defeating those voices in your head

We didn't grow up dancing.  We weren't allowed to have dancing at our wedding.  It's still difficult doing the simplest things -- like hula hooping -- because those same still small voices in the back of our heads say that it's dancing and it's wrong because, well, that's ultimately how John the Baptist got his head chopped off.  

It was all the dancing's fault.

It's hard to change sometimes.  I don't want my kids to have those voices.  (Even though I know they will and their voices will sound different than ours.) But for now... I don't want them to hide with slumped shoulders and worry about the people that might be watching as they sway to music.  I want my kids to DANCE!

I worry sometimes though.  How are they going to learn to be comfortable in their own skin and not worry about looking silly or what so and so is thinking -- if I'm not?

Lately, theres been an invitation bubbling up in my own soul.  An invitation to challenge the voices in my head.  Last month, at the Wide Sky Days conference there was an 80's dance party.  I wanted to dance but I felt frozen, stuck.  

I found my friend Tiffany, who is one of the bravest girls I have ever met and I asked her "how do you dance when everything in you is screaming?"  She chugged a swig of whiskey and said, you just do it! And I did.  For one song.  I'm still learning to let go.  I've got a long road ahead of me but that's ok because my kids need me to show them that the voices in their heads, can be be-headed. 

Heres to dancing!