Gabrielle Roth’s soul-centric movement guidance deepened my shadow work.
I’ve studied and utilized many forms of shadow work over four years. This year, I’ve prioritized tuned-in free-form dancing as a near-daily practice that catalyzes my inner processing.
Roth, author of the bestselling book “Sweat Your Prayers: The Five Rhythms of the Soul,” guides us into an intimate connection with our bodies and spirits through free-form dance.
“Doing what I have come to call ‘the five rhythms’ is the surest way to drop whatever you are carrying and move beyond your baggage to a new you and a new body – one that is fueled by its soul,” Roth wrote.
I outlined Roth’s spiritual approach in: “Heal Your Soul in Dance With 5 Rhythms” and “How Roth’s Dance Archetypes Facilitate Wholeness.” This post covers more specific concepts for getting started and dropping in.
I’ve religiously practiced ecstatic dancing for a year now, and I love it so much. I consistently discover new things in my body and my connection with others. The practice feels like active imagination, a common shadow work approach.
Though the ancient Greeks who discovered ecstatic dance probably weren’t thinking about shadow work, the two activities flow well together, like meditation and dance. It’s about bringing more awareness and mindfulness into the moment.
Shadow work refers to the process of making our unconscious mind conscious; it’s a core part of psychoanalyst Carl Jung’s path to individuation or wholeness.
Whatever your approach, ecstatic dance offers numerous physical and mental benefits. The Greeks practiced it as a way to feel transcendent and free. Flash forward to the 1970s, Roth brought this mindful movement back with gentle structures to lead us into more flow states. Now people around the world practice the “5 Rhythms” consistently.
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Five dance concepts to consider
Roth prepares us for “the practice” with five key concepts and one daring question: “Do you have the discipline to be a free spirit?”
- Destination, Direction
- Space
- Attention, Awareness, Action
- Breath
- Music
“We’ve become so destination-oriented that we’ve lost our sense of direction, our ability to follow our own instincts, signals, and inner messages. Somehow, it’s become more important to get wherever we’re going than it is to enjoy the scenery along the way,” Roth wrote.
Take a different way back when you go somewhere. See what you discover. That’s a practice I do often after reading this section of the practice.
“Miracles can happen when each person seeks out the empty space rather than focusing on the idea that the person next to them is taking up all the room, and then grumbling and moaning about it,” Roth explained.
During warm-up walking meditations, she guides dancers to move into the space not occupied by another body or body part. Paying attention to the free space enables fluid motion through hundreds of moving people. I experience this regularly at community ecstatic dance.
“Attention is a bridge between the receptive feminine energy of awareness and the outgoing, masculine energy of action. It takes discipline to develop attention and awareness. One of the biggest challenges is to keep my awareness in my body, not in my head where it can distract me in a million ways,” Roth shared.
She recommends grounding your awareness into your feet and shifting attention to specific body parts. She includes a tactical inventory of things to start paying attention to:
- Head: What’s your state of mind?
- Shoulders: Do they feel tight? What are they holding?
- Elbows: Follow them around the room.
- Right hand: What does it want to say to you?
- Left hand: Does it feel different than the right? How?
- Spine: Is it loose or tight? Isolate it. Lean up against the wall, lie down on the floor, move like a snake.
- Chest: Sunken? Puffed out? What attitudes and feelings live here?
- Hips: So many stories live here. What are yours?
- Knees: Are they locked or loose? Is there any trauma? What do they have to tell?
- Feet: What part of your foot do you walk on? Do you have a work-out walk, ballet walk, tight-show-high-heel walk?
I think about these questions regularly when I dance and feel more connected to the stories stored in my body.
“Breath is a promiscuous lover. The breath you just took was in someone else a moment ago, and when you let go, it’ll move on and become part of someone else. Breath keeps everything moving; without it, there can be no dance,” wrote Roth.
Notice where your breath is going and where it’s not going.
“Maybe there is no movement in a shoulder or in your pelvis; no movement means no breath. Focus on this part of you, breathe into it, and let go of whatever it is holding. Every part of us needs breath to catalyze its function,” Roth explained.
The breath focus transforms my dance into a moving meditation, and I love it.
With music, discover what turns you on. What is your body responding to? Specific lyrics or beats? What wants to be expressed?
“The rhythms can be done to any kind of music. It’s what gets your mojo working that counts. Being fluid is the goal – to be absolutely fluid, to hold back nothing, to trust, and to have faith in whims, impulses, desires, and other acts of intuition,” Roth described.
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My shadow work process
When I began shadow work, I’d left my full-time job for an open-ended sabbatical. I spent so much time with therapy, creative projects, and inner work activities.
As I’ve re-integrated my career, I’m exploring ways to balance inner and outer work. My dance practice gives me access to my inner realm so directly. Like my yoga practice, I feel a drastic difference with a few minutes of morning movement.
When I was getting over a difficult breakup, I leaned into my dance as a path to alchemize the heavy feelings. I noticed myself doing this clearing motion with my arms wildly and rapidly. I aggressively shook out every part of my body as I felt myself screaming on the inside.
I tune into my need for rest. Showing up in the morning, sometimes my session becomes more grounding, slow-moving, and restorative. I sense the somatic need for balance, and I listen.
I get to experience all the extremes in my emotional field in a safe, artistic container.
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Through readings, research, conversations, personal experience, and observation, it’s clear that conscious movement elevates shadow work and self-acceptance.
“Your soul is a seeker, lover, and artist, shape-shifting through archetypal fields of energy, between your darkness and light, your body and spirit, your heaven and hell, until you land in the sweet moment of surrender when you as a dancer, disappear in the dance,” said Roth.
Her book inspired so much depth and experimentation in my practice. I incorporate so many concepts on a daily basis, and I feel more fluid, whole, and at home in my body. I highly recommend picking up a copy and exploring your unique dance practice.
I wrote more on shadow work practices in my previous posts:
Photo Credit: Unsplash, by Ahmad Odeh
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