On Dreaming. Part 2.
Disclaimer: This post is really hard for me to write. Part One felt like a proper blog post: nice and formal about a hard, though universal, lesson. This one is different: It feels so real and vulnerable and honest. There’s no good way to be vague today and leave out details to protect myself. It was either say exactly how I feel and risk vulnerability, or write about something completely different. But in the end, I knew I had to. Because the dichotomies here are what makes being a dancer the most difficult and rewarding: the blessings and curses, the bitter-sweets, the love-hates, the passion and the rejection. Being so incredibly happy for others and simultaneously feeling defeated.
Back in March, I took myself on a vacation to London. It was one of the most wonderful and emotionally challenging trips I have experienced. I have a lot of friends there and I wanted to leisurely explore a new city. I walked over ten miles every day, saw everything you’re supposed to see in London, from Big Ben to Tower Bridge, and even fit in a trip to Stonehenge. And then I got to see some dance. My favorite company (and one that I’ve performed with several times in the last 12 years) happened to be performing at Sadler’s Wells, and I couldn’t cross the pond and not see my friends perform. And here’s where it gets real: I was so proud and excited and thrilled to see many of them making their London debut. And they were absolutely beautiful. But damn if it didn’t hurt. For so many years, I’d believed it would be me up there with them. I’d dreamt about it, worked my ass off for it, shed blood sweat and tears for it. And there I was sitting in the audience with a glass of wine.
I started feeling sorry for myself. Because that was supposed to be me up there. Because I’ve danced with those people so many times, and how come they’re on stage and I’m in the audience?! It didn’t feel fair. I was so incredibly angry at myself for not making my dream come true. For blowing it in each of the five times I’d auditioned to dance with them. For not being good enough during my performances with them to be asked to stay on full time. For not being ready when I was younger and then being too old by the time I was ready. I was suddenly a great big ball of self-loathing and self-judgement.
There’s all this talk these days (especially in the so-called “wellness” industry) about manifesting….putting your intention to the universe and watching it come back to you. Well, I hate to burst your bubble, but manifesting doesn’t always work the way we want it to. I’ve done all the meditations and intention-setting and journaling and feeling and breathing around my dance career that I can possibly do, but here I am, age 36, and it appears as though my dream of dancing full time with a company will never come true. I’ve held a lot of self-judgement about this for a good few years now, and I’ve worked on it at length with my own coach. I know that I’m the only one who get’s to say whether I’m good enough, whether my career is good enough. But it’s so easy to fall into the comparison trap, seeing people living the life you imagined for yourself and in your mind negating all of the amazing things you yourself have accomplished. We become fixated on the life we “should” be living, instead of the one we are living. We let our childhood dreams cloud our beautiful realities (much more on that here).
Most of us dancers are dreamers, but we’re also realists. Driven by passion, we’re resilient and resourceful out of necessity. I never automatically assumed I would get a job. When I was 16, I knew I didn’t have a ballerina’s aesthetic, and was happy to shift my focus to modern dance. I believed that my way to see the world would be with a touring dance company. When that wasn’t happening, I decided to start traveling on my own. I never thought I “deserved” anything. I simply worked hard. I danced with passion and drive and joy and love, and wanted my whole life to reflect that-not just my dancing life. And I think most of us are that way. We know nothing in this career is a given, and gracefully ride the ebbs and flows along the way. Still, it’s hard to accept that sometimes dreams don’t come true, no matter how hard you work for them.
And so I found myself in the audience wondering: how does one actually let go of a dream? Of self-judgement? Well, it certainly doesn’t happen all in one swift, magical, red-balloon-releasing moment as Banksy would have us believe. It happens over time. It happens as we learn to treat ourselves with compassion instead of judgement. It happens as we allow our happiness for others overflow into happiness for ourselves.
Nothing in life works on a linear trajectory, even letting go. So when the thing we want to let go of comes floating back to us, we have to acknowledge it. We have to see it through the eyes of who we are now, not the person we used to be, who was the one wanting to let go of it in the first place. That’s how progress happens. That’s what letting go is. That’s how we embrace change. It’s not simply a cutting of a string. It’s recognizing the thoughts and beliefs that brought us to that moment, and embracing the new thoughts and beliefs which allow us to become someone new.
That said, I can’t pretend it’s easy. I cried through the whole show in London. I cried for how beautiful the dancers were, I cried for myself, I cried for my lost dream, I cried because I DO love myself, I DO love my career. I cried because I know how hard self-compassion is.
But if I’m being completely honest, I actually have made my dream come true. Remember when I said manifesting doesn’t always work? Right, well, sometimes it just doesn’t work exactly as we expect it to. If we become so completely attached to one specific outcome, we miss out on the dream as it actually exists. My dream was to see the world while performing with a dance company. Ok, so what if I wasn’t on the stage that night? Being in the audience, I was just as much a part of the magic of the live performance of my dream company, experiencing a moment that will never exist the same way again. The company didn’t pay for me to get to London. Instead, I made that happen for myself, through years of work and prioritizing travel. Sometimes we just need to shift our perspective to let go of the self-judgement and realize we’re not a complete and total failure.
Being a dancer is hard. And wonderful. Because I talk so often and openly about the challenges we face, I sometimes feel like I’m perceived as focusing on the negative. And I assure you, I’m not. Acknowledging the emotional challenges doesn’t negate the passion, joy, and appreciation. I can be thrilled for my colleagues and sad for myself at the same time. I didn’t used to believe that was true. I thought it was was one or the other, and so I’ve often ignored my own psyche in favor of being happy for my friends. But we’re capable of feeling lots of things all at once. And we have to acknowledge all of it. That’s how we let go and move on. So, I give you permission to express when you’re having a hard time, and when you’re having an amazing time. Though all the rehearsals and performances, the injuries and the recoveries, the booking gigs and the getting cut, the exhaustion and the exhilaration, lets do it together. Here’s to loving ourselves, whether we’re living the dream or not.