“I have trouble letting others lead me.”
“It’s hard to trust/let go of control.”
“As soon as I start dancing with someone, I forget everything.”
Do these sound familiar?
I hear these statements pretty frequently in dance classes as well as from people who get close to dancing, but never take the leap. If you didn’t catch it yet, all of these comments reveal some anxiety hiding beneath the surface. And I get it — dancing with others can be scary!
The first thing I want to acknowledge is, if you say this in a dance class, you’ve already done the hardest thing, which is just to show up! Yay you!
you can Rewire your brain
But I want to give you a little more encouragement. For whatever reason your nervous system is getting anxious when dancing with other people (generalized anxiety, trauma, social anxiety, feeling “not good enough,” etc.), you can rewire your brain to feel more comfortable and confident while dancing.
Yes, you really can! But how?
Your brain will build new neural pathways (literally rewiring itself) when you have new, positive experiences with the thing that scares you. Yep, more than saying affirmations, more than picking through your brain to dissect the problem, getting out there and having new experiences is your best medicine. Just by showing up to class and having fun dancing with others, you are doing the work of slowly re-training your brain and your emotional regulation system. SO COOL, right?! These moments can be as short as one song to contribute to positive change.
The brain learns from experience, and it will re-learn with experience, too. Out with the old, in with the new.
Recently, I was learning about ADHD and the authors of the book ADHD 2.0 said something that I had never thought of, but made so much sense. Your brain regenerates neurons & neural connections with movement. That means dancing is one of the absolute best ways to rewire your brain!
Just like any other learning, repeating your exposure to these experiences will be a necessary part of making the change. Be consistent, be committed, and eventually you’ll look back one day and go, “Holy crap! I’m doing it. I’m doing the thing that once terrified me.”
Throw Unhelpful Thoughts Away
Before I say anything else, let me affirm that you are worthy of dancing. Just by existing, you are worthy. You belong here, exactly as you are, with whatever skills and abilities you have or don’t have.
If you’re someone having specific troubles around worthiness and judgment, something I have practiced is checking unhelpful thoughts like they were a ping pong ball coming at you. Just ping! and send them away, every time. It may take awhile to notice, but eventually you’ll find the judgmental thoughts grow fewer.
It’s important to remember that we are NOT our thoughts. Thousands of thoughts will cross our minds every day, but they are just the random production of a brain often working at hyper speed, using too little information, and being quite impulsive. Do not take your thoughts too seriously. Even when a really effed up thought crosses your mind, just ping it away and go “that one was weird, right?”
One of the dancers in my class last year said, “the dance seems to go better when I don’t let myself think the bad thoughts.” Others have said similar things since, because it’s true! Allowing the bad thoughts in just makes the worry worse, and distracts us from the dance. Blocking out those thoughts will lead to much better dancing. You’ll get out of your way and start having more fun, which is the entire point of dancing, right?
That’s just the first step, but replacing those thoughts with positive reframes can be helpful. After you throw away a trashy thought, replace it with a better one, such as “I am getting braver every day.”
Here are a few helpful thoughts you can substitute in when you’re having an unhelpful one:
I am doing my best right now.
This is where I need to be.
It doesn’t matter what anyone else is doing; this is my journey.
I am getting better all the time.
What other people think is a reflection of them, not of me.
I can do hard things.
I am proud of myself for being here.
Finally, I want you to start looking for moments where you DO feel worthy and capable. Notice them. Collect those moments like a kid collects cool rocks. Plaster the walls of your brain with them. Put them on actual sticky notes if it helps. Grow your collection of moments where you feel worthy and you’ll start to feel that way all the time.
Choose a teacher that will help
Now, as a teacher, it’s also partly my responsibility to make sure you have positive experiences in class. The teacher helps sets the tone and environment, so let me explain some things I do to help:
Everyone who attends classes, socials, and weekenders with FTLOB must sign that they will abide by our Code of Conduct. This makes people aware of how they interact with others and generally chases away the most unsafe people.
No unsolicited feedback in class. Unsolicited feedback feels like the absolute worst thing when you’re working through vulnerability in a learning setting. That’s why in my class, no one is allowed to give unsolicited feedback except for the teacher, and even then I think carefully about what is most important in the moment before sharing. I never want to overwhelm you or make you feel like you’re not doing well. I do, however, want to build your confidence through small, actionable tips.
I demonstrate the kindness, compassion, and patience I want to see in others in all my actions to the best of my ability, and I remind students to give themselves grace when I observe they’re having a hard moment.
you are not alone
If you are struggling with anxiety in dance, please know you are not alone. So many dancers come to my classes with these thoughts, and I, too, have dealt with similar feelings in other contexts. Anxiety, unworthiness, and other destructive feelings are products of the fast-paced, perfectionistic, competition-driven culture we live in and you are perfectly normal for struggling with your brain’s reaction to this environment. With some re-training, you can make your brain a more beautiful place, even when the world is putting on the pressure.
If you’ve struggled with anxiety in dancing, tell me in the comments what has helped you move through it. Maybe your story will inspire another dancer.