EP5 - Turning Up For You: An Ecstatic Dance of Self-Discovery and Joy

SEASON 2, EP 5 - Self Awareness: Turning Up For You

When was the last time you truly showed up for yourself—not for others, not out of obligation, but just for you? In this episode, we explore the transformative power of prioritizing your own needs and embracing self-awareness. I share a personal story of stepping out of my comfort zone during a life-affirming retreat, where the unexpected joy of an ’80s-themed ecstatic dance opened my eyes to the healing power of playfulness and self-expression.

 

In This Episode, We Cover:

• The concept of "turning up for you" and what it truly means to prioritize your own needs and well-being.

• A personal story of participating in a retreat focused on celebrating life and the body, and the unexpected challenges and lessons that emerged.

• The creation and facilitation of an '80s-themed ecstatic dance experience designed to be cheeky, playful, and joyous.

• The power of ecstatic dance as a tool for releasing inhibitions, fostering connection, and experiencing pure, unadulterated joy.

• The importance of finding alternative outlets for self-expression and emotional release, especially for those who struggle with traditional meditation practices.

 

If today’s episode resonated with you, take the next step and join The Toolkit – a free resource to help you deepen your self-discovery: https://courses.soulcarehealing.com.au/thetoolkit

 

Timestamps / Chapter Markers

00:31   Turning Up for You

01:16   Celebrating Being Alive

01:43   No Woo Woo

02:53   Challenging the Status Quo

03:08   Ecstatic Dance

04:17   Creating Liberation

05:24   I Forgot to Turn Up for Me

06:26   More Capable Than I Realized

07:29   Out of My Comfort Zone

08:27   Get Lost in the Music

10:34   A Real Bonding Experience

11:29   My Brain Doesn't Turn Off

11:55   Ecstatic Excitement for Living

 

Resources & Links:

• Soul Care Healing Website: http://soulcarehealing.com.au/

• Soul Care Healing Instagram: http://instagram.com/soulcarehealing_

• Soul Care Healing Facebook: http://facebook.com/soulcarehealing

• Email us at: [e-mail]

Visit our YouTube Channel & Subscribe @soulcarehealingaus 

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Episode Transcript

(00:13):
Hello. Hello, souls, and welcome back for another episode of our podcast. This whole podcast theme for this season is about recognizing what you need and how to give it to yourself at the time.
Sometimes we learn that lesson the hard way, which is what I want to share with you when I've learned it the hard way.
This episode is about turning up for you. What do I even mean by that? So recently I was really, really lucky to go on a retreat in Noosa, and if you're anywhere near Bendigo in July and August, it is freezing.

(00:49):
so to get the opportunity to go to Queensland, where it's beautiful and warm, is a fantastic escape.
A dear friend of mine runs a couple of retreats up in Noosa each year, and when I saw her release, the one that's coming up, I thought, I want to be a part of it.
So I reached out to her and I thought, hey, I've got an idea that I think would work really well

(01:10):
And I'm happy to offer it for your participants.
The theme of her retreat this time was celebrating being alive. So it had, personal training elements. It had yoga. It had,
you know, hiking. It had hot and cold experiences. It was about celebrating the body that you have and really enjoying it.

(01:32):
so once I was locked in as being a guest, contribute to I set about designing what I was going to offer the group and how would it work.
And with a theme,
my friend Mani had been very clear to say, Gail, we're not going to woo woo woo on this one. Mani and I worked together on another retreat, which was deeply. We were, and she made it very clear this is not that craft.

(01:59):
We're bringing people from my personal training school.
This is about high energy. We're not healing here. We're not doing the work which is celebrating our body and the ability that we're moving in. And we can. And I thought, that's cool. I got I got variety. I can offer you a couple of different options.
the other thing that I was asked to contribute to the week of festivities was some Reiki, which is a beautiful healing modality, an ancient Japanese practice that I use regularly in my, workplace and as my parenting as a tool

(02:31):
for self-healing, so for headaches and all sorts of other things.
Basically, it's a mentality of sending unconditional love through your hands in the energy that you hold in nuclear through to another person.
so I was committing to doing Reiki on the group members in the opening circle. And then I was to create another offering and I thought, what can I offer?

