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Question: You use music in therapy to
create cures. How does dancing play into all this?
Answer: Years
ago, in one of my deep feeling therapy group sessions, a man stood up and
started dancing around the room to the music. He requested country music in
order to help get him out of his doldrums. He suffered from
obsessive-compulsive personality disorder combined with ADD and his
marriage was a disaster. In the deep feeling realm, he couldn't feel very
much and was highly reactive to his wife. He also have
a long-standing successful career in the science field. Somehow, I knew
that he had to let his hair down and escape from his locked in situation.
In group therapy sessions, I would play country music just for him, while
the other group members deeply experienced their primordial emotional pain.
His dancing created a transformative and cathartic experience that he couldn't
feel in any other way.
Now, mind you, this man had no real dancing experience and he wasn't
trying to be cool. Something lit up inside of him and he danced to the
music. Thus, a cure was initiated.
Question: Where does this go from there?
Answer: In my
program, we would have monthly extended marathon deep feeling sessions. At
the end of the sessions, the participants spontaneously would come together
and dance. The various combinations and techniques/approaches created what
could only be called Peak Experiences that changed lives. These were not just a momentary uplifting experiences, they were
life-changing, cathartic and riddled with insight and wisdom.
One of my facilitators considered himself to be not very good at
dancing. Thus, entered the self-conscious critical mind. There was a female
in the group who experienced the same connection. The only way that they
could lose their self-consciousness and get up and dance was to become
silly and imitate a retarded dance. It was a breakthrough. They got past
the critical mind and ascended into the real self. Thus, was born the Silly
Dance. I now initiate it in my workshops.
Every body has music inside of them somewhere. There is also a
hidden dancer. On the surface, society seems to reward the smooth operator/cool
dancer. That's okay for those of us who can be cool. But for the uncool, they also need to participate in the healing
ritual of dance. So, I initiated the Uncool
Dance, the Ecstasy Dance, the Self Esteem Dance, the Love Dance and many
other dances. Each one of these innovations has a particular growth and
therapeutic value when used in the right context with a specific intention.
If you dance just to be silly, you can break out of depression and other
debilitating disorders. If you dance with the intention of raising
self-esteem, you can overcome specific personality disorders. If you do the
love dance, you could be expressing love to yourself and to your partner, that you couldn't do in any other way. The
dance is a powerful therapeutic ritual and it goes just beyond celebration,
party time, aerobics and other uses.
Question: What would you recommend for me?
Answer: Just
looking at you and sensing what you need to change, I would recommend that
when you get up in the morning, before you get out of bed, turn on some
very powerful dance music, take off all of your clothes and dance naked, in
the most ridiculous and mind altering way that you can conceive. Do this,
while you are approaching the sink and the mirror. If this doesn't put a
spark in your step, I don't know what will. I do guarantee that it will
help you overcome your inhibitions, fears, shyness and avoidance. Passive
dependence could give way to assertive lightheartedness.
Question: How can I put a little spark in my love
life?
Answer: You could
ask your partner to do a sexy love dance right in front of you. If this
doesn't turn you on, call an embalmer. I also recommend that men should
also do a sexy love dance for their female partners. They will love you
much more for that very pleasant and sensual gift.
Question: What about the use of humor?
Answer: That's
for a future seminar!
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