‘An expert in everything was once a beginner.’
On my first Movement Medicine offering
‘An expert in everything was once a beginner.’
Cursed Crew by Zlatan Vehabović
I am lucky to say that in my closest circle I have two magnificent friends who are both artists. Although there is a difference in their style, I can proudly say that over the years they became known world wide – as this can be a sign of success in the art world. One of them is a painter and the other a street artist. Their creativity makes my heart jump faster every time I see their new work, but that is definitely not the whole story behind it. When I think about both of them, although both of their expression is unique and they have many differences in their wonderful characters – when I step back, I can follow the thread that they share.
I used to think that art is this amazing phenomena that gets channeled through a being that is open and willing. I was right about that part. The thing that took me years to realise is that this openness and will take a great deal of work, inner and outer, to get yourself to the place where you can offer what you have to the world.
If I could take one thing that both of my friends have thought me over the years we’ve known each other, it is that creativity and success take hard work. These two people work more than the most people I’ve ever met. They get up every day, go to their ateliers, read, write, draw, sketch, paint layer after layer and layer over layer. They practice and fail. And they practice and succeed. When they are inspired, they work. When they are stuck, they work even more.
So, when I started to look at their beautiful paintings, over the years I started to see the talent, inspiration, technique and the beautiful discipline behind it. Over the years I started to realise that no matter how blessed you are with your talent, it takes everything you have and a bit more to bring it out to the world.
A couple of months ago I offered my first Movement Medicine dance class as an Apprentice Teacher. Even though I dance for years and years, even though I was trained to do it, it was very challenging. It was deep, it was messy, it was difficult and it was perfect. Only 3 people showed up – one of them was my sister. I had problems with every technical thing one could have problems with – the new sound system was bad, my controller stopped working in the middle of the session and the program that I use to play music crashed. The challenge was great and exactly how every new beginning should be.
Even with all of it happening I had a beautiful time, had loads of fun and managed to laugh and take it as a beautiful, rough but kind lesson that it was.
Despite the troubles I had, my sense of the field created, the depth, support and beauty that was present through the entire class made me lean into the Movement Medicine mesa, helped me relax, enjoy and take everything that was happening as a guideline as well as the support. Never before did I experience such a sense of acceptance instead of self-criticism.
So, over the last couple of months I practiced at home as often as I could, I got help, I asked for feedback, got in supervision, set up all the technical aspects over and over again and dived into learning of my own teachings. As my practice started growing, so did my confidence as well as the number of people in my dance space. As my discipline strengthened, so did my talent. And as my willingness to work everyday emerged, whether I teach Movement Medicine that day or not, so did the joy of offering my soul’s medicine in every class become present.
Once again I realised it takes time to birth every new aspect of our beings. We all may be talented, beautiful inside and out, strong, wise and heartful, but without the discipline, without the dedication it may all stay as a part of us that we could, instead of that we will.
So, blessings to all of our journeys, may we have what it takes to bring what we have to offer to this world. May we recognise it, grab it and do the most that we can with it – as Susannah would say – without needing to push without holding back either.
HeArtbeats by Lonac
