75. Dance like there’s no one watching | with Kate Inglis

Tankespjärn with Helena Roth

Hard to believe that me and Kate have had our fifth and final conversation [well. For this season of the pod, not forever. We will continue to have conversations, I guarantee it. But perhaps not as often. Perhaps not as long. And not recorded for a pod.]. And what a conversation we had!

“I don't want to be stone cold sober for the rest of my life, so I'm on a bit of an exploration, like Huey Lewis and the News, to find my new drug.” ~ Kate

We ventured into territory neither of us had on our radar, which is part of the magic and beauty of these meandering conversations. A testament to the wonder of allowing what want’s to happen to happen.

“What's going to be my altered state? How am I going to manage it so that I feel okay, how do I lose just enough control, just a little, so that I can play in that space of being more free than I feel in my brain?” ~ Kate

Oh, how this resonates with me! I’ve been harping on about the mental vice, which might not be the correct term for it, unless you watch me as I speak of it, taking a firm grip of the top of my head with both hands, holding tight, very tight. Like a band of metal keeping me/my brain tightly in check, under control, not able to venture out into the unknown…

“Music provides an alibi where I am allowed, by my brain, by that mental vice keeping me very tightly controlled, to let go. If there’s music, no problem, I'll dance and sing on the streets, on the bike and the bus, on the train. I'll go up on the dance floor without a care if there's nobody there, dancing and singing and loving it.

Theatre, acting, role-playing, that type of thing, all of a sudden, no alibi in place, so there my mental vice is very tightly screwed on.” ~ Helena

Except when there’s music around.

Music provides the alibi I need, to let loose, let go, relax, and dance like no one is watching, which my friend and one-time-coach Dave shared on Facebook just as I was getting ready to write this episode description:

“dance like there’s no one watching…”

Especially if ‘the watcher’ is you..

Yes. The watcher is me.

A part of me.

A part that is watching, and judging, other parts of me.

Sometimes, the watcher just laughs, and says carry on. Other times…

“If it was me and a partner and I wanted to do the sexy striptease dance? Holy fuck, no! Music would not be enough of an alibi there. It’s that audience aspect: here's the one person I do not want to think ‘She’s just dumb, ugly, silly. What the fuck is she doing? Does she really think that would turn me on?’.

Boom, self-consciousness hits me hard!” ~ Helena

My watcher has different quirks and pet-peeves compared to Kate’s, as we discovered throughout this conversation. But we share the experience, the feeling of not having the bandwidth, for one reason or another, of being generous in our self-consciousness.

“How generous people are when they are unselfconscious. When we're not focused on the self, that's when we're able to be generous. And that applies all the time.” ~ Kate

Such a rich conversation, filled with tankespjärn. For us, and also for you, precisely because we were able to be generous!