I read this quote today from Carl Jung: “People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls" (Dreams, p. 174). He was referring external practices, whether religious, metaphysical, or purely physical, which people engage as ways of healing and/or spiritual growth. But apart from possible physical benefits, unless one is willing to face what’s deep in their own soul, such exercises amount to merely going through the motions with no appreciative improvement in psychic health. It’s possible to use the dance that way, too, but that would be a tragic waste of a valuable tool. If I understand it correctly the movement of the body through the 5 rhythms creates a channel through which we may touch our very souls. What’s there in the depths for each of us that we're reluctant to face? Parts of us that have been rejected and made secret by trauma, perhaps, parts that wish to be reclaimed, brought into the light, not to harm us, but to free legitimate sections of our being that have been banished to the darkness out of fear? These pieces of our lives long to be brought into the glorious light of consciousness and expressed.
It’s not about the pain itself, it’s about who we are, damn it!
Don't get me wrong--the dance does not take the place of therapy. Dealing with past trauma often needs the guidance of a trained counselor and I’m not suggesting that people abandon therapy in favor of dancing the 5Rhythms. But Jung’s statement got me thinking about what things are there that I’m just unwilling to face, things that I might touch through the dance if I allow it. Dreams, desires, my own unique ways of expressing myself that have been shunned and put away because someone else found them unacceptable? Whatever pieces there are of myself that have become hidden, for whatever reasons, they are me and I want them back.
