Have you ever believed in something about yourself and thought that was the only truth? Maybe something negative? Well, let me tell you, if you believe something negative about yourself it is not true.. it is so much more about perspective. I also know how hard it it so see how a “fault” can actually be a “strength”
here is my own story about where I “knew something about myself that was negative and “nothing to do about”, and how that got totally reversed in one hour..
I started dancing at 17 years old, which is late in the dance world. That is what happens when you come from a small town in north of Sweden were there was no opportunities to study dance. I remember when as a chubby 10y old girl, I was dancing in my room, listening to the “Swan lake ballet on CD and dreaming about becoming a ballerina.
20 years later ( what! 20y omg, why does it not feel as long as 20 years sounds) I have experienced a big shift from my ballerina dreams and looking at my tiny turn out” and feeling bad. In dance terms, turn out” means how much you can turn your legs outward from your hips so that your knees and feet turns out toward the diagonal, or as a professional ballerina, that would mean, feet straight to the sides.
Now, honestly I don´t give a.. (feel free to add whatever bad language you want here..) about it as I did between the age of 10-25 when I constantly felt that my body was not build to dance. And in some way it is true, i am not build to do some techniques, like classical ballet. But the thing is that I don´t care! And I do train in ballet but with amazing ballet teachers as Martha Chapman who has a similar view as the simonson teachnique, I also find her hilarious which makes me love her even more. (If you are located in NYC, take Marthas ballet classes.)
So, why don´t I feel bad about it anymore? Cause I found the amazing technique “Simonson Technique”, And I traveled to NYC to study just that, and after the first day my whole world changed.
I had a one on one assessment with the simonson teacher, Katiti King and after 25 years of thinking my body was not good enough for dance she threw that out the window. Instead she explained perfectly what I could do to improve my technique through my individual body. And that there was nothing wrong with my body, and that I could do anything I wanted as a dancer.. it suddenly felt so amazing being unique!
(here is where the “Happy” song comes in, I know it was not playing back then but hey, you can hear it don´t you)
After that I feel I can become a beautiful dancer because I am working with what I got focusing on improving my individual body in a technical way.
Why I am writing about this is because I want you to know that even if you think that you know the truth about all the negative things inside yourself, it might be, and probably is, not even close to the truth. It might be even so that it is one of your strengths and what makes you unique!
Have you ever had an experience were “a negative truth” about yourself suddenly changed for the better?