Using Belly Dance to Heal Deepest Emotional Wounds – Part 1

Using Belly Dance to Heal Our Deepest “Emotional Core” Wounds – Part 1

This post is not for everyone.

Really.

This is for “mature audiences only” – reader discretion advised.

(The following post shares personal experiences, and is not medical advice. If you are at all in doubt before you begin – should you choose to do something similar to what I’ve done – consider asking for guidance from a licensed medical or therapeutic professional. And perhaps have a trained counselor with you as you do this particular form of “inner journey.”)

What Is a “Core Wound”?

A core wound is the psychological impact from an experience (or set of experiences) that we have when we are young, or are otherwise exceptionally vulnerable. This (these) experience(s) occur when we are still shaping our basic worldview; our concept of whether or not the world is a “friendly place.”

Core wounds most commonly come from experiences with our immediate family. In particular, they come about with those whom we identify as essential to our survival.

To the best of my knowledge, all of us carry with us some sorts of core wound. We often have them no matter how much we do psychotherapy, seek “spiritual enlightenment,” or just plain “work on our stuff.”

How Can We Determine What – In Ourselves – Is Our Own Core Wound?

Mother Henna writes about her experience of seeing her "pain body" as separate from her "light body." — Mother Henna writes about her experience of seeing her “pain body” as separate from her “light body.”

Core wounds feel like psychological “hurt.” In fact, they “hurt” a lot. So as a result, we try to bundle them up and isolate them away from our conscious awareness.

Core wounds never really go away on their own. They stay inside us, with tremendous power – mostly because we try to contain and control them.

How Do We Detect Our Core Wounds, and Know What They Are?

Often, our core wound show up as “blurts.” These can be phrases that we say to ourselves. Sometimes, they even slip into our conversations! Or, we show ourselves (and others around us) a core wound by voicing strong opinions about how a person (or certain group of persons) always does something that is “bad.”

Core wounds feel intensely private. We rarely – if ever – discuss them with others. Often, if we do psychotherapy or have a life coach or a spiritual counselor, we may work for months before we tentatively allow our core wound area to be broached. This is because, of all the parts of our inner world, our core wound feels most sensitive, most vulnerable, most “ouchie”!

And yet, if we do allow a core wound area to “come into the open,” we may be surprised to learn that our coach, counselor, or therapist really knew about it all along. (And so, for that matter, did our relationship partners, and possibly our boss, co-workers, family, and friends.) This is because our core wounds affect us so much that we “give them away” all the time!

Who Else Talks About Core Wounds?

Eckhart Tolle writes about core wounds in The Power of Now. He calls them our pain-body.

Paper

Kindle

Core wounds never really go away on their own. They stay inside us, with tremendous power – mostly because we try to contain and control them.

Often, our core wound show up as “blurts.” These can be phrases that we say to ourselves. Sometimes, they even slip into our conversations! Or, we show ourselves (and others around us) our core wound by voicing strong opinions about how a person (or certain group of persons) always does something that is “bad.”

Using Oriental Dance (Belly Dance) to Heal

We can have breakthroughs, and often do. But still, these are the “core.” They go right down to how we believe that the world works – in our favor, or not. Dangerous, or safe and friendly.

When we dance, we sidestep the cognitive side of who we are. When we let our bodies simply move, and express how we feel, we can access – and begin to heal – our core wounds.

I’m not talking here about technique practice, or learning a tight little choreography. There is nothing wrong with either technique or choreography. But at some point, we need to go beyond – to what dance really is, and what it can do for us – if we start releasing ourselves to the flow of energy and feeling that we can experience as we dance.

Z Helene Christopher – in her excellent paper on Middle Eastern Dance: The Emergence of the New Sacred Temple Priestess – provides four key points that will help all of us (including myself) use Oriental dance (belly dance) to heal our core wounds. According to Z Helene:

There are four main points in which we, as new temple priestesses, reclaim and reconnect with the ancient Goddess.

We must understand our dance as embodying nature, especially its fertility aspects… Our dance exudes fertility. We move our pelvises and roll our bellies, honoring the sexual act and the resulting procreation…

We reclaim and reconnect with the ancients by understanding our dance as manifesting ecstasy… Our movement invokes the ecstatic kundalini…

We reclaim and reconnect with the ancients by understanding our dance as an experience of Divine Union…

We reclaim and reconnect with the Goddess by understanding ourselves as dispensers of karuna; early motherly love … transformed … to embrace all forms of love: touching, tenderness, compassion, mercy, sensual enjoyment and eroticism.

