SERIOUSLY SPEAKING - BEING REAL

Nothing illustrates being real - living life with worn off feathers and worn down edges - as beautifully as the story of The Velveteen Rabbit, first published in 1922. read the story 

For those of you who might have forgotten, here's the story:

A stuffed rabbit sewn from velveteen is given as a present to a small boy and the becomes the boy's favourite toy.  

Time passes, and the rabbit becomes shabbier, but happy.

One day, the boy becomes sick with scarlet fever, and the rabbit sits with him as he recovers. Afterwards, the doctor orders that his room should be disinfected, and all his toys burnt - including the velveteen rabbit.

The rabbit is left out in the garden overnight, where he sadly reflects on his life with his boy. The toy rabbit cries and a real tear drops onto the ground, and a marvellous flower appears.

A fairy steps out of the flower and comforts the velveteen rabbit, introducing herself as the nursery magic fairy. She says that because he is old and shabby and Real, she will take him away with her and "turn [him] into Real" - to everyone.

The fairy takes the rabbit to the forest, where she meets the other rabbits and gives the velveteen rabbit a kiss. The velveteen rabbit changes into a real rabbit, and joins the other rabbits in the forest.

For us, the moral of the story is that we each need to be our own magic fairy and recognize and appreciate the beauty we bring to the world even when we are missing a few feathers!

DANCE WITH IT!   EXPERIENTIAL APPS           

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HOW DO WE TAP INTO OUR INNER BEAUTY?

MAKE A LIST OF THE ATTRIBUTES YOU APPRECIATE ABOUT YOURSELF.

These might include:

          Your sense of humor and ability to laugh

          Your compassion for other humans

          Your love of other animals

          Your street smarts

          Your love of learning

          Your ability to keep learning and evolving

Now write these down on a big post-it note

NEXT FIND SOME THINGS ABOUT YOUR APPEARANCE YOU LIKE.

These might include:

          Your sparkly eyes

          A good smile

          Teeth…

You get it, right?

Now write these down on another post-it

POST THESE NOTES ON YOUR BATHROOM MIRROR AND READ THEM EACH TIME YOU FACE THAT MIRROR!  YOU MIGHT WANT GIVE YOURSELF A SMILE AND A WINK AS YOU DO THIS…

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ARE YOU MISSING FEATHERS?

"Whoa!"  she shook her head, as she let out a big sigh…

"What a week - well maybe a year!  I've lost at least a few feathers from my wings…"

Beautiful metaphor, right?  As we go through life we do, of course, lose some of our feathers…

The challenge is continuing to fly no matter what!

What do ya say?

How do you navigate with those missing pieces?

And  check out our down-loadable relaxation mini-meditations at 

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SERIOUSLY SPEAKING - BE WHERE?

'Be here now' the mantra of the 1960's might have sounded mystical back in those hallucinogenic days…

However, if you think about it in the face of today's logic, here and in this exact moment, is the only place we can actually BE.

When we begin projecting into the future or re-constructing the past, we create an emotional traffic jam by pushing our 'vehicles' where they can not possibly be!

  

DANCE WITH IT!   EXPERIENTIAL APPS           

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HOW DO YOU STAY IN THE MOMENT?

USE YOUR SENSES!

We have at least 5 recognized senses that are valuable tools for helping us stay oriented in time.  Here's how:

When you start getting ahead of yourself (worrying about the future) or behind yourself (lost in the past), tune into your:

SIGHT ~ Take in the visuals - look around you.  Catalog what you see.

HEARING ~ Listen to the sounds - it's a wonderful way to come back to the reality of the moment!

TOUCH ~ Reach out and touch, feel the ground under your feel, the coldness on a glass of water, your fingers on the keyboard…

SMELL ~ Sniff!  What do you tune into? 

TASTE ~ Can you taste the air?  The inside of your mouth?  Certainly whatever you put into it!

And we can add to these our KINESTHETIC sense ~ tune into movement! 

Feel yourself walk, experience how your body moves through space.

And finally ~ tune into your breathing! 

And to help you stay in the moment: 

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WHAT IF…

What if you were able to look at your life with out judgment and say... 

"Hmmm maybe this is an okay place to be… Maybe I am exactly where I am supposed to be at this moment."

That last part is crucial!  Accepting the moment does not mean staying there.

Actually, the more we accept where we are right now, the easier it is to make changes…

What do ya say?

Can you make sense of this one?

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The Human Dance "Beat the Bully!" Episode VIII

And  check out our mini-meditations at  

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SERIOUSLY SPEAKING - DREAMWORK 102

Ever wonder about your dreams?  If you are like most of us, your thoughts about dreaming have run the gamut from dismissive to intrigued. 

There are many ways of interpreting dreams from the religious and mystic (think Joseph in the Bible read more)  to the societal (the dream catchers of the Native Americans are a wonderful example of this).more

One useful approach is to assume that dreams are about 'unfinished business' - anything from a tidbit of information that lodged in your mind and needs sorting out, to focusing and perhaps finding a solution to an on going problem. 

Sometimes they might give us the opportunity to re-meet demons from our past and finally put them to rest!  By focusing on the content of our dreams we have the possibility to learn more about ourselves and perhaps heal old wounds!

