Podcast Episode 40: The Dance by Garth Brooks - Extraordinary Women Magazine

Welcome to Episode 40! I can’t believe I began this crazy idea 40 weeks ago and have produced a new podcast every single week! Crazy consistent for a gal who is energized by everything new.

Today’s podcast is titled The Dance, which is a very beautiful song by Garth Brooks. I recently heard Kelly Clarkson sing it when Garth was honored by the Kennedy Center. Here it is if you’d like to listen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=txBShrdpnzU

The lyrics touched me so deeply I almost began to cry when I heard it sung.

“And now I’m glad I didn’t know
The way it would all end, the way it all would go
Our lives are better left to chance
I could have missed the pain
But I’d have had to miss the dance.”

Our conversation today is about our own dance of life … letting go of regrets and always being excited about the dance we are currently dancing.

Life IS sort of like a dance, isn’t it?

There are slow parts …. when we maybe wonder what’s next or feel sort of stuck in the moment. We’re still moving but the music and our movements are slow and steady.

Then there are the crazy, excited parts when we are riding high and have no idea how or when our joy will end. We’re pumping our arms, hopping from move to move and leaping around the room.

There are some dances when we have a partner. Dancing with another person changes everything. To be in sync, we often must conform our moves to that other person, so we are compatible, and the dance is smooth.

When we dance with a partner, we rarely have the option to go totally off script and hop into a solo creative moment. How many of us can relate to that type of a dance at some point in our lives?

Often though, we dance alone, so we have to be comfortable dancing by ourselves, center stage. Think of little children. They love to dance alone. They have no need for a partner, and most of the time, if they have an audience, they will only dance bigger. So as children, we are most comfortable dancing alone and love an audience. Yet as adults, we often don’t love the times when we are dancing alone, and hardly ever think of dancing in front of an audience.

Well, let’s rethink that!!

Why not dance your wildest and biggest dance in front of the world! This is all part of living and loving your true self. Are you without flaws? Absolutely not … none of us are….and yet, we each have our own perfect ways of dancing to whatever music we are hearing that are as unique as when we were little children bouncing around to a beat.

So, if we are to relate this to life,

What is it that you want to do? What is it that you want to try? Embrace the child in you and try things that you don’t know whether or not you’ll ever be good at it, but you just want to try it. What would that be? Start a vlog? Spend time in a French chateau? Landscape your backyard? Try painting? Make a list!

I bring up solo dancing because there is a huge movement of solo living in the world. I’m going to be talking about this more in a future podcast, but solo living, working, and traveling is on the rise and if you’re like me, you also might be living solo and want to learn ways to truly create an even bigger life, a bigger dance so to speak.

But for now, let’s revisit the dance metaphor.

Like the lyrics of Garth’s song, we never know what our next dance will be. We don’t know if how the music is going to change. We don’t know if our next dance is solo or with a partner or a child. All we know is that the music will change. Therefore, we have to be ready for anything and feel the flexibility to adjust to whatever the music.

But what I find so interesting is if life is a dance, I can see that we only get stuck when we stop dancing.

It’s when we aren’t actually moving, that regrets will start to show up. I have to work on letting go of my regrets all the time and this realization has help me to keep moving. It’s so easy to imagine what our lives would have been like if we hadn’t taken that wrong turn. If we hadn’t married or loved that man or woman. If we hadn’t lost ourselves somewhere along the way.

But if we are moving in a dance, we can see and feel the gifts of our past dances, but we do it with a smile on our faces and our arms raised up towards the sky. Try it!

Because when we are actually dancing, we can’t think about what happened last year or even yesterday. If we do, we’ll lose our steps for today’s dance or just stop moving. Dancing requires us to be constantly present in the moment and frankly, our bodies are made for moving.

But how do we appreciate the dance we’re dancing today and let all our mistakes go?

We just do. We learn to love ourselves enough to say, I’m dancing today’s dance and that is what matters.

But, if you find yourself stuck in regrets, here’s a little tip I use myself.

Ask yourself what is it that you are getting from focusing on your mistakes?

Does it improve your mindset?

Is it motivating you to take on new accomplishments?

Most likely not … now maybe you just need a little pity party. We all do sometimes. So have that party, mourn what didn’t happen for a few minutes, and then get on with dancing today’s dance.

And remember, we only think about the past when we aren’t dancing in the present.

If you reflect on those people who you truly admire, my guess is they each kept on dancing no matter what happened, what roadblock, what trauma appeared in their lives. We admire the ability to keep on dancing in other people … so be who YOU admire.

Create your play list, invite your best friends over and have a dance party.

On July 1^st, the second issue of Be the Real You magazine is coming out! I’m so excited I’m dancing!!

This issue is about summer – water, dressing up, taking care of our health and enjoying all those moments we now have. Everything feels new right now, doesn’t it? We’ve all been in sort of a time-out for the past year and suddenly we have been let out of our rooms! Everything is appealing and we want to do and experience all of life again and that means we can move.

The dance of life has just gotten bigger for us.

Be the Real You Magazine is a support for you. It’s meant to be like your best friend, there with good ideas, fun activities, people to connect with, and always accepting and loving of who you really are. The real you.

So, if you haven’t already subscribed, Press the subscribe button and do it. The magazine is just $29.99/year …. you’ll love it because that’s what all my current subscribers are saying.

And ladies…. let’s keep on dancing this crazy dance of life.

Be the woman you most admire. Be The Real You.

A bientôt.