How do you dance the 5 Rhythms I wondered? Discovering you can sit, stand, lie down, curl up, making the biggest or smallest movements, just as long as you are moving in your own way, tuning into and visibly expressing the felt rhythm of your story … that’s how you dance your 5 Rhythms
Intention
Being encouraged to establish an intention prior to the workshop offered the gift of time to contemplate ones objective on the healing path from victim to survivor, allowing commitment to the process.
My intention -‘To Melt’; revealed itself to me as a wayto unveil traumas, feel what has to be felt, release what is no longer needed and move forward with all that will take me. Being prepared to move through blockages and reconnect with Self whilst nurturing a sense of tentative safety created by finding the courage to be vulnerable and place faith in the process.
Faltering at the first hurdle…
Following the workshop introduction session I was in flare up … My nervous system couldn’t face it, my pain was through the roof, digestion in chaos and energy through the floor, I felt a mess, a weak desperate mess. I missed half of the first day I felt so scared and so ill. The trip alone had ruined me without the additional ordeal of facing something new. I really don’t know how I made it to what was left of this session.
Kate Shela, the 5 Rhythms teacher helped me recognise that although I had missed half of the workshop I was to be congratulated on being strong enough to acknowledge my needs she knew that it took great courage to say no and not force myself to attend. “It’s just something I don’t do” I explained nervously “I don’t not turn up” was this is a break through for me I wondered? Kate said how proud she was of my level of strength at allowing myself to step into the remainder of the session.
Healing time with Kate…
Kate told me I couldn’t heal any further alone, I needed a community of support to help me. The old me is dead she said intently … she’s integrated but gone. This threw a bolt of discomfort to the pit of my stomach I was stunned, startled like a rabbit caught in headlights struck by this information yet as the shock softened I realised this message had potential, could it be exactly what I needed to hear to be enable me to release myself from endless comparison with my past.
As we talked Kate noticed an abundance of emerald green light surrounding me she looked so pleased as she reassured me that I am stronger than I think, a beautiful warrior who simply must keep moving using the 5 Rhythms to help me transform. Apparently an emerald green light (seen as your Aura) stems from the heart with its bearers being happiest in nature and is thought to represent development bringing balance along an abundant healing path and that someone suffering trauma is preparing to move on from it. This offered hope for healing.
It just takes two …
Practising the 5 Rhythms with strangers is both an uncomfortable yet somehow inviting, the paradox brings inhibitions to the forefront in this intimate non-contact experience. Connection and defence swiftly become apparent as without verbal communication the silence is filled with the conversation of movement. Some partners you instantly gel with others feel awkward, some you naturally avoid - perhaps an expression of how your intuition guides you through life teaching you to navigate your space and how to listen when your body tells you where to go. Partnering seems to strengthen the connection you have with yourself as you begin to befriend your inner guide, this truest friend who will skilfully guide you through challenges, traumas and celebrations if you learn to let it and you can meet this guide through the dance.
I begin to feel I’m finding space to delve deeper, to open up and arrive into Self. I survived the paradox of partnering by tuning into myself, I’m beginning to trust myself again, beginning to melt my defences, change is coming its already begun.
Finding Your 5 Rhythms
Restless yet delighted
Nervously excited
Waves of calmness intersperse
A feeling that I may just burst
Tears and laughter take equal turns
As rhythm creates emotional whirls
Your dance is here waiting for you
Move with it… dive on in
Release your fears
Learn to be with it, get to know it
Love it, let it live in you
Three doesn’t have to remain a crowd
Working in a trio offers a powerful dynamic revealing the relationship you have with reoccurring patterns in your life, the very patterns you need to break. The trio enables you to meet the opposites of where you are in your life in all their glory, through demonstration by others.
Self sabotage was the pattern I needed to break and hope was something I could feel coming into my story something to move towards. Seeing the power of these opposites expressed by others really brings things home to you, to see your fellow dancers represent your states. It was incredibly powerful trying to move between the two, I felt crowded by self-sabotage unable to break free no matter how appealing hope looked. It took until the last few moments of this practise for me to move closer to hope, it felt so difficult despite my desire for it, perhaps I felt I didn’t deserve it – my self sabotage was unmistakably at work… I brought the two opposites together moving between them as I came to realise I needed to give gratitude to both of them for it was self sabotage that ultimately made space for hope.
Transformations
Moving supine on the floor I sensed I was beginning to share a relationship with my body sensing the position it had been frozen in 22.08.12 @ 17.45 as I lay fixed to the road with parts of my body crushed, open, bleeding. At the beginning of the session and more deeply at the end, I found an affinity with the movement. I heard myself thinking; is this Grace I am holding? I did not need to hear an answer Grace was present and it felt like acceptance.
Speaking to Kate at the end of the workshop she had a lot to tell me.
I explained how my initiation of the 5 rhythms had given me a trauma survivor a feeling of being back in my own skin, she assured me that continuing to practise will nurture this sense of being home. “I feel I need to learn to let the beauty of the dance hold me,” I said, I keep disassociating. “Every time you disengage the 5 rhythms can bring you back… keep coming back, each time you go keep coming back” she said.
I explained how my initiation of the 5 rhythms had given me a trauma survivor a feeling of being back in my own skin, she assured me that continuing to practise will nurture this sense of being home. “I feel I need to learn to let the beauty of the dance hold me,” I said, I keep disassociating. “Every time you disengage the 5 rhythms can bring you back… keep coming back, each time you go keep coming back” she said.
