Push Myself Into Joy

I’ve been off antidepressants for almost a month now. The euphoria of experiencing real joy, laughter and happy emotions is wearing off already. At first, as my body and mind cleared of the medication fog I’ve come to know as my normal state of being, I saw things brighter, laughed heartier and felt optimistic beyond my greatest imaginings.

Suddenly, writing projects that I had to force myself to work on took on new importance, new urgency.

The joys I was experiencing were enough to make the equally strong difficult emotions that were arising seem not so bad. Yes, I was having bursts of anger and rage jump from my being with no filter, but that was to be expected. At least I was experiencing my emotions outwardly as opposed to what I’d become accustomed to—only depression and always projected inwardly.

But the heavy thoughts are returning already. They are trying to take over, trying to show me who’s boss. The depression is slinking in through the cracks, building momentum as I lose my forward thrust through life. I feel it in my bones.

I know I can always return to meds if it gets as bad as it has in the past, but I want to try something else first.

I realize that I have to be proactive every day. It is not enough to want to be happy for someone who suffers from depression. At least not for me.

I have to push myself into joy every day. I have to choose joy to show my depression who’s really boss.

I’ve tried this in many ways in the past, but never succeeded for very long, so I’ve been asking myself what really brings me joy. What am I missing from my life?

Something that keeps coming up is that I miss performing. I miss expressing myself through my body, through my voice, through my energy. When I am teaching writing or yoga, I enter into that blissful place of non-time. I love connecting with an audience; I love inspiring others to feel and find joy.

And I do love to dance and to sing. Even though I am not trained. Even though I don’t know the “right” way to do these things. I do know they bring me joy. And I want more joy in my life.

So, this is my experiment. I will share here on my blog, once a day, me finding my joy, pushing myself into my joy.

It may be embarrassing, but I don’t care. This is what I teach my students to do. This is what I need to do.

Push myself into my joy, even if it means stepping outside of my comfort zone. No more living life small and depressed. No more caring what others think.

I choose joy today. (And hopefully tomorrow I will convince myself to find joy once more.)

Dance Moms' Burlesque Fan Dance...Fail!

So there’s this show called Dance Moms on Lifetime, which Gawker points out is the TV network that "celebrates, entertains, and supports women.”

Well, they just had their “Topless Showgirls” episode taken off the air.

Yup, for a dance routine, these 8- to 13-year-old girls pretended to be topless and do a burlesque performance.

Can anybody say ewww?

The show has already aired once, but after a less-than-stellar response, Lifetime has decided to make this episode unavailable—although you can see a clip at Gawker.

In "Topless Showgirls," Pittsburgh dance instructor Abby Lee Miller teaches her students a "classic" burlesque fan dance, which they are to perform in flesh-toned bras to create the "illusion of nudity." The dance must convey that the children are "hot," "mean," and that men "can't afford" them.

Though the girls wince at the prospect of appearing naked onstage and their mothers cringe at the skimpy costumes, the show goes on, and the girls perform at a children's dance competition. "I like to push the envelope," Miller says. "And this is taking it right to the limit."

I guess the idea of sexualizing little girls and the harm it can cause has not crossed the radar of these mothers or producers.

The worst part that can be seen in even this small video clip is that the girls themselves seem very uncomfortable with the whole idea. And even though their own mothers are cringing the whole time, they still send their daughters out on the stage.

At what price do we dress up our little girls and make them enter a grown-up world before they even have a need to wear a bra?