Throw It Out

"It's hard to hold on to negativity when you're tossing it out through your boobs."

I said this today, after a particularly awesome dance class.

After yesterday's adventures in melancholy,**1 I was thrilled today to have the opportunity to indulge in my favorite lunchtime shenanigan: Shimmies!

I've mentioned before that there's a dance studio across the street from my office, which offers a fantastic course on Wednesdays at Lunchtime called "Lunchtime Shimmy." It's a beginner belly dance class, structured by the teacher around the students who are there each week, and focusing on simple moves that can be layered and upgraded in challenging-ness depending on student ability. I really enjoy it for the social aspect, the getting-out-of-the-office, and the literal shaking-up of the workday humdrums.

Today was a focus on what a previous dance teacher called "Chest Smiles." While maintaining your head and your lower body in a stationary stance, move your ribcage from side to side, swooping upwards at each outside edge (essentially in the shape of a smile). It's a small, focused movement. And even while not actively seeking out belly dance classes to take, that's a movement I drilled often because it strengthens the troublesome muscles in my back.

I was excited today when the teacher asked me to put a twist on the move - A move aligned with the stylings of Fifi Abdou, with her high energy and charisma - and "fling" my chest skyward at the outside of each move. What I found is that it's impossible to do the move without projecting energy... And the energy I had to send out was negative.

But here's the awesome thing about expelling negative energy: Without additional negativity surrounding you, you're not going to be able to keep feeding that emotion. You're going to purge the negative, and take in what you've got around you. And, in the case of an energized, upbeat dance class... what I had to take in was most uplifting, indeed.

I returned to work with an amplified smile on my (admittedly somewhat sweaty) face, and a spring in my (admittedly somewhat tired) step. And it bubbled me through the rest of my day.

Be happy, my friends.

**1 Right down to an alarming fit of The Leaks, all inclusive with snot and facial drippage. Most inconvenient for me, and downright unsettling for Boyfriend of Amazingness, who thought I was adversely reacting to his request for a foot rub.