Alay'nya - author of "Unveiling: The Inner Journey" — Alay’nya – author of Unveiling: The Inner Journey

Very best wishes as you tap into who you really are using dance!

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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From Z Helene’s Amazon review of “Unveiling: The Inner Journey”: “Unveiling is about becoming more intimate with ourselves. It is about peeling away the outer layers that keep us from knowing, naming, and attaining our deep wants and desires. By embarking upon a transforming inner spiritual journey, we are encouraged to get connected to ourselves in a way that allows us to genuinely feel our bodies and emotions– all of them, even the undesirable ones. By integrating and loving our “shadow” sides, and by doing daily practices such as stillness, softening, releasing, shifting state, and breathing, we increase our vital energy (prana, ch’i) which makes us more attractive and, yes, more erotic as well. For true attractiveness, according to Alay’nya, is the ability of women to lessen their adopted masculine roles of control and being in charge (Amazon archetype), and instead to surrender to pure energy, motion, and love. This is what makes us beautiful!”

Z Helene Christopher – Dancer and Herstorian, High Priestess and Teacher. Photo courtesy Rick Fink.

P.S. – Have you read Z Helene’s article on Middle Eastern Dance: The Emergence of the New Sacred Temple Priestess? I recommend it to all my dancers!

Z Helene also has a 4-volume basic Middle Eastern dance (belly dance) instructional DVD set, and another DVD on zills, available through her website. Check them out!

Stretching Our Arms Upwards – How This Impacts Our Dance and Our Bodies

Stretching Our Arms Upwards – Surprising Health Benefits (Along with a Beautiful Dancer’s Pose!)

For the longest time, I’ve had this “gut feeling” that Oriental dance (belly dance) was for women the corollary to what the martial arts have traditionally been for men – a pathway for body/mind/psyche/energy integration. And just as T’ai Ch’i Chuan (“Grand Ultimate Fist”) is the premiere “internal” martial art, there is an analogue within Oriental dance.

One of the most important things about an “internal” art is that instead of superimposing the movements on ourselves, we generate them from inside. That means (despite the practice and study involved) that essentially the movements sort of “do themselves.” Minimal effort.

Of course, it takes years of practice so that we can do any moves with “minimal effort.” That, in fact, is one of the characteristics of a real master. But that’s also a subject for a different day.

Today’s subject is one that I’ve never heard addressed – in either martial arts or dance circles. (Doesn’t mean that someone hasn’t discussed this, just that I haven’t come across the discussion yet.)

The particular topic is: What happens when we raise our arms over our heads? What’s the psychological significance, or emotional meaning of this gesture? And how does it fit in with a “minimal effort” approach?

By way of comparison, when we do the opening moves in T’ai Ch’i, we drop our weight and let our arms rise up. This is natural and gentle. But our arms only raise up to about waist-level. So what goes on when we raise our arms over our heads? This is more than “minimal effort”!

Let’s look at the emotional language first. In the classic “belly dance pose,” the dancer has her arms raised over her head, wrists crossed, and palms flat against each other. This is, without question, one of most sensual poses in the dance. And it makes the dancer look gorgeous!

At an emotional-meaning level, though, what does this pose say? Is it just suggesting a little B&D? (For those who’ve been reading Fifty Shades, that might in itself prove exciting.) But really, when do we ever – in our normal lives – raise our arms over our heads?

Often, this is a moment of exultation. Think of the pose with the arms open and hands outstretched to the skies. It’s a “calling down the forces of nature” type of pose; a classic “strength” pose. It’s also a “hallelujah” pose – a moment of ecstasy.

This is a pose that is very exposed and vulnerable. Opening up our armpits and the tender flesh on the inside of our upper arms is not something we’d do if we were feeling threatened or insecure. Much as a cat or dog only rolls on its back and splays its paws (note the paw-splaying, this is more than just rolling on the back as a submissive gesture), this is only something done when the animal feels relaxed and safe, and actually rather joyful and happy.

When we dance, we connect with the Divine. This is a significant “connect with the Divine” gesture, and thus, we use it carefully and sparingly in our choreographies. This is the kind of move that we’d work towards in our dance, as a climax for a certain section of music.

