Hello my friend,

Have you ever wanted something but felt paralyzed and can’t seem to bring yourself to take action?

You know the thoughts – oh why did you do that? Why did you eat that muffin after you’ve been so good all day? Why did you stay up too late watching that movie instead of catching up on sleep?

I know about being frozen in fear. Not only do I stop dead in my tracks, I beat myself up afterwards, for good measure.

Like anyone, I have fears and thoughts and (ugh) emotional overwhelm, and I can get lost in that for hours on end. Then I beat myself up for having gone into the fog. Until I remember…that this is it.

Long ago I took a program called est and had a profound experience…of nothing. What’s out there? Mostly, what I choose to see.

Yes, I have goals, and yes, it’s in my interest to act as if I’ll live forever and work towards them,

but right here, right now, this is it.

There is nothing more – there’s nothing more profound – it’s just moment by moment by moment.

Seeing the sky, feeling the sun. I have a goal and you have goals but that’s then and right now is when we live.

And what you have inside of you, right now, is enough.

One of my friends has been searching for motivation in his life. He’s looking for something to go towards, rather being motivated to avoid something bad (like not having money to pay bills). He wants something bigger than himself, to bring himself forward into a larger purpose.

And I had this thought….that maybe there’s nowhere to go.

Maybe there isn’t even something to find.

Maybe being right here right now is all there is and maybe where he is – where you are, my friend, reading this – maybe it is enough. Maybe who you are, is enough and I want you so much to get that message.

This is what stops me in my teaching and my dance; the fear that who I am, is not enough, and that people will find that out about me. If I get out there on the dance floor, all my flaws will show.

But my soul will also show, and that will shine, because I love to dance. I truly do.

And as a teacher, what I have to offer is good enough to help, and that matters.

Do you sometimes feel like something is missing?

I’ll tell you a little story…

Once upon a time, there was a stone-animal kind of thing that had a missing piece. He rolled about all over the world looking for it. A wonderful writer named Shel Silverstein wrote the story of that rock, in a book, The Missing Piece.

In the story, the rock keeps searching for something that will complete him. He goes on and on….trying to find the piece that’s missing, that chunk of emptiness in him, to be filled. He finds one piece of rock that fills up his missing chunk, but then he can’t talk or sing because his mouth is full. It’s a wonderful story…

One day, he kind of gives up and just sits there.

And a butterfly lands on him.

The rock didn’t realize what he’d found…or more like….what had found him. So he went on and left the butterfly.

But they keep finding each other… You really might want to read this little book. It’s a children’s story….except it isn’t.

Whether you see yourself as the rock, or the butterfly,

It’s about being content and wholly in the moment, just being you.

Dancing in class, one day our teacher worked with us to dance with our whole self. That means you’re not just going for the end result of getting across the floor or doing a particular figure, but being more aware of more of the Whole – moment by moment the whole self, inside and out, being inside the music and the music inside you.

I love dance. I just love it. With my flaws and imperfections, the more of me I can bring to dancing, the more of me feels good.

It is a world unto itself and my mind and body that all too often feel like two disparate entities, merge into One and I lose that sense of being outside of me, talking to myself with that little voice. I’m just inside, and in the moment, I feel complete.

Maybe there’s something my searcher-friend enjoys and whatever that is, maybe that’s enough. Maybe it’s as simple as enjoying being a rabble-rouser; it kind of sounds like it, to me.

You could try and figure out, “why am I the way I am?”

Go ahead, ask it five times; five levels of “why,”

And the answer may come to you, or it may be the same each time and no more profound.

“Why?”

BECAUSE.

Because why?

Because Because.

That’s perfectly logical to a child.

My brother and I used to drive our mother up a tree with that argument, “because,” “Because why?” “Because….because.”

It is, because it IS.

The world needs you to be you.

We need rabble-rousers poking little holes in our paradigms and letting a bit of light and laughter in along with a new point of view.

Who you are is enough Missing piece and all.

Namaste,

Dana
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