Your Dance, Your Way?
A tribal drum beat sets the rhythm as the mood of the music fills my heart with excited emotion. Following the movements of my Nia teacher, I dance with delight across the shiny wood floor in bare feet. The movement serves to release recent anxieties and tensions that have been stealing my joy. As the song continues to crescendo, I dance with more abandon, trying to block out the faces of the other dancers who surround me in the room. While the class is described by my Nia instructor as a blend of dance, martial arts, and healing arts, another fellow dancer once described it as feeling like a kid running through the sprinklers on a hot summer day. I relate to this latter description. To this middle aged woman, raised in church schools where dance was taboo, it feels like a happy dance of liberation. Exhilarating freedom for my body, mind, and soul.
Gliding through the room, the music shifts to a middle eastern melody and suddenly my mind remembers when all the Israelite women followed Miriam with tambourines and exuberant dancing, praising God for the miracle of deliverance from both Egypt and the Red Sea. Can you imagine? There may have been more than half a million women dancing with joy! (600,000 Israelite men left Egypt.(Ex. 12:37; 15:20.) What an extraordinary moment that must have been! I imagine myself as one of those women, dancing awestruck with a thrilled heart alongside my tribe of grateful sisters. Moving to the melody my mood soars as I think of all the countless ways God has delivered me.
As another song unfolds my teacher suddenly cups her ear and says to us, "listen for the flute." Soon, a flute liltingly begins to play the melody as my teacher gives us a new command, "Your dance, your way." She then stops demonstrating choreographed moves and seems to get lost in her own little dance. We are all left to move as we please for this section of the song. Initially, this is rather jolting. Our dance, our way? My dance, my way? What exactly does that look like? What is my dance? My way?
Tentatively, I move to the beat. Eventually, I find myself increasingly going faster and faster, my gestures eventually painting a picture from the recesses of my heart. I realize how vital it is to block out the faces of those who surround me, lest I look to them in comparison. Lest I look to them to see how well I'm fitting in the group. Lest I look to them to evaluate myself or them--eliciting undeserved pride or scorn, depending on the evaluation. Any attempt to compare myself with another dancer will quickly shut down my dance, my way. Comparisons should come with a warning label, such as, "Comparisons are known to cause mental and physical distress. They undermine creativity, uniqueness, and a sense of purpose in the world. Comparisons are toxic. Use at your own risk."
Lately, women of all ages have confided in me that they find themselves endlessly looking at others to see just exactly how they measure up. Which leads me to the million dollar question--just why do we compare ourselves to other people? If we're honest sometimes it's to find direction--using their way as our way. Sometimes it's to feel important or significant--if I find an area where I'm doing something better than others, that makes me special, right? I can pride myself on the area where I excel, and maybe like myself a tad bit more at the end of the day. Look to the right, look to the left, and...snap! It's a trap waiting to snag us, tie us up, and leave us feeling more insecure and lost than ever.
You see, the problem with this comparison strategy is that it keeps us from knowing and valuing ourselves. It keeps us from struggling to discover our values, our strengths, our weaknesses, and ultimately, what we have to contribute to the world that belongs just to us. We each have a unique and special way of seeing the world, and of doing things, that adds depth, dimension, and beauty to the bigger picture. We will never discover and embrace our purpose and design if we focus instead on comparing ourselves to the crowd around us. To experience authentic satisfaction and joy we need to spend our energy on discovering and being us. Just us. Doing our dance, our way. Much like a truly beautiful garden has flowers and plants of various colors, shapes, sizes, and textures, our world needs each of us to contribute our unique pattern to the garden if it to be the masterpiece our Creator intended. We are all a special workmanship of God's, and designed to be a perfectly unique part of His design. Created to do good works...with our own personal stamp on them.
Listen for the flute. It's coming....get ready to do your dance, your way. Close your eyes to those around you, and allow yourself to run through the sprinklers on a hot summer day and enjoy the moment. Do your part. Do your dance, your way.
Lately, women of all ages have confided in me that they find themselves endlessly looking at others to see just exactly how they measure up. Which leads me to the million dollar question--just why do we compare ourselves to other people? If we're honest sometimes it's to find direction--using their way as our way. Sometimes it's to feel important or significant--if I find an area where I'm doing something better than others, that makes me special, right? I can pride myself on the area where I excel, and maybe like myself a tad bit more at the end of the day. Look to the right, look to the left, and...snap! It's a trap waiting to snag us, tie us up, and leave us feeling more insecure and lost than ever.
You see, the problem with this comparison strategy is that it keeps us from knowing and valuing ourselves. It keeps us from struggling to discover our values, our strengths, our weaknesses, and ultimately, what we have to contribute to the world that belongs just to us. We each have a unique and special way of seeing the world, and of doing things, that adds depth, dimension, and beauty to the bigger picture. We will never discover and embrace our purpose and design if we focus instead on comparing ourselves to the crowd around us. To experience authentic satisfaction and joy we need to spend our energy on discovering and being us. Just us. Doing our dance, our way. Much like a truly beautiful garden has flowers and plants of various colors, shapes, sizes, and textures, our world needs each of us to contribute our unique pattern to the garden if it to be the masterpiece our Creator intended. We are all a special workmanship of God's, and designed to be a perfectly unique part of His design. Created to do good works...with our own personal stamp on them.
Listen for the flute. It's coming....get ready to do your dance, your way. Close your eyes to those around you, and allow yourself to run through the sprinklers on a hot summer day and enjoy the moment. Do your part. Do your dance, your way.
