Each of us is a moving center, a space of divine mystery. And though we spend most of our time on the surface in the daily details of ordinary existence, most us hunger to connect to this space within, to break through to bliss, to be swept away into something bigger than us.

As a young dancer, I made the transition from the world of steps and structures to the world of transformation and trance by exposure to live drumming. The beats, the patterns, the rhythms kept calling me deeper and deeper into my dance.

Being young, wild and free, it didn’t dawn on me that in order to go into deep ecstatic places, I would have to be willing to transform absolutely everything that got in my way. That included every form of inertia: the physical inertia of tight and stressed muscles; the emotional baggage of depressed, repressed feelings; the mental baggage of dogmas, attitudes and philosophies. In other words, I’d have to let it all go — everything.

At the time, I was teaching movement to tens of thousands of people and, in them, I began to witness my own body/spirit split. Between the head and feet of any given person is a billion miles of unexplored wilderness. I yearned to know what was going on in that wilderness, not only in me, but in everyone else as well.

And so, movement became both my medicine and my meditation. Having found and healed myself in its wild embrace, I became a mapmaker for others to follow, but not in my footsteps, in their own. Many of us are looking for a beat, something solid and rooted where we can take refuge and begin to explore the fluidity of being alive, to investigate why we often feel stuck, numb, spaced-out, tense, inert, and unable to stand up or sit down or unscramble the screens that reflect our collective insanity.

The question I ask myself and everyone else is, “Do you have the discipline to be a free spirit?” Can we be free of all that binds and bends us into a shape of consciousness that has nothing to do with who we are from moment to moment, from breath to breath?

Dance is the fastest, most direct route to the truth — not some big truth that belongs to everybody, but the get down and personal kind, the what’s-happening-in-me-right-now kind of truth. We dance to reclaim our brilliant ability to disappear in something bigger, something safe, a space without a critic or a judge or an analyst.

We dance to fall in love with the spirit in all things, to wipe out memory or transform it into moves that nobody else can make because they didn’t live it. We dance to hook up to the true genius lurking behind all the bullshit — to seek refuge in our originality and our power to reinvent ourselves; to shed the past, forget the future and fall into the moment feet first. Remember being fifteen, possessed by the beat, by the thrill of music pumping loud enough to drown out everything you’d ever known?

The beat is a lover that never disappoints and, like all lovers, it demands 100% surrender. It has the power to seduce moves we couldn’t dream. It grabs us by the belly, turns us inside out and leaves us abruptly begging for more. We love beats that move faster than we can think, beats that drive us ever deeper inside, that rock our worlds, break down walls and make us sweat our prayers. Prayer is moving. Prayer is offering our bones back to the dance. Prayer is letting go of everything that impedes our inner silence. God is the dance and the dance is the way to freedom and freedom is our holy work.

We dance to survive, and the beat offers a yellow brick road to make it through the chaos that is the tempo of our times. We dance to shed skins, tear off masks, crack molds, and experience the breakdown — the shattering of borders between body, heart and mind, between genders and generations, between nations and nomads. We are the transitional generation.

This is our dance.

We all strive to find ways to wind down and de-stress so model and entrepreneur Jo Woods, who lives a totally organic lifestyle, is here to introduce three alternative therapies which can help to relax, and banish the blues.

We take a look at Drum Therapy with expert Mark Hunter, Dance Therapy with Chris Linnares and Laughter therapy with Leela Bunce to see how effective they can be at lifting your spirits!

This week Jo Wood has been de-stressing by taking part in Tesco and Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life to help raise vital funds for Cancer Research UK’s life saving work. Sign up to a 5k event near you now by visiting www.raceforlife.org.

With thanks to:

JO WOOD
www.raceforlife.org

DRUM THERAPY: Expert: Mark Hunter
www.drumpulse.com/our_team.html
www.creativeteamevents.com/popular-events/drumming-events

LAUGHTER THERAPY: Expert: Leela Bunce
www.shinetime.co.uk/contactus.php

DIVA DANCE: Expert: Chris Linniares
www.mindbodyspirit.co.uk
www.divadance.com

Chris Linnares’s love of Latin rhythms helped her beat depression and now she is bringing her mood-boosting moves to the UK…

WATCHING her in action, swaying her hips to the Latin beat, it’s hard to imagine Chris Linnares, 34, as anything other than upbeat. Yet life for the Brazilian-born cognitive psychologist hasn’t always been so carefree and she understands only too well what it’s like to feel demotivated and depressed.

It was this experience that inspired Chris to create Diva Dance, a dance regime that combines fun moves with positive thinking.

“Five years ago I went through a very dark period,” says Chris. “I was in the depths of despair after the premature birth of my daughter Luiza and the death of my best friend and my father. I had also recently married, given up a successful career and moved from my native Brazil to Fargo, North Dakota, in the US.”

Before moving to America Chris enjoyed a high-profile career in Brazil, hosting a radio programme in which women callers could share problems and insights with each other on air. However, despite her huge professional success Chris had not found love.

