Following ourselves home

There I was in love. I had fallen. I had allowed myself to fall…. it was a listening journey. A journey in a world of change where the big pause button had been pressed by mother nature.
A needed pause, an about time for us all to stop and listen and hear what really matters. A pause causing so much fear collectively and yet I loved it. I loved the needing to stay in place doing no thing, reorienting myself, the main purpose being love. Being loved, sharing love, talking love and holding love – most importantly finding my self love. Maybe the exact time we all have been preparing for. Fear on high volume, boundaries of how to feel safe and for all of us an unvoluntary vulnerable jump into the river of the unknown. Trust stood its test and the need to show up to what was happening on the inside threw its doors wide open. The raw truth of who we are when normalities and what we might had taken for granted was taken away.
The listening to our body’s lead enhanced with the knowing that only we – you and I – could adjust, unlearn to re-learn in the adaptations needed when the cosy confines of opportunities to seek pleasure, entertainment, connection no longer there…. only Mother Nature in all her spring time beauty as our best teacher in sustaining our joy more silent than ever calling us all back home.

I loved it.
Landing in the middle of the wilderness of Northern California she called me back home and even though a pandemic was not what I was planning on for my three month stay in the mecca of conscious movement, it turned out to be exactly what was needed to find love – self love to follow myself home.
A grief deeper than deep accompanied me when this luscious adventure was coming to an end. A grief of having to leave the land that made me feel more home than ever before, leaving the god of a man who had taught me about the woman I like to be, the grief of going home to the known.
I realised I thrive in the unknown. Old fears became uncharged almost worthless in my inner landscape of worry land. The unknown presented itself as a beasty bastard at times and yet a gift to finally to let it go, I mean really let it all go. Let go of every single story and illusion of how things should be looking – a complete let go of myself and my passion to what I do.

One day in the magical meadow the grief showed its deeper meaning – actually I was grieving the ending of a shut down world. The expectations most of all the ones towards myself, the what’s next, questions not even ready to be heard arose. The world had changed and so had I forever. I was on a three month quest to go with effortlessness and it was coming to an end. With the world opening up again changes still unpolished old habits of self judgement surfaced and it wasn’t pretty.

When finally having my visa extended my entire body was feeling a degree and depth of relaxation like never felt before. The last weekend to be in this land of home I marvelled in natural time in relating with the man I had fallen for honouring him for his strength, his truth and devotional commitment to himself. I bowed for the dance of dialogue we shared non-stop for 2 months. My stay was coming to an end, ease was swirling in every cell of my body and everything felt like solidly landed…. at least that is what I thought.

We layed on the bed him reading out loud to me and in the mirror in front of me I saw my naked body. What I saw was the direct opposite of what I had seen and been seen with for months. My self hatred and disgust came, and it came with volume fully amped up. My body shut down and the words of the very interesting book he read out loud (one of my favourite things in the world by the way) was not enterring my body, I could not hear anything. I was deafened by my own inner voice beating me up for being fat, ugly, digusting laying there with all that skin in big folds. Laying next to a honk of a man, did he even like how I looked? He probably just did me for the amazing conscious love making we experienced, my size being a turn-off. He came to the end of the chapter and started talking about the last part he read. I was still in shut down not even hearing what he said.
My body was burning. My belly tightening, an acidic sensation ran up my heart and the inside of my throat thick. I managed to find the courage to open my mouth and share what was going on. There I lay still naked sharing my deepest wound of all and he received it.
He began talking about himself and his own experiences of hating himself. I did not listen, I still could not hear. I was way too busy to tend to what was going on in and under my skin. He wished to understand the disgust I felt. He wanted to let me know he did love my body but nothing, absolutely nothing was getting in. I only heard the parts and words fitting my story of him turned on by thin, long, lean bodies as far away from how I am carved out. I told him how my listening happened through the eye of a needle and whatever he would say, I was not able to receive.
All that I had experienced of luscious, sexiness and bodily freedom just died right there in an instant! I was all closed and could only do one thing, surrender.
The quest I was on when coming here for three months had one more stone to turn – the need to work with the disgust and shame I had with my body not for me to carry in this life time. Of course it needed to appear in my last week here. I was caught by surprise of how self hate that had not been on the menu the last months – the quite opposite in fact – and here it was was served as dessert, a deep talk and sweetly snuggled up drifting into sleep.

And that was not the end of it!
The following morning I woke up from a dream of being in a room with him having sex with a beautiful woman thin, tight skin, flat bellied her carried by him, her legs around his waist, them having amazing sex. I could not get out, I wanted to but I was obligated to see them in their ecstasy doing things him and I could not – one thing is for sure this girl dancer is too heavy to be swung around like that….
I woke up with the images not wanting to leave my head. After dancing for an hour I was doing my best to create some kind of spaciousness in belly and head. The images of them, the self hating image of myself, the words he had said – especially the ones not said – was pounding loud and fast in my body.

