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qosMy personal journal contains a series of entries today about feeling an increasing desire to take ballroom dancing lessons, culminating in an announcement that I have a 30 minute private lesson tomorrow night.
This is huge for me. For most of my life, I've been a bookworm and lived in my head. The only real exception to that has been sexual passion. I've paid my body as little attention as I could get away with, and now that I'm 40+ the consequences are becoming harder for me to ignore. But even at my peak, the idea of dancing was stressful, for all kinds of reasons relating to self-consciousness, perfectionism, introversion, and etc.
So tomorrow I venture into new territory, territory that I've longed to explore but always held back from --- and that's A Very Good Thing, especially since it's also part of my grief-healing process.
I was unprepared for the one-two shot from the universe today.
First, on the subject of "weight loss" -- which I put in quotes because while I do want to lose weight, I do think about it in a holistic way: better eating habits, more exercise, more water, and etc. Today on FetLife, I found a post from someone asking what group members thought about "weight loss as an ordeal" -- and my ears pricked up.
One of the big challenges I have around improving my physical lifestyle habits is that I don't have any emotional energy around it. I've never been physically vain, and I don't have any important goals that are impacted by my physical condition (except insofar as any activity or goal is impacted by one's physical self), so it's always been a challenge for me to stay motivated. But framing it as a spiritual ordeal could be a valuable, vital paradigm shift. This is something I just happened on this afternoon, so I'll have to sit with it for a while and discuss it with my ordeal mistress (Ereshkigal), but I'm intrigued by the potentials.
The other shift is, of course, this sudden strong desire to try dancing. I see it as a direct consequence of my recent conversation with Ereshkigal and Her urging me to get in touch with Inanna and embrace passion. But it also builds on Wolfling's new-found love for salsa, and her desire to get me involved, reading Faith in Carlos Gomez, and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jillwheezul's affirmation of embracing life. . .
I don't want to get too excited about any of this, because I hate my tendency to go head-over-heels and then burn out when things get challenging. . . but as I write that I think about my perserverance in staying with my priestess training for a year and a half, so maybe I'm starting to gain some resilience.
However either of these paths go, I want them to be joyous. I supposes there's always a time on any path when one has to simply grit one's teeth and keep going, but I want my overall approach to be gentle and joyous. And if you're asking how an "ordeal" can be "gentle and joyous" -- well, I'm kinky, and I'm pretty sure I know what that kind of space feels like.
More bulletins as events warrant. . .
This is huge for me. For most of my life, I've been a bookworm and lived in my head. The only real exception to that has been sexual passion. I've paid my body as little attention as I could get away with, and now that I'm 40+ the consequences are becoming harder for me to ignore. But even at my peak, the idea of dancing was stressful, for all kinds of reasons relating to self-consciousness, perfectionism, introversion, and etc.
So tomorrow I venture into new territory, territory that I've longed to explore but always held back from --- and that's A Very Good Thing, especially since it's also part of my grief-healing process.
I was unprepared for the one-two shot from the universe today.
First, on the subject of "weight loss" -- which I put in quotes because while I do want to lose weight, I do think about it in a holistic way: better eating habits, more exercise, more water, and etc. Today on FetLife, I found a post from someone asking what group members thought about "weight loss as an ordeal" -- and my ears pricked up.
One of the big challenges I have around improving my physical lifestyle habits is that I don't have any emotional energy around it. I've never been physically vain, and I don't have any important goals that are impacted by my physical condition (except insofar as any activity or goal is impacted by one's physical self), so it's always been a challenge for me to stay motivated. But framing it as a spiritual ordeal could be a valuable, vital paradigm shift. This is something I just happened on this afternoon, so I'll have to sit with it for a while and discuss it with my ordeal mistress (Ereshkigal), but I'm intrigued by the potentials.
The other shift is, of course, this sudden strong desire to try dancing. I see it as a direct consequence of my recent conversation with Ereshkigal and Her urging me to get in touch with Inanna and embrace passion. But it also builds on Wolfling's new-found love for salsa, and her desire to get me involved, reading Faith in Carlos Gomez, and
jillwheezul's affirmation of embracing life. . . I don't want to get too excited about any of this, because I hate my tendency to go head-over-heels and then burn out when things get challenging. . . but as I write that I think about my perserverance in staying with my priestess training for a year and a half, so maybe I'm starting to gain some resilience.
However either of these paths go, I want them to be joyous. I supposes there's always a time on any path when one has to simply grit one's teeth and keep going, but I want my overall approach to be gentle and joyous. And if you're asking how an "ordeal" can be "gentle and joyous" -- well, I'm kinky, and I'm pretty sure I know what that kind of space feels like.
More bulletins as events warrant. . .
