Seeing the Beauty Even Within Darker Emotions

We don’t have to avoid feeling them

“Why do you dance?” I was sitting cross-legged on the dance studio floor with 7 other dance mates. We were all young working adults who had successfully auditioned for this part-time one-year dance training program called the Dance Explorer. Instead of just learning to perform various dance genres, our two main instructors of this program wanted us to express ourselves artistically through Dance. One of them asked us this simple yet incredibly open-ended question as an ice-breaker introduction.

I went all dreamy and replied, “I want to use dance to spread more joy and beauty to more people!” He didn’t seem very impressed or convinced by my answer.

And now, 14 years later, after watching this solo dance showcase I did as part of the course curriculum, I just realized how this dance was an expression of all the emotions I thought were ugly or taboo — anger, fear, and even sensuality.

The idea of needing to choreograph and perform solo freaked me out, so I thought of this brilliant idea of hiding in a black baggy costume while I danced. It felt so liberating and even fun to reveal the darker side of myself and revel in the drama through the sinister music!

I’m so grateful that the training program made me aware of the default happy-go-lucky mask I wore on a daily basis. I had just discovered the magical world of energy healing a few months before I took this dance program, and I was going through an identity crisis, releasing years of tears that made me numb to life.

Even though I desire to spread more joy and beauty through dance, I thought I was being gentler on myself by avoiding all the heavier emotions that everyone experiences from time to time. It feels even better to relieve myself from the pressure of needing to please others all the time.

Somehow, feeling freer to express my darker emotions through dance, and knowing that our denser energies can easily get transmuted into lighter and uplifting energies, helped reinforce my trust in Beauty.

It feels like instead of seeking beauty and avoiding ugliness, I feel more confident to explore ugliness with some light curiosity, knowing that there is Beauty within.

We just need to look deeper within.