Dance as Medicine

Being in your liberated, authentic expression is one of the most healing things you can do. When you intuitively dance and surrender to the way your emotions want to express through your movement, no one else will move in the unique way you do.

I use dance as a daily practice to express and move all flavors of emotion, from intense anger to bliss, to open my body, release tension, and move stagnant energy. I wanted to share some ways to use this as a somatic tool!

What does your anger look like expressed through movement? What kind of music helps you connect with your anger and passionate fire? Grief? Fear? Confusion? Exasperation?

Make a playlist for each of these or other emotional states and try moving to them when you feel triggered and the emotion arises in your body. Similarly, if there is an emotion or state of being you wish to feel more of, such as joy or empowerment, make a playlist that reflects this and move to it daily!

When your body seems locked up in tension and anxiety, tune into the places that feel contracted and constricted and ask your body how it wishes to move to express the energy that is there.

This form of dance is not choreographed, but a tool to connect deeply to your body. Sometimes it may look like standing in one place and vigorously shaking, sometimes it may be rolling around on the floor, sometimes it may be intensely sensual and activate your sexual energy, and sometimes it may look like a silly child flinging themselves around!

I integrate this kind of dance into all of my ceremonial work with plant medicines, even Ayahuasca! This surprises many people who only have a reference for Shipibo style work. I have done alot of ceremonial work with indigenous tribes from Brazil (mainly the Yawanawa and Huni Kuin), and dance is an integral part of the way they hold ceremony! It has been so liberating to move in the force of the medicine, and to surrender my body to how the medicine wants to move through me. When I began to dance in this space, I self corrected life long scoliosis and grew 1.5 inches over a year, because the medicine would move my body in corrective ways without my conscious involvement or direction!

Contact me for a free dance playlist I've made if you want to get moving!