(02:53):
that still challenges the status quo
and might make people a little bit uncomfortable. I wanted it to be cheeky. I wanted it to be playful. I wanted it to be joyous.
So I thought, that's it. I'm going to do an ecstatic dance with this group.
An ecstatic dance is where you use music to activate, clear and celebrate the essence within you. So mostly the music will start at a certain tempo

(03:21):
and then it will rise and it'll become really energetic, almost like trance. And as you move in this music, you become engrained and lost into this euphoric experience. It's amazing.
but I recognize that this experience, well, it's my jam and I love dancing and I love getting lost in music. A lot of people are not very comfortable in their own body.

(03:43):
And sure don't want to dance in front of other people, especially strangers, while they sober with the lights on. And it was just like, hell no. So I thought, okay, how can I make this feel a little bit safe and create a level of fun that way, kind of wearing a mask? So I said to Mani, let's make it 80s theme, where we've got color and silly hairstyles and bright makeup and Legwarmers and Fleury fluoro fluoro.

(04:12):
And that way people are content not turning up as themselves. So when they have to get free and create this liberation, there's kind of a bit of a barrier. It's sort of like a bit of an armor, which will help people feel a little bit more relaxed.
And when we enter the room, everyone will look so bloody funny and dorky that we will all be lost in that laughter and it will help break down barriers.

(04:36):
It'll help shift the self-conscious vibe in the room, knowing that there's something coming.
So I recorded a video and we sent it out, and I put all this effort into creating the soundtrack and getting some costumes and some spare costumes for anyone who didn't get the memo. I went in and I was set to go. I felt so confident in what I was delivering.
Was not a worry. And so I got to the retreat and I had all my gear and I was sorted, and I did the Reiki and I had conversations.

(05:03):
And then it came to that, actually. Oh, that's right, I'm a guest. I have to do these workouts. That's right. I have to be up at 7 a.m. to do these bloody sunlight things.
And I'd gotten myself into such a pickle on turning up and delivering something for everybody else that I totally forgot that I was meant to be turning up for me.

(05:29):
That's right, I'm a guest, not just a contributor. And as I'd been writing my book and writing my course,
I had not been moving my body very often. So when I started doing push ups and sit ups,
my body started to scream. I'm like, what the fuck? What are we doing? Wait, I never signed a contract anywhere to say that I was going to be a part of this, it just totally left my mind.

(05:58):
I put everybody else and their experience into that process
that I totally forgot about me.
I totally forgot that I was going to be getting up at the crack dawn and exercising and running and chasing things and pushing things, and I totally forgot that I was going to be doing hiking and all this sort of stuff.

(06:21):
And so after I did my first pay session, I can't deny I felt amazing and I was more capable than I realized until the next day when I went to get out of bed.
And I don't think I felt pain in my body like that for a long time. I got my ass kicked
and I had no one else to blame but myself.

(06:42):
I'd gotten myself into such a state of sitting and being on a laptop and not committing to exercise and not turning out for me that when the time came that I turned it on so suddenly in this retreat, I got my, smashed. I was in pain, I felt nauseated,

(07:06):
and I was lucky enough that I was sharing a house with 1 or 2 other people who felt the same as me, so we could all secretly soak amongst all the super, super people and go, oh, what do I do?
Well, I by doing this because I needed to have a little whinge. I needed to have a little whinge to go, what am I doing? And then I recognized that that was me out of my comfort zone. And here I was asking these people to do this dance and turn up out of their comfort zones. And as I'd delivered the video, there had been a few guests that had said, yes, I love dancing.

