Have you heard of this concept?  

emotion = e-motion = energy in motion

It’s a concept grounded in the language of the body rather than the mind. The sense that our emotional landscape is connected deeply in our physical body.

Those of you that are massage clients or have been over the years will know first hand how often I use your verbal cues to help me uncover threads of connection between how you are feeling emotionally and what’s going on for you in your body system. Then I use touch in movement - massage - to offer your body an opportunity to feel different: to release something, to soften something, to discover something or to recover something for example.

emotions = e-motions = energy in motion…. so what happens when an emotion gets stuck? When we’ve experienced an emotion but it isn’t moving and instead it’s on repeat? How do we free it to move?

And this is the bit I love…. there’s the answer…. in the word… motion… we need to move.

We allow our bodies to unfurl, curl, wiggle, jiggle, wriggle, pulse, roll, stretch out, fold in, make shapes….

The problem though is that as human-beings we also get stuck in making the same shapes we are comfortable making.

We often stay inside our own comfort zone of movement.

We go to the same gym at the same time and do the same moves.

We walk, run, swim with a repetative movement.

We go to a new yoga / pilates class and do new things and soon enough we are doing the same moves over and over.

And this repetition is amazing and wonderful for our bodies in so many ways. It can support our nervous systems to feel safe, it builds and sustains through repetition and there’s huge, juicy development in repetition and consistency, so I’m a big fan….BUT when our emotional landscape is stuck in feeling low, sad, angry or emotionally exhausted (for example) or when we are stuck in our attitudes and ideas or we have that feeling that we are ‘stuck in a rut’ we need to MOVE DIFFERENTLY.

So… I return to the last enewsletter where I wrote about why I dance… or more specifically why I Conscious Movement Dance… and one of the reasons I dance is to move my emotional landscape.

Throughout a class I am in movement to a music landscape which is varied and this invites me to move my body in response rather than from a presciptive, pre-designed idea of how I’ll dance / move.

Often I’m dancing to music that I wouldn’t choose myself… it might have an awkward beat (for me), I might just ‘not like it’, it might be encouraging me to slow down or speed up, but always always it is offering me an opportunity to find a way to move that it unlike the way I ‘like to do it’… and this is where there’s a chance I could offer my body a way to move a stuck feeling.

When I teach a class there are times in each class when I use words to draw attention inside the body - it could be muscles, bones, organs, connective tissues, limbs, joints etc, once the attention is there the invitation is offered to notice how this area wants to move… and this is another bit I love.. there are no rules! You move your way because it’s your body and I move my way because it’s my body. No right, no wrong, just simply moving.

For me, in a class, I find that the combination of the invitation of the music, words from the facilitator and the opportunity to dance with other people inspires me to move in different ways and supports me to explore how I am in motion. So without really trying to do it I am actually facilitating my e-motion.

Good eh?

So concious movement dance isn’t for everyone so what other things can you do?

INVITATION: Try doing your thing just slightly differently

Slow it down if you normally like fast or feel ‘busy’ or ‘full-up’ alot

Speed it up for a few seconds every so often if you normally go slow or steady.

If you swim, try a different stroke.

If you run, stop every so often and raise your eyes to the sky and notice your skin.

If you do yoga or pilates and always gravitate to the same position in the room for your mat… move… give yourself a different viewpoint.

If you receive regular massage, ask for a different area of body to get some focussed time… your tummy or your knees or the palms of your hands for example.

If you haven’t received a massage for a while - book in and allow your body to be moved.

And then, welcome all your emotions. For we are so blessed to have them.