The world’s kinda falling apart right now, isn’t it? Or at least it feels that way. I mean, political debates, wars, the environment, etc. Etc. Etc. Or maybe your own personal world is falling apart? Drama at work. Lost your job. Family member passed away. There’s a lot of heaviness going around and, unfortunately, heaviness breeds heaviness.
Things haven’t been going quite my way these past couple weeks. I put my two weeks at my job and I haven’t any idea what I’m doing next. I mean, if you throw in all the variables, I could amount to a lot or nothing at all. It should be stressful. It should be heart crushing, suffocating, what am I doing with my life, pull your hair out type of stress. Yet, I’m not worrying about it. Something will come along. Something will give and provide direction. In the meantime, I’m not going to sweat over it. I’m not even sweating over things at my job anymore. I’m still doing the work, but I’m not going to break my back over it. Matter of fact, I’ve been trying to have fun with it.
I’m a cleaner. I clean kennels at an animal shelter. Every morning when I go to work, I deep clean different rows of kennels and I honestly hate deep cleaning. Now, I could grind and moan about the work like I used too, stress about getting it all done before we open, but my team is amazing. We do a pretty good job knocking everything out and we’re even short staffed! So, knowing that we’ve got each other’s back, there’s no reason to stress about doing it all. There have been days, lately, where I take my time to do a good job and I still get done at a reasonable time. What’s more is that I’ve been cranking up my tunes each day and that’s made a big difference.
I listen to Pandora while I work. I have four different stations that I cycle through–two more than most. I’ve been trying to tailor the stations better. Tailor them to more uplifting music. Yesterday, I was listening to a station I hadn’t listened too in over a year (because it has a bad habit of only playing slow love songs–ugh). Tailoring out some of the songs that I could do with not hearing again, I started hearing songs that I haven’t heard in probably years. These were songs that I grew up with. Songs my brother and I had our dances to and surprisingly enough, I still remembered the words! When I deep clean at work, I deep clean my rows by myself and it’s a very loud environment with all the barking dogs, hoses going, so on and so forth. So I’ve indulged myself lately by singing and dancing along with my tunes. By the way, I’m not a good dancer, I just bob and sway along. It’s been relieving to say the least and it’s making deep cleaning much more enjoyable.
So, when life gets heavy or you’re faced with an unbearable task, give yourself a moment to dance. Or dance through it. Sometimes you even have to force yourself. I am not a morning person. So when I get in at 6 am to deep clean, I’m not in the best of moods, but I’ve been trying to find the right song lately to change that. Something I can dance along to and help myself get in a better mood. I heard recently that forcing yourself to smile when you’re in a sour mood, helps you get to a better one. The muscles it takes to smile end up releasing something in your brain to lighten your attitude–I’m fully sure of the science behind it. Isn’t it nice to know there’s a way to trick yourself into a better mood? It does wonders for you and everyone around you.
So, I dare you today to pull yourself up on your feet, give a smile, and dance. You don’t have to be good at it. Just let your body loosen and let the stress go through tapping feet, head bobs, or hip sways. It’s helping me. I thought I’d share it to maybe help you too. We all need some escape when the world gets heavy.
On that note, if you have a story or a comment about dancing in public or to relieve the stress, feel free to share it in the comments below or on my Facebook and Twitter! Thanks everyone!
nikki diekemper 