How does this impact our bodies, though? This is really an important question, because when we are very “connected” during our dance – and our energy is really moving – then our audiences desire to experience what we’re experiencing; they want to map themselves onto us. So what we do in our bodies affects not only us, but our audience as well.

Many of us already know that certain leg stretches help stretch out the meridians in our legs, and are restful – this is why these “leg stretch” poses are good yoga moves to relax us before bed.

The “arms overhead” similarly stretches the meridians that go from the tips of our fingers to the core of our bodies, particularly those that go through our underarms.

From a description on the Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) approach to understanding energy (ch’i) meridians:

The Small Intestine Meridian begins on the pinky, moves to the underside of the arm, up to the top of the shoulder blade, the neck, and ends on the front of the ear.

The Triple Heater Meridian begins on the ring finger, moves up the back of the arm to the side of the neck, goes around the ear and ends of the eyebrow.

Raw Foods, Real People, and Cold Weather

Dear Ones —

I made a mistake last night — ate homemade beef stroganoff w/ noodles for dinner. It tasted great, was filling on a cool autumn evening, and was SO not right for my body! Not that I felt “wrong” this morning — just — not so “right.” There is a feeling that we get when we eat the right foods, at the right time — we feel “lighter and brighter.” And this wasn’t it.

So I promised myself that today would be — at least mostly — a “raw foods” day.

Perhaps I’m inspired by finding the Raw Divas’s website last night. That was a nice treat! A whole lot of advertising and promo-blather, but their hearts are in the right place, and if you read and click far enough / long enough, you do come across some useful (free!) information.

And before going further — a brief pitch for my fave raw-food read; Raw Food, Real World. Co-authors and raw foods restauranteers Matthew Kenney and Sarma Melngailis both motivate and inspire with their youthful and bouyant energy, and delightful recipes. (A word of warning: Their suggestions are rarely for those short on time, and some of the most interesting options require both a dehydrator and substantial advance preps. Barring that, the pictures and recipes are inspiring and might get some of us “over the hump” of having to devote extra time.)

As a sidebar, now that people are getting much smarter about intermet marketing “methods,” it becomes progressively difficult to wade through sites that are mostly promo-pages, with a whole lot of fluff, and very little behind them. MOST of what you would desire to find can be obtained from your local library, for MUCH cheaper than the various e-books, e-zines, and other items hawked on the net.

For example, I recommend going to the library first for your raw-food reads. Take home a bunch of books, load up on the most attractive and vibrant fruits, greens, and veggies you can get from either a farmer’s market or your most trusted food store, and find out what you REALLY do over the next week or so. A week or two in the “real world” of your own kitchen will let you connect ambition with reality. Then, and ONLY then, decide on what books you REALLY need for your long-term private libary, and what internet thing you REALLY must download, at the cost of pulling out your credit card.

That little diatrabe aside, back to raw foods — something that we dancers all need, because they deliver high-quality energy, especially if done right.

I’ll admit to being motivated — at least in part — by reading about fashion designer Donna Karan’s experience Donna Karan’s experience with a raw-foods diet. She both lost weight AND improved her energy level! Donna was mentored in her new approach by Jill Pettijohn, live-foods advocate and chef.

But, as the Karan article notes, not all of us can afford live-in chefs.

In the “real world” in which many of us live, we have two challenges when it comes to increasing the raw/live ratio of foods:

Finding the time in the first place — the big challenge for all of us, and I’ll address it in a minute, and
Now that it’s cold, the LAST thing we want are a bunch of cold, raw veggies. Most of the time, we can scarcely get excited about them in the summer — but who wants cold and raw when that’s exactly what we face when we go outdoors?

The time challenge first — because that is often the biggest stickler in our lives, and with holidays coming up, the last thing we need to do is to make our lives more complicated.

I have found, through sad experience, that going to the farmer’s market is an uplifting and inspiring event — so inspiring that I will often come home with MUCH more than I can use in the reasonable future. What is worse, I too often have not “connected the dots.” Between the joyous and exuberant sensory stimulus of all these wonderful fresh market things and the actual act of eating these lovely items, there is some necessary preparation. And left to my own devices, such preparation gets postponed indefinately … until I wind up chucking those once-lovely veggies that have gone well past their “use-by” date.

