This is about getting therapy accidentally.

Accidentally and without a lot of work.

It's something you can try too.

Here's how it happened for me once...

An excerpt from something I wrote last summer:

Thursday was tough. For various unforeseen reasons. I wanted to just stay home and feel sorry for myself.

But, I didn't.

Well, I did for a bit, but then I made myself go to class with Danica.  

We started moving, and my body and mind let go. Class continued, and my brain started breaking, in a good way. I was feeling better. Not great but better. My energy was low, so I just allowed it to be and continued on.  

And then class was over.  

I felt tired. I felt better. And I realized that I'd just had a much needed dose of flamenco therapy.

A few days later, I gave myself some more

Without exactly meaning to.

It started while teaching.

I had been in a bad mood, or maybe just a sad mood, before class. And low on energy. A big blob of something was weighing me down.

I didn't want to move. I didn't want to go anywhere. Especially not to a place where there would be people.

But off I went to the studio. I motivated because I had to. Well, I suppose I didn't have to, but it would have been weird and irresponsible not to have shown up to teach my own class.

So there we all were in class

Clicking and clacking on the castanets.

Clicking and clacking away all kinds of negativity.

Then class ended, and everyone left.

But I wasn't ready to go yet

I needed more movement. And I definitely needed to make more noise.

So that's what I did.

I left feeling lighter.

Freer

Less worried

Less stressed

And less sad

Still tired.  But with a new energy.  And a different outlook.

I hadn't intended to give myself flamenco therapy, but that's what I did.

I feel grateful

To plans.

To committing to being somewhere.

To schedules and classes for making things happen.

And, of course, grateful to flamenco for helping me those two days and on so many others...

I had to write about this

To remember how it makes me feel when I just do flamenco, and enjoy it.

I had to write it down so that I could reread it when I think I don't want to do flamenco anymore.  Because sometimes I think that.

I had to write it down to remind myself that I do.

To remind myself to go dance right away.

Or to remind myself that if I don't feel like doing it right now, that it's okay. It doesn't mean I have to stop completely. It could just mean I wait, and do it later. Or it could just mean do it anyway because it might feel good once I get started.

I had to write it down to remind myself that flamenco makes me feel good.

Sometimes I wonder why I don't do it more often.

Comments

This makes me think of that time Damian came to class and told me about how he'd been having a really bad day until he got out his castanets and played them for an hour. Whereupon he felt so much better. What about you? What kind of flamenco therapy have you experienced? I would love to hear about it. Leave a comment here.

...

A Weekend of Flamenco Therapy

March 7-9 we'll have a flamenco intensive at the beach. A flamenco retreat! You can view the details here.