Coming Through Our Dark Side

Letter from Alay'nya - Second Year Series

January, 2004

Dear Ones -

The one thing that keeps us from creating the reality desire is our own resistance to our creation.

Now this sounds very abstract, but it is a bottom-line "what-is-so" about us, and will actually be the theme for this year. Let me expand just a little bit. If you went through the "First Year Series" with me, you did a lot about releasing your inner Diva. And at the end of a year (a year should be enough, right?), you knew you'd made progress. But your life is perhaps still not totally Diva-like. In fact, it might be, the more that you look at some things, the more that you seem "stuck."

There is an answer. Every time you've moved into becoming a "Diva" in some areas, and you found that your new "Diva-ness" was just not taking, there was a reason. It was because, as the Divas themselves would say, your inner "Cinderella" was taking the lead over your inner "Divarella." It was your inner "Cinderella" that was blocking you from moving forth.

This is the year in which we start to consciously work through the process of really getting into our "Cinderella" stuff. I'm not saying that even another year of attention and effort will yield your final breakthrough. But you'll start to get a handle on the process. And for the rest of your life, as a new layer of resistance emerges (and it will, we always have layers), you'll have a way to deal with this. At least you'll have a "process" for "processing."

The most powerful work that we can do comes from broaching our inner dragons, from deliberately confronting our own "Dark Side." That's why, for this Second Year, one of the books that I recommend to you the most is Debbie Ford's "The Dark Side of the Light Chasers."

Now here's the final thing: How does this help you as a dancer? The answer is: Your real breakthroughs in dance come from releasing resistance. This is particularly important in belly dance, which is all about connection, and grounding, and flow. Peter Ralston, the martial arts teacher who has most influenced my life, got his breakthroughs via various "aha!" experiences. I've had mine in conjunction with deep emotional processing, and in "letting go" of some sort of inner issue that also manifested as physical tension. In fact, Chapters 14 through 16 of Unveiling: The Inner Journey (my book-in-progress) talk about this in some depth.

For now, what I encourage you to do the most is to spend some time - especially in the dark time of winter, listening to your inner self, then listening to your body. Whenever you come up with something that is a mental issue, or a tension for you, do as Diane Richardson (see one of her writings here), one of the teachers who has helped me the most, suggested: See if you can "create some space around that." As you do, you'll actually feel a release of physical tension. As you release your physical tension, you'll simultaneously release your energetic tension. See then if some area in your life that was blocked doesn't start to flow more smoothly for you.

With love - A.

P.S. - The book I mentioned earlier, and which I highly recommend, is Debbie Ford's
The Dark Side of the Light Chasers: Reclaiming Your Power, Creativity, Brilliance, and Dreams

You can also read an excerpt of "The Dark Side." As author Debbie Ford states:

"Instead of trying to suppress our shadows, we need to unconceal, own and embrace the very things we are most afraid of facing."

.

In fact, this is precisely the Unveiling process that we are addressing as both an inner work and as performance activity this spring:

"Your life will be transformed when you make peace with your shadow. The caterpillar will become a breathtakingly beautiful butterfly."

.