TGIF :: Yes, Pole Dancing
#19 || On the things we do to feel uninhibited and exploring discomfort dimmer free
“Liquid Courage”
When I was in law school, one of my courses culminated in presenting a persuasive legal argument before a panel of judges in a federal courtroom in San Francisco. Terrified of any form of public speaking since miserably botching a theater audition in 8th grade, I was incredibly nervous, far more so than my peers who seemed calm, collected—even excited.
When the day came, I was prepared. I’d memorized my brief, rehearsed answers to the panel’s most likely questions, and borrowed a two piece suit. I also had a mini bottle of Smirnoff vodka in my purse that I shamelessly downed in a bathroom stall “to calm my nerves” fifteen minutes before stepping up to the podium, a trick I learned from watching my mom.
I wince recalling this memory. I want to reach back through time into that moment and extend a warm and reassuring hug to the 26-year old version of me. I want to tell her it’s okay to be nervous, that of course its scary to stand up before a panel of esteemed justices and deliver a complicated argument about even more complicated federal law. I also want to tell her that drinking vodka is not the only way to move through that discomfort. There are healthier, more sustainable ways.
Inspired by an entrepreneurial friend who seemed to come alive before an audience, soon after finishing law school, I developed a commitment to overcome my fear of public speaking. I convinced my employer to pay for some basic training, experimented with online practice tools, and volunteered for countless conference panels and keynotes.
In time, what used to terrify me—at least since adolescence as I don’t think I had this fear as a child—became easier, opening doors to do things like teaching a class, speaking to audiences about leading with intention, and more recently, offering ClearLife-related talks at conferences and on podcasts. Like other things that I used to think I could only do with a buzz, I am more comfortable on a stage these days—I dare even say I enjoy it.
Arrested Development
When we “get clear”—whatever that means for us—we have the opportunity to understand why we sought solace in certain escapes (see an April post on this here). For me, alcohol use in my teens, then trickling into my professional and parenting years, temporarily masked my insecurities, making me feel bolder, especially in social settings.
However, consistent numbing—whether through excessive work, exercise, media, drugs, or sex—results in missed opportunities to grow through challenges to the extent we want to. Inhibitions or fears are too often “glossed over” or dodged altogether, only to rear their heads years later. This “arrested development” often looks and feels like a child or adolescent’s brain in an adult body, anchored to the stage we were in when we began our escape.
Peeling Back The Layers
Reconnecting with our true selves—our authentic preferences and aversions, and our actual affinities for people, places, and activities—is one of the most impactful (and humbling) features of a ClearLife journey.
Six years into my own, I believe I’ve unearthed and addressed most issues I’ve avoided or buried since my teens. Amidst working full time and raising my kids, I’ve invested in therapy, devoured books, meditated, taken countless long walks in the woods, attended a few retreats, poured my soul into my writing, delved into family history, and mended or ended several broken relationships—all clumsily trying to peel back the layers and transcend old patterns.
Just when I think I’m close to “resolving” it all, something new comes up—inviting me to take it all to the next level. My first reaction is often: Oh hell no, I’m running the other way. Yet, I usually realize these moments are opportunities to go deeper, experience life in a different way, in a present way, in a feeling way.
“We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.”
― Anais Nin
Stealth Kryptonite: Dancing?
As a kid, I loved to dance and perform, mostly for my family. I remember pastel leotards and striped leg warmers, spoons as makeshift microphones for lip-synching, and the feeling of the scratchy wool carpet under my feet as my best friend Natasha and I—with my little brother on air guitar—performed mostly Cyndi Lauper songs for family and friends in our living room. Fearless.
Somewhere around puberty, I grew—as so many girls do—self conscious about my body, what I looked like, and what other people thought of me.
Was it the older boy down the street calling me Thunder Thighs?
Was it the unwanted french kiss on the first day of seventh grade?
Was it the unwelcome advance of an adult neighbor?
Maybe it’s a fear of being attractive, because denied advances all to often causes problems.
A few fast years later I discovered “liquid courage.” With a few drinks I had enough confidence to be more forward socially (and sexually) and let loose and dance—mostly in night clubs, a pastime that continued into my forties. When I took my first 30 day break from drinking (and everything else that went with it) in 2017, the clubbing (and dancing) stopped too. While I’ve relearned how to do many things without a buzz since then, dancing hasn’t been one of them.
I’ve been reminded of this a few times. In 2021, when my beloved Soren and I were first together, we spent time overseas where we were truly unknown, anonymous. One evening, he beckoned me to dance with him in a dimly-lit, quiet street. Instead of embracing the moment and gliding with him for a few moments through the night, I froze. No one sees me dance except my youngest kid. This endures today. Interestingly, he is twelve years old, the age I… froze.
It happened again last Friday. Leaving a restaurant, Soren wanted to groove out with me in the entrance. Despite his open arms and the cheerful nudges from the young hostesses, I wiggled out of his embrace and out the door. We laughed it off on the way to the car, but a sadness lingered inside.
Something Started to Crack Open This Week
Recently, I was gifted a private pilates lesson with Brook Notary, a bad-ass teacher I’ve attended group classes with for two years. When scheduling, she suggested we make it a pole dancing session instead. “Sure,” I agreed, not really thinking about it. Despite some nervousness going in, I spent my Monday lunch hour in her studio, learning some basic dance moves—with a pole.
With her guidance I started to connect with the floor as my “first partner” (she coached me: “it can be any texture you want: water, sand, ice… It can also represent a feeling. Have you ever walked on love?”). Then I moved to connecting with the pole as the partner with whom I have a relationship (“your focus, your gaze, how your hands and fingers first touch the pole tells a story”). Finally, I had to let go, unleash a bit, allow, and listen.
