Blogpost 5 : Dance = Happiness

Happiness is what we treasure in life. We cherish happiness because it is one of the most precious things that I know that is needed to be given value of. But reaching the happiness that you really want is hard. There are things that stop happiness from happening. But we all have ways on how to overcome these that stops me from being happy: dancing.

There’s this one time when I was really feeling like I’m lost because of the stress and everything. I was this close to giving up but I tried to let it all out. I locked myself in my room and listened to loud music. I just keep on throwing things around like a mad person just to let everything out. But still there’s something deep inside that I can’t get out. Then a song played. It is entitled ‘Fix You’ by Coldplay. I tried to lie down in my bed and just listened to it. While I was listening, tears keep on dropping from my eyes. I started to move a little bit not knowingly, I was already dancing. I got up on my bed, danced all throughout my room. As the song fades, I ended up looking in the mirror, smiling at myself, feeling so light. It’s like dancing lifted me up and lead me to happiness.

I researched an article entitled “Mind Your Body: Dance Yourself Happy” in psychologytoday written by Lane Anderson. This article tells how dance improve your social skills, lift up your spirits, even reversing depression. It also conveys studies that prove dance can affect people emotionally and physically.

“The physically expressive nature of dance also helps people release and thereby recognize pent-up feelings, the first step to dealing with them. "Depressed patients tend to have a curved back, which brings the head down so it's facing the ground," says Donna Newman-Bluestein, a dance therapist with the American Dance Therapy Association. "Dancing lifts the body to an open, optimistic posture."”

This article really informed me well on how dance really help those who are not only emotionally but also physically weak. It’s like dancing serves as their therapy for their weakness. I can compare dancing to a cast on an injured person. The cast will help the injured person heal the affected part of the body within a particular time. Just like dancing, it will heal the person’s emotional weakness and will lift us up from our misery.

Another article that I can relate to is entitled “Dance your way to happiness and success” in thechangeblog by Jerry Stocking. This article shows how mind is easily bothered with sadness but when dance takes place, dance highlights the body which will make mind a little part of you. I like his ending quote, “While your mind seeks to take what it considers to be the direct route, your body doesn’t have to. Dancing from here to there reminds you that it is the journey, not the here or there that is important.”

Whenever we feel troubled, lost; find time to just relax and listen to music. Let everything out to express what you really feel. Try to dance. I know it’s hard but somehow it will help you lighten up the heaviness you fell inside and lead you all the way to happiness.