There are three steps that I’ve found that help me get on track, and stay on track, with the veggie-intensive approach to living. Because they work well for me, they might also work for you!

(1) Have something of an action plan before going to the food store / farmer’s market. I’m not saying that you need to be rigid — but put things together in your mind before you shop. For example, if you’ve checked the weather, and know it will be cold, windy, and rainy, you know that you will want something warm. Something that will SMELL good when you come into the house. Think about how you want to nourish yourself emotionally and sensually as well as physically.

Think also about your time-plan for the week ahead. Will you be coming home tired and late, and just want to eat and relax? Then you know you need at least one crockpot meal. Will you have an evening where you’ll come home, have a half hour or so, leave for an hour and a half, and then come back for dinner? Then think about something that can do a slow-bake in the back of the oven.

As you form up your major strategies, think through how you’re going to use your leftovers — what you want to make in extra quantities so that you have plenty for lunch or dinner later in the week. Now — the “raw” part: Around these time constraints, factor in where and how you’ll add in the “raw foods” (or those given a bare-minimal saute). Sometimes this will happen, sometimes not.

Add this to your knowledge of what is seasonal, what feels good to you right now, make a mental list and/or jot down a few notes. If you’re thinking about shopping at a Saturday morning farmer’s market, take time Thursday or Friday evening to look through your recipe books to see what inspires you. Make note of any special ingredients, and try to pick them up on the way home from work — so that you don’t expend valuable weekend time on extra shopping.

Next — and this is a big one — plan on taking at least twice as much time for your “food shopping adventure” as usual. When you get home, and AS YOU UNPACK (except for getting the things that need to be cold into the fridge), prep your foods before you stash them.

For example: If you buy onions and mushrooms, with the intention of folding them into three or four different dishes over the week, cut up the onions right away, and start sauteing them in olive oil or butter. While they start to brown, cut up your mushrooms, throw them in. Then store your pre-cooked onion-mushroom mixture, not the “raw” raw ingredients. (Yes, I know this post is about raw foods. We draw the line at raw onions. Raw onions do not enhance intimacy later in the day.)

If you bring home a cauliflower, pull off the leaves, and cut out the core. If you know that you want cauliflower “florets,” cut a bunch of them NOW, while the thing is in front of you.

This takes time. The benefit is that you increase your likelihood of actually using and eating these wonderful foods!

Third point — all on the “time-challenge” end of things. In some areas, you’ll be better off buying things that are at least semi-pre-prepped. For example, you might buy a package of cut-up butternut squash pieces. Saving yourself fifteen minutes is worth the extra expense. You be the judge.

Now, on to the REAL challenge. It’s winter. We want warm, rich foods. Not cold salads.

Step 1: We can tolerate a fair bit of raw if it is cut up small and covered in a nice, rich sauce. This is NOT a time for fat-free! (Such an idea is an insult to our system, especially in cold weather.) Remember that fats carry flavor, and fats carry fat-soluble (not water-soluble) nutrients. And we need both; the first nourishes our psyche, the latter our body.

So invest in good salad dressings, cut your veggies up small, and take both with you to the office, along with some easily-added protein — a can of fish, or a little left-over salmon, or some of those pre-cooked chicken pieces. Add guacamole or raw pine nuts for a little extra richness and flavor, and you have a totally acceptable year-round meal. Perhaps a little soup, maybe a few crackers or nuts, and you’re ok. Allow your raw-veggie salad to come to room temperature before eating; that will also help on a cold day.

Space your foods out during mid-day; a lot of our cravings come from system-crash when we push too long without nutrients.

Second, make it easy for yourself — spout some nuts (yes, get raw nuts, such as almonds, and let them sit in water overnight — then drain, and store in the fridge). Use these as a snack. Year-round, they give you not only the “raw,” but the “live” food experience. Add sprouts to your salads / sandwiches; another easy way to get “live.”

Sometimes we just need cooked foods — some foods might be too dense to be enjoyed raw; brussels sprouts come to mind. Also the heavier winter squashes, and the denser and darker greens.

Sometimes, a little saute is all that is needed. Sometimes, we must do more.

Right now, I’m learning how much I need to cook foods in order to bring out their flavor, and make them enjoyable as well as nutritious.

I’ll share my findings, and please — feel free to post a (useful) comment — especially, link us in to good books and recipes!

Tag: life-force