Healing Begins
I don’t want to tell my trauma stories anymore, I want to be rid of their armour, I want to create my life, a life where I can be alive.
I find the courage to believe I deserve to live to embrace the past allowing it to enhance the present. The unknown awaits and I feel invited to rest in the nest of experiences to allow them to nurture me, encourage me to spread my wings, to soar above the fight within. There are sparkles of my inner warrior arriving to quieten the fears I have lived. I realise I was scared of discovering how I would be shaped by the past … using t he 5 Rhythms has shifted things for me, I see glimpses now of this transformed peaceful warrior and notice I’m not frightened anymore I’m ready to embrace life’s challenges, not to live in spite of them.
Hope shines its graceful light to my heart… it’s been waiting to break through. The past is getting ready to release. The ebb the flow the turbulent unrest is calming into peaceful rest and although as I prepare for the journey and see the way is not clear I know it is desired. I’m curious to see what’s ahead rather than living in constant fear of what might happen next. I can sleep now I tell myself, gather my strength for the journey to come, the challenge of becoming my authentic whole self.
Learning to melt
“You need to know there is care out there for you, I was thinking of you in LA” said Kate, “I knew I must speak to you as soon as I arrived in the UK” this was to see if attending the workshop was going to be the right thing for me holding concerns about re-traumatisation. “You are so beautiful,” she said with such authenticity, don’t shy away from it … accept it. “I’m so proud of you, you are a warrior and you must keep dancing your dance” she mentioned that “I know how to ‘really’ have fun and I must do just that”. Offering the compliment back to Kate with her soulful eyes and enticing smile “you are beautiful” I said holding her hands and feeling so grateful for her endless kindness she shied away from it – its hard to take we both agreed smiling delicately.
Kate asked me; “What are you taking away with you?” … “Less” I say, “I came here with the intention to melt, that is why I am taking less”, the big melt has begun, I realise now that I need to be more attentive to myself, I need to notice when I am dropping back into self-sabotage and move towards hope, find space to move with Grace to give me space to heal, this insight offers me hope.
Heading back to the hotel I encountered something beautiful, two senior people on their balcony were swaying side by side, they were dancing but there was no music to be heard, then I noticed a young girl at ground level holding the hand of who I guess was her mother and they were dancing too, they were not shouting or waving their greetings they were dancing them, a family communicating across generations and distances through dance. Such a graceful moment to witness amidst the ambient glow of street lights.
As I reached the hotel, the super moon had risen and gazing out of the window I caught a glimpse its super brightness somehow soothing. I slept better than I have in years waking to see the sun glinting upon the autumn leaves outside. I play Discreet Music by Brian Eno as I stir, my hands begin to stretch and move with rhythm, a big smile spreading across my face as I notice I’m connecting to myself again. I can feel my skin, my breath, my body I am somehow even grateful for the aches and pains and I realise I must keep moving to reap the benefits of what has begun to melt the traumas that are already packing preparing to depart. I notice an unfamiliar state rising in me … what is this feeling? I ask myself as I try to place its familiarity then I realise its happiness, I feel genuinely happy! Have I somehow been given permission to be happy? Realising this makes me glaringly aware I have been denying myself this rite for many years. I then realise its deeper than that I have permission to be myself, my authentic self can begin to emerge.
I promise to try and notice what is bubbling up inside me, to respond with Grace, giving myself space to notice what is present and in noticing what is arising I can hope to avoid disassociation; where I can go missing for hours, days, weeks even years. I vow that if go into a disassociated state I will keep coming back, I will learn to notice and keep coming back.
Did I melt? Yes. Did I unveil? Its underway. Am I transforming? Unavoidably.
Reflections
Its fortunate I had no idea what I was diving into for I may never have taken the leap yet it seems to have been the most poignant thing to do at this point of my journey. I have begun to feel blessed for the journey that has bought me this far. My fear feels reduced & my hope is taking root.
Kate held an amazing space full of authenticity. She transmitted beauty, it shone out from her wonderful smile and enchanting eyes, she embodies Grace, fierce and gentle Grace.
I can see self-sabotage melting into a furnace of hope as I hold the desire to ensure my own personally tended prison falls away. My veil is lifting; the darkness I have come to know is beginning to fade. Self-belief is returning. I can see now how integrating the past initiates the growth of something new.
My authentic self was lost through all the suffering but now a mist is forming as the hardened frost of my past begins to melt allowing my true self to return. I’m beginning to feel at home in my own skin the best gift anyone could ever be given after years of chronic pain and dissociation born from C-PTSD (Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). I feel the grips of this condition will become more ghost like, its reign weakening as I grow further into Grace.
I feel my sense of cheekiness; intelligence and wit will resurface despite being silenced by overwhelming fear. My thanks to these 5 Rhythms are countless, I know now that each time something begins to dissolve me I can keep coming back, put myself back together, re-member myself.
It’s so empowering to have taken the risk of exposing myself to life again and gratifying to reap the rewards of finding the courage to put something big into my life under my rules unlike the unwelcome and completely unexpected destruction trauma can bring.
The residue of the 5 Rhythms visits me in waves; feeling at home in my own skin… each time the wave arrives in the most adoring way, I drink it in, I can hear myself without making a sound its been years since I did that. Constant questions are fading; I finally have permission to begin to heal, to melt into my authentic self.
Melting
Unveiling layers
Dispersing darkness
Removing protective armour
Accepting all that has passed
Welcoming light
Softening the whole body and mind
Expanding into a new shape
Moving into Grace
