Conscious Connection

Conscious connection, for us, means that we connect with others from a basis of self-connection and with an awareness of what’s going on within ourselves as well as in the interaction or in the space. When we connect consciously we aim to be conscious and aware of our own desires, boundaries/limits, expectations, feelings and sensations while connecting with other people and we aim to express our desires, boundaries and expectations so that we can respect and honor them: both our own and the ones expressed by others. All this is a process of growing and expanding our consciousness through practice.

We can practice this conscious connecting in dance. Here, the main focus of the dance is the connection: with ourselves, our dance partners, and also with the space, the energy, the movement, the music. The dance becomes an exploration of what is alive and present in ourselves, our bodies, the connection, and the dance; of how we feel in a particular dance and a particular moment; of our yesses and nos/ our boundaries and desires; of how we are showing up for ourselves and our dance partners; of what we are bringing into the dance and what we are expecting from the dance, from ourselves, and our partners; of how we can stay true and connected to ourselves in the dance connection. Ultimately, this practice and process of connecting consciously can help us feel more free, authentic, connected and able to express ourselves in our dancing.

Three main themes can guide us in our conscious connection (and conscious dance) practice: curiosity, sensitivity and authenticity:

Curiosity

Curiosity can help us to suspend judgment and open ourselves up to new experiences, deeper truths, and more profound (self) connection, flow & joy. When we let go of judgment and move into curiosity, we can surrender more easily to the flow and the connection.

Sensitivity

Sensitivity allows us to open ourselves to our senses and our sensations, our emotions and inner world. It helps us to be more aware and in tune with ourselves and others. It supports self-healing and greater freedom:

Sensitivity allows for self-healing and through that more freedom. As we become more sensitive and aware we can become more compassionate and loving. When we become more accepting of ourselves, we can see other people more for who they truly are, because we need to project less.

If we accept all parts of ourselves then we can see all these parts and aspects of ourselves and we don’t need to project ourselves, our rejected parts onto others, and we can actually see the other person.

The struggle and suffering that we see around us is ultimately the struggle we have within ourselves and we project this outside ourselves. So ultimately we want to become in harmony with ourselves and then we will automaticallly be in harmony with others, with our environment and the people we relate with. We won’t need to fight or argue with them, we won’t need to struggle or get frustrated. Everything we accept in ourselves we can also accept in others. And I believe this is ultimately what we want to move towards. This would be the ultimate ideal: to have a completely accepting and compassionate, community.

In order to have an accepting, compassionate and loving community, we need to accept ourselves and heal any grudges we may have against or struggles we may experience with parts of ourselves. If there is still pain within ourselves, we may encounter struggle and difficulty in relating with others. Our relationships will continue to show us our pain until we have healed it and we are in full acceptance of those parts of ourselves that have been in that pain and compassionate towards ourselves.

Our relationships and our connections with others will show us the parts that we haven’t healed and that are asking for healing. But in order to get there, we need to sensitize ourselves, so that we can feel those parts. So that we can feel the pain and recognize the wounds that want to be healed.

To sensitize ourselves we need to feel safe. Therefore, safety in relating/relationships and connecting/connections is imminent. In order to feel safe we need to have awareness about how we connect with each other, so we can create a safe and compassionate space for ourselves and each other: a space of vulnerability. In that vulnerable, compassionate space, healing can happen.

Authenticity

Authenticity in connection means that we stay true to ourselves, to our yesses and nos. Connecting more authentically with others and being able to express ourselves more fully in connection offers a great sense of freedom.

So many of us have locked ourselves up in what we think we need to be or who we think we need to be for others and in trying to be perfect or trying to be loveable, likeable… in order to receive love and to be liked… So that others stay with us. This becomes a prison that we have build for ourselves, which we subsequently have to stay within in order to be seen a certain way, to be liked and loved and to be seen. When we become aware of this prison, we can try to do it differently and express ourselves: our truth. We can start to search for our authentic selves in relation/connection with others; and we free ourselves from the prison that we have created for ourselves.