How Belly Dance Healed My Life – By Alay’nya
I’d just had some major accomplishments.
I should have been relaxed, happy, and proud.
Instead, I was confused and disoriented.
With a sinking sense, I realized – I didn’t know who I was!
My “Untold Story”
For years, I’d hidden behind a “masculine mindset.”
My newly-minted Ph.D., in one of the toughest subjects around (theoretical physical chemistry), had gotten me a new job with the research division of an international company. Getting this degree was a tribute to my ability to stay goal-focused, no matter what.
I was newly divorced. (How wonderful!) Newly out of a love affair. (How awful!)
But, with my emotional landscape clearing out, and with the challenge of using every minute for dissertation-writing no longer taking up my time, I realized: I didn’t know who I was.
Not Knowing Ourselves – Not Amnesia, But Close
No, of course I wasn’t having some sort of Jason Bourne-like amnesia.
Yes, of course I had a public “identity.” I had a driver’s license, credit cards, a steady job, and that all-important new degree hanging on my wall.
What I didn’t have, though, was a sense of who I was as a human being.
More importantly, I didn’t know myself as a woman.
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All That I Knew Was My “Cover Story”
Everything that I had – everything that defined “who I was” – was really part of a cover story.
Oh, yes. Everything was valid enough.
My Ph.D. was very real. So were my job, monthly car payments, and everything else that made up my “day-to-day life.”
What wasn’t real, though, was the story that I’d been telling myself – and everyone else (for years and years) – about who I really was.
The reason?
I simply didn’t know myself. So of course, my “story” could not be completely true.
My Early Schism
When I was twelve years old, I made an unconscious – but very real – life-decision.
Somehow, I internalized a very unsettling new belief.
I believed that it wasn’t safe – and certainly wasn’t happy – and very definitely was not advantageous – for me to inhabit my “feminine identity.”
Emotions and feelings? Dangerous. Very dangerous. Best not to go there.
Instead, I attempted to model myself on Mr. Spock, from the Star Trek TV series.
Of course, this didn’t work. Not at all. If anything, I became more socially awkward.
And I responded to these feelings of pain and awkwardness by withdrawing further into the one world where I knew I had supremacy – my intellect.
And so I studied very challenging, difficult subjects. And I did very well.
And at the end of this, I knew (or thought that I knew – a different story altogether) such arcane subjects as quantum mechanics, statistical thermodynamics, and neural network computing.
A Strategy That Didn’t Work, At All
The hours that I spent learning these subjects let me avoid learning about myself.
Of course, this “pour-myself-into-the-books” strategy didn’t work.
My taking up other male-identified pursuits, such as karate, didn’t help either.
Over time, I realized that I was living a “split identity.”
I was on the verge of a major life crisis.
Everything that I had done – up to this point – dealt with building up my “masculine aspect,” and divorcing myself from my own “inner feminine.”
The reason?
I still thought that being in my feminine mode simply wasn’t safe.
That belief was about to be shaken.
A Chance Discussion – A New Beginning
I tell the story of my turning point in my book, Unveiling: The Inner Journey.
“My chiropractor friend David said, “The most powerful woman that I know is a woman named Medea, and she teaches belly dance.” I was in her next class.
“Medea, a protégé of the internationally-known Cassandra, had begun teaching a more energy-based approach to dance. What I got out of even my first class with Medea carried me through many years and many other dance teachers, not all of whom understood teh energy aspects ofthis dance. Without her unique insights, I would have passed this off as a simply physical art. [p. 402]
Learning Oriental dance (belly dance) gave me a new physical path for body/mind integration. Over time (and this took a few years), I phased out my martial arts study (even the more gentle and fluid T’ai Ch’i Chuan), and focused exclusively on dance.
This wasn’t the entire answer, of course.
Belly Dance is for Women What a Martial Art is for Men
I had loved the intensity and focus of the martial arts. I loved that it was a true “body art” – requiring awareness of every aspect of stance, motion, space, timing, and even breathing and energy patterns.
However, the martial arts were the arts of Mars, the god of war. They were all essentially masculine.
The martial arts had always served as a pathway by which a young man comes to know himself and cultivate his masculinity. But by now, my “masculinity” was way over-cultivated. I needed to access my feminine core.
Logically, I reasoned (with my Mr. Spock hat fully on), there had to be a Venusian art, a quintessentially feminine art. This art form would do for women what the martial arts have traditionally done for men.
