{"id":9496,"date":"2020-12-01T00:00:58","date_gmt":"2020-12-01T08:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/todaysveterinarybusiness.com\/?p=9496"},"modified":"2022-06-15T17:46:43","modified_gmt":"2022-06-15T17:46:43","slug":"activity-find-what-moves-you","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/navc.sitepreview.app\/todaysveterinarybusiness.com\/activity-find-what-moves-you\/","title":{"rendered":"Find What Moves You"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some of our previous articles noted the benefits of meditation, one of the best ways of opening ourselves up to experience the fullness of who and what we are. If you\u2019re looking to experience more flow, we suspect that meditation is one of the single most effective methods of creating that outcome.<\/p>\n

But just because we talk about topics like meditation doesn\u2019t mean we always practice what we preach. The truth is, we go through periods of motivation\/depletion, confidence\/insecurity and focus\/distraction. The intentional steps we take to experience more mindfulness and flow vary significantly over time. We suspect that describes you, too.<\/p>\n

Nonetheless, we have both discovered some go-to activities that help us live more balanced, centered and sane lives. In our most recent article \u2014 read it at\u00a0bit.ly\/386qDy8<\/a> \u2014 Jeff noted that cycling has become an important means of achieving mindfulness for him, or as he put it: \u201cMiles are my meditation.\u201d That got Trey thinking about activities that bring him a sense of peace, joy and expansion similar to meditation and about the specific activity he was surprised to discover later in life that has been effective at helping him reach those states.<\/p>\n

So, in this article, Trey will share that journey in his words.<\/p>\n

Something Was Missing<\/h3>\n

For starters, I have to confess to being a sports junkie. I\u2019ve always loved competing in sports, especially team activities. I love the physical challenge of testing myself against others and working toward a collective goal. And I like having a concrete way of measuring success: winning! In many respects, sports provided some of my richest experiences. It deepened relationships with my peers, taught me to deal with success, failure and adversity, and helped me understand how to work more effectively with other people.<\/p>\n

But to be honest, the competition brought out unhealthy aspects of my personality. I\u2019m probably the only person you\u2019ll meet who was so focused on winning a game of two-on-two whiffle ball at 16 years old that I crashed through a plate-glass window. And while that was by far the worst example of my competitiveness run amok, it was by no means the only one. Still, I was enthralled with the experiences of running, jumping and \u201cmaking the play,\u201d so sports have dominated my free time for most of my life.<\/p>\n

As rewarding as those experiences were, I realized upon reflection that they typically did not bring me to a state of peace, acceptance, equanimity, calm or love. Instead, I experienced various states of excitement, agitation and fulfillment, but not the feelings of peace, acceptance and openness that I later learned to recognize and appreciate during meditation.<\/p>\n

Given so much focus on competing in sports, I never expected to find a non-competitive activity that would be nearly as rewarding, but that\u2019s exactly what I found in dance. I\u2019m married to a gifted dancer, which initially had a chilling effect on my eagerness to dance because I was way out of my league. But while living in Colorado, we stumbled on a way in which we both could dance without me having to keep up with my far more capable wife. The format was free form \u2014 do whatever you want. It\u2019s sometimes referred to as ecstatic dance or authentic movement.<\/p>\n

Fancy Footwork<\/h3>\n

Right from the beginning, I loved it. I enjoyed the freedom to move to the music. Since free form is truly anything goes, there\u2019s no wrong way. You can\u2019t win or lose. You can try something that doesn\u2019t work as you intended, but you\u2019ll likely be the only one who knows when that happens. I appreciated the physical nature of the activity. I could make it as strenuous or subtle as I wished. Most of all, it was a great workout that almost always left me with a positive afterglow.<\/p>\n

After a while, I began to notice that the music and related movements were enhancing a process of my finding feelings of which I hadn\u2019t been consciously aware. And so, for a long time, dance became a largely cathartic exercise in which I expressed whatever was inside me and let the music find it. Almost always, I would dance by myself during this period, and I was grateful for the safe space for inner exploration.<\/p>\n

In recent years, I\u2019ve found dance to be mainly an opportunity for expression in the moment. As I gradually let go of ideas of good\/bad and right\/wrong, I began to relax enough to dance with my wife. We eventually developed through dance our ways of connecting and creating. Now, we\u2019re the couple dancing<\/a> at the free outdoor concerts (pre-COVID, at least) and not caring whether we\u2019re moving in the same way as everyone else. The older folks smile at us and the teenagers laugh, but mostly we enjoy being in our own world, lost in the music.<\/p>\n

As I look back at this unexpected arc, I realize that two key components make dance such a healthy and compelling experience for me, just as cycling is for Jeff<\/a>:<\/p>\n