#6 TOOL – NIA DANCE AND CREATIVE MEDITATION

• Do you find meditation boring? Do you always feel asleep when you are finally relaxed? Or find that the moment you close your eyes and relax all these polluting thoughts are coming in? 
• Do you love to dance but don’t really like to follow a complex choreography ? You like dances like African style or Zumba?

Last Month I discovered two tools that helped me explore my creativity through:

• Guided meditation exploring through our « intimate garden », and finding answer to my questions of the day
• Nia dance practice that I would define as a free-flowing / fitness class to let got of the tensions in your body + have fun

MEDITATION – find ways of being creative

Source: Flickr / Freddy Olsson

Have you tried meditation before? Personally before I used to think this was only for people of a certain community, a bit « too calm for me ». I was under this impression that it wasn’t modern at all. After all I am a project manager working in communication: I need to react fast, don’t have time to overthink.

Well… I was wrong !
My discovery started with meditation through my « sophrologie » classes (I used to call them breathing classes) and what a nice surprise when I discovered how to develop my intuition and creativity with Debra Moffitt.

I promised you a tool, so here is the plan I remember from this session. May it help you through your modern meditation or peak your curiosity to know more !

1. First : preparation
   – Sit down on a chair, your back is straight and your feets on the ground.
   – Breathe 3 times deeply (in and out x3)
   – Relax your body from the bottom to the top (or the other way around).
   There are 5 areas: foot + legs / pelvis + stomach’s bottom / chest +underneath the arms / shoulders + top of the arms / head
   – Now imagine yourself with a light bulb; all of your body and around you (you can go as far as you want) is surrounded by this ball of light
   – Acknowledge your state once you wake up: sensations, body pain or relaxed parts of your body. You can write these down on a piece of paper.
2. Explore your intimate garden
   – Go back to a relaxation position: sit down + breathe 3 times.
   – Imagine you are on a village, you cross this street, turn left, go up a hill , turn right, and here you are.. the gates of your garden. Find as many details as you’d like to, the point being soon enough at the entrance of your garden’s gate.
   – You notice the flowers and the trees, a beautiful fountain, and there a table in the garden with : a few things sitting on top and a piece of paper where a word is written. Take a moment to see the things and remember the word in your head. You can now go the gate. You close the gates behind you.
3. Notice your state once your wake up
   – As per the first part of this meditation, be aware of your overall body
   – Write down what you saw, how you felt, the colors, the odors, which things were in front of you, and which word. I did not have any words written but I saw a bike, a crayon and a keyboard. They did not made sense right away but did after a couple of days.

• Debra gave us 2 simple advices that I relate a lot with: 
  – You have all the answers (and not Google!)
  – Listen to your body
• Click here if you want to listen to the meditation – love the voice !

NIA DANCE – check your body gently but still burning calories 

At first it sounded a bit bizzare this dance: a mix between African dance and Zumba, yet with a spiritual touch of it.

The first few seconds I tried I was judging myself: « you look ridiculous ». But I accepted this thought and continued nonetheless… what a nice feeling !
I must say I only tried African class once and though it was great but the class was having too many moves with the arms, it was too fast. I did several classes of Zumba as well and enjoyed the Salsa feel of it combined with fun : you don’t necessarily have to follow a precise movement. To me Nia Dance is is an in between: it’s using the full body but the movements are quite « ballet-like ».

Source: Flickr / Doug Ellis

A picture is worth a thousands words, so check out this video from Debbie Rosas, co-creator and founder of the Nia Dance.

To find out more about Nia Dance in Geneva check out Katia Mikhailova.

Those are simple tools that I would like to use more and more, and even why not be a part of my daily routine.

And you ? What do you have in your life that helps you release creativity?