“I was known as the queen of single women in Brazil but I was tired of being on my own. Then a strange thing happened. I had a dream in which I was told that my soulmate was waiting for me in LA.

“I took a gamble and moved to LA and that’s where I met my husband Bill at a party. Six months later we were married and living in North Dakota, where Bill comes from. My whole life changed overnight.

“Moving country was a complete culture shock and, on top of everything else, worrying about the health of my new baby who was in intensive care for the first five days of her life and losing loved ones caused me to feel very low and depressed. I put on 4st in weight.”

Chris tried therapy but drew the line at antidepressants.

“I’d tried antidepressants before and I didn’t want to go down that route again. I suddenly figured it was OK to feel sad. I’d lost my father, my friend, my career and my country: medication wasn’t going to change anything. I decided to try and find natural alternatives to deal with my depression.

“That’s when I started dancing again. People in Brazil dance all the time and I’d learned how to dance as a teenager at drama school but ever since I’d come to the US I’d stopped. So in an effort to lift my mood I played music and started to move. My mood improved and my pregnancy weight dropped off.

“I realised how joyous dancing made me feel and I wanted to share this with other women who were feeling down. The beauty of dance is no matter how low you feel it will make you happier and more energised.”

Latest research supports these views. A 2007 study at the University of Derby showed that dance improved mood and was beneficial for people suffering from depression.

Spurred on by her own success in beating depression through dance Chris wanted to help others.

“At first I held classes at my gym. Then I branched out with more classes, workshops and a DVD to make the Diva Dance method accessible.” Now Chris has brought Diva Dance to the UK, launching with a series of workshops and the DVD to be followed by classes nationwide later in the year.

“When you’re feeling lethargic and depressed it becomes very hard to get moving, let alone make other positive changes in your life” says Chris. “Dance is one of the quickest, most effective ways to energise yourself.

“Many women find it hard to express themselves physically. They feel uncomfortable or self-conscious. This mirrors how they feel in life. Dance shows up any negative thoughts you may have about yourself, for example if you feel unattractive or unworthy.

“I encourage women to connect with their emotions and to become more aware of what they’re feeling.”

During a class Chris asks women to visualise and focus on positive thoughts, images and words. For example, there are particular hip movements when she gets participants to repeat the words “I am hot”. Or she gets women to dance the merengue while focusing on the mantra “I am delicious”.

“The movements help to anchor the positive thoughts,” says Chris. “When you start feeling and thinking positively you feel energised and your mood improves and depression starts to lift.”

Chris believes anyone can improve their mood, change their life and beat depression with as little as 20 minutes of Diva Dance daily.

Chris is holding a Diva Dance workshop tomorrow at the Mind Body Spirit Festival at Royal Horticultural Halls in London (mindbodyspiritfestival.co.uk/020 7371 9191). The Diva Dance DVD is available from divadanceonline.com

Read more:

http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/248803

http://www.thesassyminx.com/girls-on-top/mind-body-spirit-festival/

Health Benefits of Chocolate By Mark Stibich, Ph.D., Updated April 26, 2009

Why is Dark Chocolate Healthy?:
Chocolate is made from plants, which means it contains many of the health benefits of dark vegetables. These benefits are from flavonoids, which act as antioxidants. Antioxidants protect the body from aging caused by free radicals, which can cause damage that leads to heart disease. Dark chocolate contains a large number of antioxidants (nearly 8 times the number found in strawberries). Flavonoids also help relax blood pressure through the production of nitric oxide, and balance certain hormones in the body.

Heart Health Benefits of Dark Chocolate:
Dark chocolate is good for your heart. A small bar of it everyday can help keep your heart and cardiovascular system running well. Two heart health benefits of dark chocolate are:

Lower Blood Pressure: Studies have shown that consuming a small bar of dark chocolate everyday can reduce blood pressure in individuals with high blood pressure.
Lower Cholesterol: Dark chocolate has also been shown to reduce LDL cholesterol (the bad cholesterol) by up to 10 percent.

Other Benefits of Dark Chocolate:
Chocolate also holds benefits apart from protecting your heart:

• it tastes good
• it stimulates endorphin production, which gives a feeling of pleasure
• it contains serotonin, which acts as an anti-depressant
• it contains theobromine, caffeine and other substances which are stimulants

Doesn’t Chocolate Have a lot of Fat?:
Here is some more good news — some of the fats in chocolate do not impact your cholesterol. The fats in chocolate are 1/3 oleic acid, 1/3 stearic acid and 1/3 palmitic acid:

• Oleic Acid is a healthy monounsaturated fat that is also found in olive oil.
• Stearic Acid is a saturated fat but one which research is shows has a neutral effect on cholesterol.
• Palmitic Acid is also a saturated fat, one which raises cholesterol and heart disease risk.

Sources: Chocolate Manufacturers Association; Journal of the American Medical Association