Mother Nature was calling me home and I went to the field. I called a dear friend. She lovingly listened, gave no advice, just nodding and let me know how much she loved my fleshy belly. After emptying the overload of words and emotions I could open myself up for space again and so I did…. in wide format.
In the following meditation a tree with a red stem and strong, shiny, green leaves grew out my heart. I opened my eyes. I saw the blue between the leaves of the tree more than the tree itself landing in a place of surrender and gratitude to what had been shown to me. My self hatred that had been stead asleep and needing to surface to be seen and nourished and it had nothing to do with him, I knew that all along.

Right there in the knee high grass of the meadow I saw “the what’s next”. In all its colours, shapes, ways and qualities I had gotten to experience what so many of us long for. Daring to feel the uncomfortable, have the tough conversations, be vulnerable when hiding away was the easiest. Him the honk my teacher, I the listener to a sleeping beast within me. The dance communion that always had freaked me out – when intimately relating in particular – and there in a pandemic far away from home I was forced to be with what was appearing from the silence. Being seen 24/7 and no where to run. I met myself at the edge and fell over to discover a creativity long not felt. I was ready to come up for air. “You learned your lesson, now make it a teaching” was the message.

What was in my way was the way.
I got to experience how the song we play to ourselves has a direct effect on our ability to show up to what is actually happening and on what we bring to the relational dance with an other.
I showed up to and with what was happening in me. Painful truths were shared with a grace and clarity without making the other wrong.
Is that not what life is all about?
Is that what we all longed for before we were asked to stay at home? To see and be seen in our true selves, connected, loved and held for whatever bullshit coming up?
What an amazing opportunity given to make us feel more, do less and be true.
If this real living is what a forced shelter in place a wondrous gap taking us all out of the normal brings, I vow myself to show up for the presumed second wave’s teachings heart first. I call it following ourselves home…..

“Write what needs to be read” – Brene Brown

“I exist”

Year of 2018 has been one of the toughest ones regarding seeing reality in its nakedness. The time came where we saw situations and relations for what they were and not what we desired them to be. We took off our rose-colored glasses and were seen messy, vulnerable, afraid, and present.
The old beliefs was taken to ground, new questions arising as the mist gradually cleared and now more importantly than ever we are called to stand tall in who we truly are.
We are important. We matter.

“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings”– Lao Tzu

I could have kept telling myself that all was good, that I am not in it for the money, I can take care of myself and do not need any help. Truth is, I know the one who takes care of it all way too good, the one jumping back in the saddle to keep moving forward.
I wish to surrender and lean into the arms of support trusting that I do not need to chase anything. The most important practice is the one I do right now, sharing the most intimate and vulnerable words I can and through sharing I might inspirer courage for others whos behaviour is to put on an armor and only share what the fits, is appropriate or expected. It was my motivation 15 years ago when this journey as a pioneer, an entrepreneur, a first mover began.

Back to the beginning.
Last part of 2018 I went back to the beginning.
I revisited the four agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz and found two major points I did not live myself.
Indeed I did not speak with impeccability towards myself. For years I have run a business with the assumption of never succeeding anyways. Phew, no wonder it has felt like a battle.
I lived with five injunctions saying: “don’t be important”, “don’t be vulnerable”, “don’t be wealthy”, “don’t be big”, “don’t exist”.
The last one knocked my socks off….
To have lived as a spiritual being, traveling the world with mindful movement practice which narrowed down is about through movement to feel safe to be who we are – enough, held – and there I was with the ground melody of ‘do not exist’.

Both hurt and understanding came. My manifestation’s fuel has been will power (noting that in my world there is nothing wrong with having a strong will power) but my longing for soft and relaxed surrendering suddenly had an explanation.
I was fighting myself all these years with not honouring everything that I am and always having a feeling of running two steps forward and 1,5 backwards….

So to round up 2018 I did the work. Went the places that was not pretty. Wrote through the past and present self sabotaging behaviours. Sat myself down each and every morning and asked the questions I was afraid to hear the answer to: Cried my way through meditations and kept the journal close…
On the outside everything more or less looks the same but on the inside everything feels new.

… and I am curious to know are we all feeling the same?
That the need to lean into the arms of community and together rise rooted?
Can we step together as one, fiercely willing and greatly daring to say what needs to be heard and become our own greatest inspiration?
If so, I believe we can create a new degree of worthiness for ourselves and for everyone around us. The world need more leaders and we are it. We exist. We are important. We are worthy.
This is what I am passionate about teaching, standing tall for, heart talking about….

In making new agreements my first fumbling the written word, here is the answer to one injunction practice I had, the one saying: “Do not exist”. I give to you my first written poem.

I Exist
~ by Camilla

In deep gratitude and love,
Camilla

May is approaching fast…

Two years of learning, un-learning and re-learning with this amazing movement collective, a family of souls meeting within the dance. Soul Motion® Teacher Training is coming to an end, May 21st to be exact.
It comes to an end and will begin again and again.

The teachings are everywhere and forever unfolding.