DANCE WITH IT!   EXPERIENTIAL APPS           

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THE MAGIC OF WORKING WITH DREAMS . . .

Don't judge - jot!

The easiest method of working with dreams is to keep some writing equipment near your bed and jot down what ever you wake up with.

Now ask yourself the following:

What is the 'top- note'?   This is the obvious story of the dream.

What is the contextual feel of your dream?  Color?  Movement? Sound? 

Now for the fun part!  Since you wrote the 'script' - it's your dream, right -  you actually created each character, landmark and scene in the dream.

Our unconscious minds talk to us in images and metaphors and it can actually be fun to puzzle them out!

An easy way to do this is to 'own' everything in your dream.

Let's say you dream about an elephant walking down Broadway and singing to passersby…

To 'own' this dream you would: 

*Be the elephant and describe yourself as this singing  elephant. 

"I am a big grey elephant and I feel ____ and I like_____ and today I'm ____. 

You get the idea!

*Now be Broadway.  Yes, you can be in inanimate objects in your dreams - there's a reason you put them there.

*So you might say:  "I'm Broadway and I'm really famous and very busy…"

Now let the elephant and Broadway talk to each other. 

Have some fun with this! 

What do each of the pieces of your dream tell you about this moment in your life?

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DREAM, DREAM, DREAM…

"Drea-ea-ea-ea-eam, dream, dream, dream

… all I have to do is
Drea-ea-ea-ea-eam, dream, dream, dream"~ The Everly Brothers   listen 

Ever hear this one?

"Dreams?  Who me?  I don't dream…"

And how about this?

"Whoa!  Last night's dream was soooo scary!"

Technicolor?

Black and white?

Full stories?

Snippets?

What are these messengers that sometimes visit us in the night?

What do ya say?

Ever investigate yours?

Tune in tomorrow to find out how!

SERIOUSLY SPEAKING - DO YOU NEED THAT OLD STORY?

How do these narratives about who we are get created?  Think about some of the "In our family we…" statements you might have grown up hearing.  And particularly the "you were always the one who…" proclamations.

Parents and other family members often unknowingly help create their children's future identity with these descriptive declarations.

Why do we buy into these descriptions of who we are?

Why not?  These are the 'big guys' telling us how it is!

But even more importantly, think about the sponge-like mind of young children.  

Picking up information is an important survival mechanism for the young of our species and we are not always able to differentiate between what is objective reality and what are the opinions of others. 

DANCE WITH IT!   EXPERIENTIAL APPS           

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CHANGING OUR STORIES

Answer the following questions as part of your 'personal identity' research:

Fill in the blanks using descriptive adjectives, nouns and verbs: 

          I am _________

          I always __________

          I never __________

          I can't ___________

          I have to __________

How much of this were you told and who told you?

If you had 100% choice which of these attributes would you change?

NOW IMAGINE THAT YOU CAN MAKE THOSE CHANGES…HOW DOES IT FEEL?

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THAT'S YOUR NARRATIVE TALKING…

"It's always my fault…"
"It's my job to fix everything..."

"I did something wrong…"

"No one likes me…"

"Being alone is the worst possible thing…"

"I'm not popular…"

What do all of these statements have in common?

They are all rigid, distorted and sadly ingrained beliefs that come from a person's 'narrative' - the story or account of events and experiences of their lives that they were either told or otherwise incorporated during that treacherous period of life we call 'growing up'!

What do ya say?

What's the narrative you are stuck on?

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The Human Dance "Beat the Bully!" Episode VIII

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SERIOUSLY SPEAKING - SO DO IT AGAIN!

Here's one of my favorite 'don't give up' stories...

The manager of the Grand Ole Opry talking to Elvis Presley:

"You ain't goin' nowhere son.  You ought to go back to drivin' a truck."

Okaaay…

The list of famous people who failed and kept on going is legendary! 

Did you know it includes Henry Ford, R.H.Macy, Walt Disney, Orville and Wilbur Wright, Jerry Seinfeld, Fred Astaire…  more 

Whoa!  Imagine what would have happened if they all quit…

DANCE WITH IT!   EXPERIENTIAL APPS           

An opportunity to experiment with some fun

ideas...

WHAT ALLOWS US TO KEEP ON TRYING?

Engage your Inner Ally!  

This is the voice that represents the iconic 'perfect parent' that we all wished we had!

It is the part of us that:

          Believes in us

          Always supports our efforts

          Points the way

          Does not attack us

          Listens to our complaints and helps us laugh anyway…

As an experiment create an image of your Inner Ally ~

Make a drawing and put it somewhere you see each day.

You don't need to be a great artist - It's just a 'mind prompt'.

As a matter of fact you can even use a photo of a favorite pet!

Give it a voice.

Can you hear its tone?

Does it sing to you?

Give it a code word or phrase that you hear every time you see the image.

It might be something like:

          "Yes you can!"

          "I'm with you!"

          "Hang in there!"

You can even write out these words and stick them in good reminder places.

Now every time you feel down or stressed or hopeless let your Inner Ally smile at you and lend a hand!

What happens as you do this?

CLICK BELOW FOR ANOTHER CHANCE TO LEARN MORE ABOUT YOUR INNER ALLY

The Human Dance "Beat the Bully!" Episode VIII