I’d found my Venusian art form in Oriental dance (belly dance).
However, something was still missing.
The Practicum
I’d discovered the “laboratory course,” or practicum.
I still needed the lecture course, or the theory.
I started on an earnest quest for something like a feminine path.
I’d read Dan Millman’s The Way of the Peaceful Warrior. In the classic tradition of the young hero being mentored by a sage martial artist, Daniel was tutored by the elusive and enigmatic Socrates. Socrates played the role of a Master Teacher; of an Obi-wan Kenobi or Yoda.
I wanted the same for myself – except in a feminine version!
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The Theory
I found the theory – or at least the starting point – in Toni Grant’s book, Being a Woman, which was based on a pamphlet written in 1956 by Antonia Wolff, then Carl Jung’s lover. This pamphlet, The Structural Forms of the Feminine Psyche, was the beginning – but certainly not the ending of my quest!
Read the rest of the story in Unveiling: The Inner Journey using Amazon’s Look Inside feature: read the Introduction.
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Completing My Quest
Pulling together these two aspects – the “theory” and the “practicum” – or the understanding of feminine psychology together with a means of embodying it through dance – has been my quest for over thirty years.
No quest – especially one of this magnitude – is ever “complete.” However, I pulled together all that I understood – up to that time – in my book, Unveiling: The Inner Journey.
This blog continues sharing the ongoing quest with you.
And of course, I practice and teach the time-honored art of Oriental dance – which has become the pathway for feminine unfolding for which I was seeking over thirty years ago!
Wishing you much joy in your own fulfillment!
Very best wishes as you use Oriental dance (belly dance) to bring youthful vitality, movement, and expressiveness into your life!
Yours in dance –
Alay’nya
Author of Unveiling: The Inner Journey
You are the Jewel in the Heart of the Lotus. Become the Jewel!
Founder and Artistic Director, The Alay’nya Studio
Bellydance a courtesan would envy!
Check out Alay’nya’s YouTube Channel
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P.S. “Water therapy” helps emotional healing through belly dance – see how Alay’nya uses belly dance in water to release neck, shoulder, and back tension, minimize carpal-tunnel-like stress in the wrists, and create beautiful snake arm movements!
P.P.S. Learning about an authentic women’s pathway was important in my own breakthroughs.
Valerie Frankel has written several books on this subject; I’ve discovered them since writing my own book.
Check out Valerie’s works:
- Did you grow up with Buffy? Is a sister, niece, or favorite student a Buffy fanatic? Help her learn how Buffy defines the Heroines’ Journey – and so much more! Read and give Buffy and the Heroine’s Journey: Vampire Slayer as Feminine Chosen One.
- Ever wished that there was a book like Campbell’s “The Man with a Thousand Faces” – written for you? Your own heroine’s archetypal journey! What do myths, legends, fairy tales, and folklore from around the world have to say about you and your own journey? Valerie Frankel’s From Girl to Goddess is applicable at all stages of our lives.
- Game of Thrones devotee? Valerie has other great books out. Check out Valerie’s Game of Thrones e-book on Amazon!
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Valerie Frankel, Author of From Girl to Goddess, on Unveiling: The Inner Journey
What does Valerie Frankel, author of books such as From Girl to Goddess and Buffy and the Heroine’s Journey: Vampire Slayer as Feminine Chosen One, have to say about Unveiling: The Inner Journey?
Ms. Frankel notes:
“Unveiling the Inner Journey is a delightful exploration of the mystical side of dance. Through exploration of archetypes, of tarot cards, of the heroine’s journey in myth and literature, Alay’nya shows the spiritual side of physicality.
“She approaches her topic with devotion but also practicality and a deep intuition of human relationships, explaining though personal experience as well as intense research how the archetypes work and how a woman can channel the lover, mother, amazon and mystic to be all she is meant to become. Teachings of Jung, Murdock, Starhawk, and more appear, from ancient myth to modern culture.
“This is not the hero’s journey but one specific to the woman, or rather, many women on many different stages of journeying.
“This book offers a pathway for transcendence through dance as well as in everyday life. All dancers, physical or spiritual, should get this book–it shows what dance is really about. As the author of one of the few books on the heroine’s journey, I heartily endorse this book–we need more like it!”
Read this and more reviews of Unveiling: The Inner Journey.
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Copyright (c) 2013, Alay’nya. All rights reserved.