(07:39):
It's so much fun. And there have been other people who said, the dancing thing is not for me. I really don't want to do it. And I said, look, I'm not twisting your arm. I'm not making you do anything. But I'd hate for you to regret that you didn't do it. I'd hate for you to hear about all the fun the next morning at the breakfast.
And if one part of you guys. Oh, man, I wish I had done that. Then do it, do it. Just come and have a crack. You will be safe with me. It's going to be fun and we had an absolute blast. So everyone got in the room. The fluoro was going, I had the song list going. We took people to peak and back it down.

(08:20):
We created motivation. We
talked on inhibition. We talked on why you hold back, let it go, be free. And as I
saw people close down their eyes and just get lost in the music, moving their body,
It was so magical. And then we'd create a circuit breaker.
Because the thing with that is that the tempo of the music changed, so we can't stay in that state. So then we had dance off one half of the room dance against the other half of the room, and that was bloody hilarious because I said to them, right, you've got to work together as a team and come up with a dance, and all of a sudden you say all the personality types jump in and create some level of control.

(08:59):
And then we had one leader from each group that was kind of shoved in and they had a dance off,
And I've never seen such great worms and air pumping and air guitar and oh my God. And do you know what the number one best thing about the dancing was? It actually wasn't even about the dancing.
It was about the laughter because we cackled with laughter. And quite a few people only know dancing with alcohol in their belly, like, you know, nightclubs or. Oh, no, no, no, I've got to have two more drinks before I can get on the dance floor. And so the fact that these people turned up relatively sober, a few have had 1 or 2 drinks and they gave in and they surrendered that way was the sexiest bloody thing I think I've seen in a very long time.

(09:47):
It had nothing to do with what they were wearing, what their body shape was or how intelligent it was. It was that one body recognised another body,
and they equally heard the same sound, and they just moved.
And when we did the dance offs, it was hilarious. And when we sung at the top of our lungs to what was one song that really got everyone firing, I Want to Dance with Somebody by Whitney Houston, as did the final song, This Is Me, from The Greatest Showman.

(10:17):
I don't think I've heard and seen neck muscles move like that because I gave it. They pulled out every part of their being, and then the magic of the lights coming back on and the hugging. It was a real bonding experience. These people embracing and hugging on to each other for so long

(10:41):
while they laughed and they smiled and they hung shit on one another.
I was moved to tears of joy. It was so beautiful.
And then hearing them talk about it later. And we were in the spa two hours later. Oh Gail, I loved this part and I love when I looked at this person across the room and they made eye contact with me and we danced and kind of, you know, got down with one another.

(11:04):
It was so good. I didn't know I could feel that good with no alcohol.
And that's a whole other conversation. But man, it made me think that I need to bring this to Bendigo. I really need to create an outlet for people as an alternative to what I currently offer. So at the moment it's drumming, it's meditation. But I do hear it a lot.

(11:26):
A lot of people do say to me, I don't like lying down, and I don't like meditating because my brain doesn't turn off. So what I want to create an offer is another outlet where you shake this shit out, will you dance it away? Will you come together and you have a space that is safe and alcohol free there?
If you want to have a glass of something before you come, whatever, that's up to you as long as you travel safely. But to create this in our community, that people can feel this way and go home and feel this level of ecstatic excitement for living and breathing and blood pumping through their body and laughter and connection and community.

(12:03):
Well, I think that is a pretty bloody good thing to go home with. Thanks for listening, souls, and I hope that maybe you'll come to one of our dance events soon. Take care.
And that is all for today folks. I feel so grateful and blessed to be able to share these stories with you and to bring us together as a community. I'm Gayle Wilson and this is So Kate's podcast, naked. You can find further resources at my website, silk healing.com today here.

(12:32):
These resources are designed to support you and your family as you experience big emotions through this journey back to empowerment, healing and self connection.
Don't forget to follow and subscribe so that you can get notifications on the next episode as it lands.
Take care and just be kind to yourself.