Dance like YOU'RE not watching!

The Joyful Creative

Hi there. It's Deborah O'Toole artist here. Now, if you're in the Brisbane area, you might be interested to know that I'll be offering two sessions of my mindful creativity workshop on the 14th of September. Over the course of three relaxing hours. You'll enter a state of creative flow while experimenting with simple, repetitive techniques, such as doodling, inking, and metallic embellishment. The focus of the session is on enjoying the soothing processes, which calm the central nervous system and clear the mind.

The artistic outcome is not as important, although you'll be so happily surprised how beautifully creative you are when you just allow yourself to play. The cost is $120 per person, which includes all materials, a bag of take-home goodies, including our own frame to mini masterpiece. And I'll bring a freshly baked gluten-free cake for morning or afternoon tea.

Spaces are limited so book now at the link in the show notes or go to DeborahO'Toole artist.com/workshops. I look forward to seeing you there.

Hello everyone welcome back to another episode of the joyful creative.

This week, it seems that the universe wants to send me a message about dancing, through experiences, conversations, things I've read and on social media. Does anybody else have that experience where just the same sort of thing keeps showing up and it makes you sort of think about it? Well, that's definitely happened for me this week and it culminated in an experience yesterday that made me really think about how our inhibitions and the judgments we place on ourselves rob us of joyful life experiences.

So I'm studying to become a holistic creative arts practitioner. It's along the lines of art therapy, but on a practitioner level, which means I would work with people in a practical setting like my workshops to enhance physical and mental health through creative activities rather than actual art therapy which has done in a clinical setting. And every week we've been practicing a different modality. So yesterday's class was what they call emotional meditative movement. Yeah, they don't call it dance because it scares people. So anyway, the session went that all the students were together in a room in an old hall with the curtains closed and no atmosphere other than that, And they play a music track that goes through a series of beats different beats and vibes. . And there are spoken prompts dotted throughout to guide the meditation and potentially your movement during that segment.

And I was dreading this. Even though I'm a performer by profession and I still dance most times I'm on stage, and I studied dance as a kid through my whole childhood so I'm quite coordinated and I'm comfortable with moving my body. And I actually love dancing if the mood and the music is right. But despite all of this, I couldn't help feeling deeply self-conscious at the thought of this session.

Now. I've done many gigs where there is always that one person, and this happens mainly at festivals and public places. There's usually a, yeah, that one person, usually a pretty eccentric looking older man or woman who comes in front of the stage and just dances. With total abandonment, freedom and joy, no sense of self-consciousness or embarrassment. They're just living their best life, dancing to our music in their own unique way. Now we on stage, the musicians we usually make eye contact in a kind of bemused way and go, oh, there's the dance and man again. It's like our little in joke, because there's always that weird one in every gig.

But as I was getting into the movement activity in class yesterday, I started channeling the dancing man. And I realized how judgemental I am to people who seem a bit weird and who don't seem to care that they look different and are happy to stand out from the crowd and just do what comes naturally with their body as a response to hearing music. Maybe I'm judgmental that they clearly don't have any training, and they look a bit silly in my opinion.

But then all of that would be to say that unless you are good, as in professional level at any creative act, that you really shouldn't do it or show it in public… which is completely contradictory to what I'm all about here in this podcast. Like I truly do believe that people should practice creativity simply for the way it makes them feel during the process, and never hold themselves back because of whatever they perceive the standard is in comparison with professional creatives. Or even worse, what mean things other people might say about their work?

And. As that was in that room yesterday with my eyes closed my heart open. I'm swaying my body, spreading my arms overhead…I was wriggling my fingers like I was sprinkling fairy dust, feeling fully alive, free to take up space and fully immerse myself in the music. And I realized that the dancing man had it right all along! I was the one with my rigid ideas of what should be shown in public and with my judgments of what's good enough. I'm the one who had the lessons to learn. And it became pretty clear that I hold some pretty nasty judgment against myself. And look, yes, I do put myself out there a lot with my creative offerings. But it's all very quality controlled, if I'm honest . And I do tend to dismiss ideas sometimes because I don't think I'll perform them at a high enough standard. And I just thought to myself, maybe I need to just drop the overthinking and judgment and I might even enjoy my life a little more. After all joy is the goal, Right? I keep saying that it's all about joy and being a joyful creative, and having joy, doing whatever it is in life.

So who would have thought I'd have such an epiphany dancing around a dark hall with my eyes closed? If you're listening to this podcast, you probably already have a creative passion or interest. And if any self judgment about your standard is holding you back, or there's a different medium you're curious about, but you feel silly or hesitant to have a go, I encourage you to channel the dancing man.

There's a quote that says “Dance like no one's watching”. But I say dance like YOU’RE not watching. Or not your judgmental ego self anyway. When self-consciousness threatens to stop you from participating in any way, just think of all the opportunities for joy, for love and fun you might have missed in the past because of it. When you do this, just sort of put into perspective how your inner mean girl or guy robs you of joy in her quest to save you from potential embarrassment. Well, you can go and tell that mean go to go sit quietly at the bar. While you go hang out with the weirdo dancing man.

And I know that this is probably not groundbreaking information but maybe if you're listening to this now there is a reason, and maybe it is a thing that you need to hear. So on that note, my friends go forth. Be creative, be weird. Do what you feel in your heart to do. Because life's too short not to.

Okay, well, that's the end of this short little episode. I hope that you enjoyed it. Be sure to pass this on to anybody else who might need a little bit of a prompt in this direction. And if you did enjoy it, I would love you to leave review. So until next time, keep creative, my friends and bye for now.

I hope you enjoyed this episode of The Joyful Creative. If you did, be sure to subscribe so you catch them every week. And if you can, please take a moment to leave a review or share it with a friend so the podcast can reach more people who need support and inspiration. Thanks for listening and keep creative.

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