Move and Be Moved

I spent Christmas Eve with my extended family. It was a very difficult time. I spent much of the evening feeling like a stranger, a foreigner. It was painful and I found myself lost in those painful feelings. It wasn’t until the next evening, while I was dancing, that I figured out what had happened: I lost my center. In fact I lost it so badly that I didn’t even know that that’s what had happened. Somehow being around my family knocked me out of my center so that I could no longer feel connected to who I was. I could only define myself according to my old tribal laws. As a result I was not only disconnected from myself, but also from all the others in the room. All I could think about were the old issues, the pain, the rejection, the feelings of unworthiness, the self-doubt. All of it running over me, smothering me, drowning me in a tidal wave of self-pity, regret, and shame. Then, at the dance, I not only realized what had happened, but I actually found my center again. I gave myself to the music, the beat, and the rhythm. I connected with myself and I danced the anger and the sadness. I was no longer me-as-compared-to-someone-else, I was just me. And as I reestablished my connection to self I found that I was open to others. Almost automatically and without effort I connected with another person. And we danced a beautiful, tender dance of giving and receiving, back and forth, quiet, peaceful, loving, accepting.