a new dance we go over the half dozen dances we have learned over the year and it is incredible to remember what it was like to learn the first step of each of those dances and the points at which I thought, “I’ll never get this”, “This is too hard”, “I don’t get what this is supposed to look like”. Now when “You Can’t Stop the Beat” or “Proud Mary” start to play I find my body moving effortlessly with the rest of the group and I’d say we look pretty good!

And even though that, in itself, feels like success, I was delighted and somewhat surprised to receive the end of term trophy last week which feels like the external recognition of success that I was already feeling inside.

So, my invitation to you is to think about where in your life you feel or have felt effortless joy and ease and to be open to the possibility of experiencing that in the areas of your life where that isn’t the case right now. Ask yourself:

• “What would it be like for me if I was more willing to let go of needing to control and allowed myself to be more present to each moment?”
• “Where in my life am I currently trying to figure everything out?  And, am I willing to take the first step and trust that the next step will be revealed when I need to take it?”
• “If I was to create more time and space to do my equivalent of dancing, what difference could that make to how I experience other areas of my life?”

If the ideas I’ve offered here resonate with you but you’re finding these questions difficult to answer, get in touch and we can arrange to have a conversation to help you find your way to more ease in life.