Emotional Habits, Dance and Addiction

Below is a link to a great article at Psychology Today. Kimmer LaMothe is a writer/dancer/farmer and I love her ideas. Take a look at this and try this conversation at your dinner table. Be sure to read all the way to the end to see what she has to say about dance.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/what-body-knows/201203/emotional-habits-the-key-addiction

Emotional Pilates

A friend emails me and says, “I want new insides”. I tell her, “Me too.” This is one of those days that I just want relief from the fear. After all this time, years of recovery, therapy, healing and I get blindsided by fear. It happens that I am home sick today—an “experiment” my therapist calls it: Take time off and take care of yourself. So I cancel my weekend plans and I take this day. I get a massage and I read. The boyfriend calls and he says “Go to New York” and I think, “He wants me to go away.” I check my email from work and the bookkeeper says, We need more money”, and I think, “This is it, I’ll get fired.”

But I go for a walk and I wrestle with the angel of fear: Fear wants me to believe that bad things will happen. The shred of recovery that I have today says, “Hold on”. So I talk back. I pray. I think it through. There is some relief but these muscles are weak. This is like emotional Pilates. I have to strengthen my core beliefs. My habit is to succumb to the fear. But I make a tiny stride, a tiny advance this time.

Here is what I come to: I am determined NOT to be run ragged by fear even if the thing I fear actually happens (which it never does: get fired, man leaves me, friends desert me) it is still better than living in fear.