Move your body, treat your soul

Dance can be a scary word. People say they can't dance because they have no coordination, "two left feet", or have physical limitations. Dance is often something people only do when they are not being serious, when they are intoxicated, when they don't mind making a fool of themselves.

Many people think of dance as a performance art. It is for skinny females who can do the splits, balance on one toe and/or spin multiple times. Dance is something that should be practiced behind closed doors for hours every week over years before daring to share with the wider world.

But dance is more than something other people watch and judge. It is a nonverbal expression of thoughts and emotions, hopes and fears. Unravelling when movement becomes dance is a whole thesis in itself but for the purposes of this post, all movement counts; all movement is meaningful enough to be labelled 'dance'. Therefore, we all dance every day, we process emotions and let them out using movement.

Here are some examples:

• When you hear exciting news - maybe your shoulders go up and your hands spread out or you might raise your arms or reach out. If you are sitting you might stand, if you are standing you might actually jump off the ground.

• When you have had a really bad day your focus is likely cast down - drop of chin, slump of shoulders. You might move slowly as the energy has drained from your muscles.

• Anger can raise the energy levels. You might move faster and with more purpose, your fists might clench, your temperature might raise and you might find yourself turning away from the cause of the rage.

  
  

It all boils down to the nervous system. Information causes your brain to send messages to your body and while the cognitive - or conscious mind tries to process the information rationally, the nervous system is trying to process the emotion caused by the information.

When you hold an emotion back from its natural expression it gets stuck in the nervous system until it is safe to be released e.g. when you disagree with your boss, but you know that shouting "you're an idiot" right then won't help the situation so you wait until you are in the car. That might work for the occasional issue but if there is fundamental disagreement, eventually you will need to find a safe way of telling your boss how you feel and discuss a solution.

When you continually suppress emotions and don't let them out, they cause a glitch, a blockage, a loss of capacity somewhere in the body/psyche. This will either lead to numbness or some kind of explosion. In the work disagreement example, this path will lead to burn-out which could feel like drowning in the emotions, unable to get the energy to care or even turn up to work or a volcanic eruption in your rational mind as the emotions take over and spill out in any way they can find.

In dance and movement therapy, we try to unlock those blockages and release the emotions safely so we can reconnect our rational mind and communicate effectively. We unpack why certain things make us angry, sad, fearful, happy and safe and work out how to manage the unpleasant sensations from the inside out. Dance and movement therapy creates a space to practice taking control over our reactions, walk in someone else's shoes and make meaning from the conflicting thoughts.

• There is no 'right' way to move.

• There is no judgement on a person's physical capacity.

• How the dancer feels is more important than what the dance looks like.

• The dance is for the dancer.