When you are dancing, how do you feel? Do you feel open, relaxed, radiant, strong, playful, in flow…? Or do you rather feel uneasy, insecure, comparing yourself to others? Maybe you only dance when you’ve had alcohol, because otherwise you feel too shy or incapable?

Until i was 29, and already beyond my ‘disco’ years, dancing wasn’t much fun to me. Until i first drank Ayahuasca, a little over three years ago. This was the awakening of my inner dancer.

Ayahuasca is a medicine for the soul. It’s a concoction of at least two different plants and has been used by shamans over centuries to connect with the divine.

When used in a ceremonial setting, Ayahuasca helps relieve people’s inner barriers and creates space for spiritual development. Deep personal insights, letting go of traumas, and increased feelings of connectedness and wholeness are often reported.

The Ayahuasca experiences that i share, are highly personal. The processes brought about by Aya are different from person to person and from time to time.

Please take great care to find a trusted and experienced guide and drink Ayahuasca in a devoted ritual. Your physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing are precious and worth nourishing and protecting.

Struggle
Before drinking Ayahausca, i secretly loved to dance… but on the dance floor, i felt i wasn’t really ‘good’ at it. I used to feel quite self conscious. I had a hard time dancing to the beat because steps worked out differently than i had intended them. My moves didn’t look as sexy or smooth as the ones you see in video clips.

Presently, every vessel in me knows that that’s all perfectly fine. But back then, i felt differently. In retrospect, dancing used to be more of a struggle than the pure experience of pleasure and flow that i now know.

The way your body tells you to
Drinking Ayahuasca creates space to experience and approach situations differently than before. It has the ability to break mental and physical patterns, even long-existing ones, and thus opens us up to the endless array of possibilities that exist in any moment.

“And now, slowly, we start to dance.
But here, we dance not as we do in the disco.
We dance the way our bodies tell us to.”

I will never forget these words. They were spoken by our Ayahuasca guide as we were approaching the end of our workshop. The experience of the day had made me open, light, cleansed of fears and worries and burdens.

Listening to his words, it became unmistakably clear to me: there can be no other way of dancing, than the dance i make in this moment, nor should there be. There is no ‘better’ movement than the one which is here, right now. No more judgement, no more fear, no more expectation.

Clumsiness and flow
When you see me dance, you’ll see clumsiness. You’ll see steps off the beat and unsexy shaking to release tension in my shoulders or hips. There may be plump grounding bounces or strange pulsing movements. And then, in those precious moments when all tension has been released, you’ll see pure flow.

When i’m dancing, my body is not just moving through the air, it’s riding waves of invisible impulses. It is being danced. And even in this space, thoughts of judgement or doubt may come up. I weave them into the dance, and often, they’ll make me smile with the intense gratitude that comes with awareness that is fully open.

I know of no more beautiful and liberating act in this world than dancing. It is the biggest gift i could have received.

And now, in the comments, i’d be happy to hear from you. Do you love to dance, or is something holding you back?