I was initially stiff, a bit embarrassed, and definitely shy, but Brook encouraged me and I softened as the hour progressed. After learning some basics to melodic tunes by Novo Amor with the support of a weighty rubber band as a safety prop, I was getting it, even if awkwardly. Step, cross, swing, lift, wrap, swing again, arch, land, rework, try again.
Close to the end of the hour, I was sweaty and tired when she turned on a final heart-wrenchingly beautiful song and gave me three prompts:
First… Dance as you see yourself: I moved to the music with my mind shaping my moves. I was trying to be open. My movements were timid. I was careful. I was thoughtful.
After 30 seconds or so, still in the same song… Dance how you think others see you: I continued to dance, but this time with my eyes partially closed, trying to move in ways I imagined others see me: strong, controlled, and deliberate.
For the last minute… Dance as you want others to see you: This time I fully closed my eyes, took a moment to feel how I want to be seen, and allowed my body to move: I felt open, sensual, strong, and catlike.
As the song faded to silence, I found myself standing, clutching the pole for stability. I slowly opened my eyes. The room spun around me, my eyes were wet with tears, and the muscles in my chest and throat clenched—fighting a profound sob.
I am still metabolizing the experience, but it’s as if I unexpectedly tapped into something buried very deep inside, something that had been dormant for decades. The best way to describe what I felt is the sensation of being cracked open. Something that has been hardened and protected since adolescence was exposed and briefly touched, like the fire of touching a raw nerve.
And I felt exposed and maybe even a bit beautiful—in a way that wasn’t about how I looked (I know it wasn’t about how I looked). I had fully listened to and trusted my body, moving to music… clear… maybe for the first time since dancing to Cyndi Lauper in my parents’ living room forty years ago.
What Does Pole Dancing Have To Do With ClearLife?
I’ve had a few days to reflect on why this experience was so unexpectedly intense. It felt more emotionally charged than other more seemingly difficult and complicated things I’ve navigated in recent years including hammering out a custody arrangement, starting and leaving professional roles, and confronting breast cancer. In my thank you text to Brook I told her “I’m going to try to not run away.”
So what’s the big deal?
That was the first time I have allowed myself to fully feel and move in such a liberated way since I was a kid, sober. I connected with a younger, more innocent, potential-filled version of myself, unencumbered by decades of the shoulds us women tend to layer upon ourselves, captured beautifully in the now famous Barbie movie monologue:
You have to be thin, but not too thin. And you can never say you want to be thin. You have to say you want to be healthy, but also you have to be thin. You have to have money, but you can’t ask for money because that’s crass. You have to be a boss, but you can’t be mean. You have to lead, but you can’t squash other people’s ideas. You’re supposed to love being a mother, but don’t talk about your kids all the damn time. You have to be a career woman, but also always be looking out for other people. You have to answer for men’s bad behavior, which is insane, but if you point that out, you’re accused of complaining.
You’re supposed to stay pretty for men, but not so pretty that you tempt them too much or that you threaten other women because you’re supposed to be a part of the sisterhood. But always stand out and always be grateful. But never forget that the system is rigged. So find a way to acknowledge that but also always be grateful. You have to never get old, never be rude, never show off, never be selfish, never fall down, never fail, never show fear, never get out of line. … And it turns out in fact that not only are you doing everything wrong, but also everything is your fault.
Public speaking, initiating sex, introducing ourselves to a stranger, uninhibited dancing—these spark terror in so many of us. Something happens between the spectacular innocence of childhood (no matter how short-lived) and our adulthood that robs us of our freedom to just be free. Is it the learned response to unwelcome attention? The reluctance to piss people off with a boundary? Or perhaps, it is fear of our own power?
Maybe we should all work on being a little less nice.
It’s no wonder so many of us dim our bright light, quiet our intuition, or overcome our persistent insecurity with a shot of vodka every once in a while.
One Practice
Try the thing undimmed. If you’ve read this far, maybe you too have something that you only do with an aid of some kind. Experiment.
Socialize without drinks
Watch movies not stoned
Go to the party and refuse to engage in smalltalk
Speak with fellow moms at drop off without sunglasses on
Do errands without full make-up and hair
Attend family gatherings without engaging in gossip or snark
…Go dancing not buzzed.
The opportunity, the practice, is to disrupt the pattern, get beneath our conditioning, and do the thing without the dimmer, the crutch, the self-protection.
What is the experience like? What do you feel? Just notice. Experience that awareness, stay in a place of inquiry and go from there. Last night Soren and I agreed to find a dance class we can take together. Just writing those words brings a tightening to my chest, but I’m going to give it a try.
What will you try clear?
Love. ❤️
Miscellaneous…
The Eight Awarenesses Round-Up Post… will come next week.
Duolingo FTW… I’m pretty sure I’m among the last on earth to have discovered this, but wow, our whole family is loving Duolingo. Gamified language learning, brilliant. We’re learning Spanish (finally).
Into non-dairy creamers? Sown is the new favorite, by far. Thank you for the tip, Eve!
This hit close to home. I used to dance with abandon before puberty, a mixture of ballet and my own hoopla to the sound of Nutcracker’s Russian Dance. I cannot seem to recapture that magic, but am trying to slowly become more comfortable with my body, enough so that I can dance in my room with the door locked.😛 The public speaking thing, too - I AM a teacher, but crowds larger than 10 scare me😬 Thank you for sharing!
Wow, Cecily. Raw, unfiltered shot glasses of vulnerability. I love it. I was just thinking about something along these lines last night, and I love this challenge! Thank you!