Kids are usually not allowed to enroll in contemporary dance class until they reach a certain age. The thinking is that truly expressing emotion consciously through dance requires a maturity and development not found in very young dancers. Isn’t is true? Don’t you find yourself now better able to identify what you are feeling, and what creates or diminishes your happiness, than you were when you were younger?
So many of us these days are caught up in society’s preoccupation with youth and denying our aging process in every possible way. So we sweat, inject, dye, and otherwise mold ourselves to race in the direction we think we need to go.
Yet, how many of us would want to go backward in what we know? Particularly, in how we understand ourselves and appreciate what we truly value? And how does rejecting ourselves physically as we age jive with the pleasure and appreciation we feel from reflecting on the lives we have built and the results we have sown from our choices? We say we want to be happy, yet our concerns about this one area rob almost every woman I know of some of her happiness almost every day.
Isn’t it time for some new choices? Can we celebrate ourselves and understand that, like wine, we mellow, deepen, and increase in value as we age?
It’s time for Spring cleaning. As you consider emptying your closet of the things you no longer need or wear, try emptying your mind of the judgements and “shoulds” that dim your joy in truly being who you are, where you are, right now in your life. The days may start to feel a whole lot sunnier!
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