I have had the feeling as if everything I ever learned is being torn apart to land re-arranged and re-constructed in me.
I sometimes have had no idea where the class – us in unity – would end.
I have been through journeys of feeling love in greater degree than ever before followed by the deepest self-disgust, self-hatred and non-love. I have been digging into the deepest fears of never having enough to the total bliss of sensing that we are all One.
Old habit of doing has showed its face, smacking my face with judgement and impatience, eager to label non-doing with laziness and being unstructured to then re-orientate myself into “the less I do the more happens” If I make that choice.

It is when I get stuck in the habit, caught in the emotional drama, far from what is really happening, disconnecting myself from the whole, that my lack of direction, loss of focus happens.
I get weak and tired as the inner voice is blabbering with old tunes of not good enough.
I am doing it all myself, I am the one to blame and the one who can change that tune.

Instead of battling that voice, I welcome it – I invite it in at the buffet.
Let her be moved.
That’s where acceptance happens and the shift of perspective happens.
“I am one with all one” the phrase of The Dance Infinate, the dance where I devote myself to the experience, one element or everything experienced on the floor and bring it into my everyday.

I am ok. I am allowed. I am love.
I dare to be and recognize the pain under my skin and meanwhile recognize it in those around me.

This morning I took a half step back and began again in my Mindful Movement 8am morning journey.
Maybe the time of the day, that special morning vibe that did the magic. Maybe the words below made the room unfold as well as my new flower nourished every day from now on and ahead – acceptance.

When allowing, accepting, not expecting nor intending I was touched by grace.
With one hand reaching out and one hand reaching in, I am overflowing with love
Here’s the words that we dived into, surrounded us with as we took a step in all directions.

May this note from my heart be in ever inspiration….

….
We cannot transform our lives, unless we allow them to be transformed by that stroke of grace. It happens; or it does not happen. And certainly it does not happen if we try to force it upon ourselves, just as it shall not happen so long as we think, in our self-complacency, that we have no need of it. Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual, because we have violated another life, a life which we loved, or from which we were estranged. It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: ​​
“You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!” If that happens to us, we experience grace. After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed. In that moment, grace conquers sin, and reconciliation bridges the gulf of estrangement. And nothing is demanded of this experience, no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition, nothing but acceptance.
~ Paul Tillich’s Sermon Shaking the Foundations

“Know what you want or don’t get it has been one phrase that kept ringing my ear.
I had forgotten my yes. I knew what I did not want and navigated through and from that. I did not see clearly what I really wished for.

When creating a new name for my seven year old dance studio and movement space, a new logo and website I got to dance the waves of highs and lows.
How did I see “ME” presented online? What to write and how to communicate it to a person that builds websites?
I knew in my heart that I found the perfectly right person in Anneli.
We both allowed feelings of shy, humble, insecurity and excitement of our creative process together that was ahead of us.

Me knowing my “no” so well became an advantage for our dance of communicating via email and in video conference calls. I was clear making it easier for Anneli to take next steps.
We enjoyed every meeting we had also when challenging not technical possible for us to get it like we wanted. We managed, tweaked, added and deleted and got great support from plug-in teams.

We both have a passion for images that takes our breath away. We both have a sense of detail.
That for me was such a relief as I often heard a voice in me saying that “that little detail doesn’t matter”, but it does – to me.

We have created a website for me that has every small detail thought of.
It is a reflection of me and the self-empowerment feeling I sit with today three days after sending it into the world, feels so right.
When the website was actually finished and ready to be shown to the world, my perfectionist voice came. I wanted all to be read through. When the last days for that came, I was tired, my body said pause and rest.
So I did, I listened and nurtured myself with good food, naps and walks.
I did not go into the habitual letting the perfectionist take over as a bad excuse to jump out into the new…

Faster than expected all technicalities of re-directing the old website got done and Be moved was in the world.
Not edited completely into every single little detail, and with a deep breath I proudly presented it and allowed the tapping faults, a couple of places had my old email address standing in there.
I kept moving forward and not being in the old “not good enough mentality”

So, this past month has been a mastery of self process to me.
To allow all emotions in.
To keep moving forward and get a little done every day
To do my practice consistently and stay focused.

With the artistry that Anneli is gifted with and how she gracefully assist and accompany my ideas and my passion for lifting people to shine their light and let them unleash what might had become hidden Self unveiled was born
Out of the idea that the gifts Anneli and I have alone and together could be a gift for other
We are a great couple, we inspire and make each other think deeper. We wished to have a new creation together and self unveiled domain was bought the day after launch of my website.
We laughed about how our muses were activated and so inspired.

What I take with me from this experience is how important it is to keep dancing through life as a everyday practice. Just like in music – the festive dress of silence – I have experienced the importance of pausing being in silence.
To have spaces in between the to dos for me. To take a walk or watch a movie even though some text “needed to be done.”
The more I forced the words to come through my fingers and into the keyboard, the less happened.
How important it has been to let the “work we done so far” rest and breathe and go back in and out of the website with new eyes.”

Maybe we are the ones you been waiting for.
Get into your body and create from there – we are both passionate movement teachers and living life consciously is what we praise and practice.

In the process of setting your focus and sharpening your intent to create a visual identity that holds you, Self unveiled will take you into deeper layers of yourself.
Become unveiled and nothing will be in the way of you shining your light.