Dancing in Bed
Liberating My Body Through Creative Expression
Hi beautiful friends,
I am currently coming off a week-long artist’s residency at Kripalu called Making Sacred Art. I am buzzing, more like floating, from a week of being in a room with some of the most inspirational, creative, and expansive men and women of all colors and ages. I truly feel so honored to have gotten to spend a week with these gorgeous artists.
I came in with a slight idea of what I would work on - this newsletter, a talk I am giving when I get home, a new offering that is coming in the fall - but I didn’t have a firm plan. Sleep has been a struggle in my life for many years. It is so much better now, but travel can be a little rough for my sleep and digestion. So after next to no sleep on night two, I was exhausted!
The next morning, we did an inner child exercise and were asked, “when did you feel alive creating as a child?”. The story I have told for as long as I can remember was that I was raised on tv and junk food and did very little in the form of imagination and creativity. I didn’t know I was a creative until my late twenties! I always said that I didn’t have a creative bone in my body! Wow, was I deceived!
When I closed my eyes and pictured myself creating as a child, I saw myself dancing and performing for anyone who would watch and obsessing over music. I saw myself on stage! Even though I was a foot taller than everyone the teacher continually put me front and center - I think it’s because I gave my EVERYTHING! I was so passionate about it and absolutely loved performing.
When we were given time at the residency to go off on our own and create, I took a nap! I felt guilty about it, but I was so tired and not feeling well, so I felt like that was the best thing I could offer my body. That night as I got into bed, I played the two songs that I had been listening to on repeat and my body started dancing. I couldn’t stop. It was wild! I felt like my body had all these messages that wanted to come through me. I danced most of the night in bed with fat tears streaming down my face. You see, all those years I lived in my bed from pain, I never danced. I didn’t dance for at least seven years of my life because I didn’t want to do anything that would make my pain worse. That basically meant I didn’t do anything because everything felt like it made my pain worse.
Remembering to dance again and how much my body LOVES it has been one of the sweetest reclamations in the past decade. I ask my clients to dance everyday and yet I was finding myself not doing it because of pain or some other excuse. That night, I started getting downloads from my body. She was asking me to dance with her and telling me she had so much wisdom to impart to me through dance. I felt this very strong feeling that I needed to find a room at Kripalu the next day and dance alone while blind folded. Two memories from years before cropped to the surface.
Back in 2020, I took an online class and the instructor had us dance blindfolded with headphones for about 2 hours. It was so incredibly powerful! The experience felt ecstatic and other worldly and I had visions like I was on plant medicine. A year later I worked with an incredible medicine woman who told me that my deepest healings and creations would come through movement. Both of these memories came through so strongly while dancing in bed. I felt my body saying "I need you to liberate me so you can help liberate others bodies”. I cried even harder. It felt like the truest and most beautiful message. She (my body) wants me to let her be FREE!
I truly believe that is what all of our bodies long for. They long to be free from conditioning telling us how to behave, that we need to look a certain way to be desirable or lovable, and that our size and color determines our worth. Our bodies want to be able to express and emote, to be loud and sensual, to take up space, and to know that they belong everywhere they go. Our vessels are divinity that have taken form, to receive and express love. To embody love.
On the last night we did a show for anyone that wanted to perform their art. I did something that I’ve never done in my life and performed a message my body was asking me to emote. I danced, I sang, I cried. And the audience danced and cried and sang along with me. It was one of the most beautiful experiences my body has known. I’m not quite ready to share the details of the performance just yet, but oh was it freeing and liberating for me and for my body. I felt like I wasn’t just doing it for me. I was doing it for my mom and my grandmothers, I was doing it for my nieces and for all women and beings. Because here’s the thing, we’re not separate. We forget and believe in the illusion of separation but we have never been separate and never will be. So when we liberate ourselves, we liberate all.
I am so grateful for the incredible container that I just spent a week in because it was so supportive and encouraging and I felt lifted up by each person in the room.
I have been on such a journey with this sweet body. Leaving her early in life, believing and inheriting messages that she’s just here to please and to stay small. Then dying in a car accident, living in a bed for seven years in excruciating pain, believing my body absolutely hated me, and that I would have to live inside of her prison for the rest of my earthly days. All while dealing with disordered eating, stuffing her until I felt sick to try and not feel all the pain. Thank God I now know that those were all just conditioned stories that were never true. My sweet body has been on a journey to call me back home to her, my only true home. To fall in love with all parts of me, to learn to feel and move the emotions that I feel, and to allow her to be exactly who she came here to be.
I have so much more to say about all of this, but it is a sacred rebellion to be our truest expressive selves and that is why we are here.
My deepest hope for you, precious reader, is that you can remember how good your body is. Your pain, your emotions, your hurts are all here to invite you back home into your body. Your body is glorious and worthy no matter what the world’s bullshit tells you and falling in love with it is a holy thing. It’s the greatest holy rebellion to come up against a patiarichal system that wants to keep you small and in the trance of unworthiness.
I hope you remember that you are love. That you are worthy of letting yourself receive love so that you can then offer it back to the world.
I love you and your beautiful body,
♡ Ruthie
This week’s resources:
My Body is Not an Apology, by Sonya Renee Taylor
Songs I’ve had on Repeat and Danced to In Bed:
Mind and Body Workshop with Jedidiah Jenkins (more info below). I’ll be sharing so much more about the subject in this week’s newsletter at the workshop!
Keep reading for:
Mind and Body Workshop with Jedidiah Jenkins
This Month’s Paid Subscriber Offerings
MIND AND BODY:Writing and Embodiment Workshop with Jedidiah Jenkins and Ruthie Lindsey
Friday, October 13th-15th
Jed and Ruthie team up with a weekend workshop to tackle our futures, our direction, and what our bodies are telling us.
What are your plans for the next two years? Write a book? Start a company? Figure out what you’re good at?
Distraction is direction, and if you don’t stop once-in-a-while and take inventory of yourself, your desires, and how you spend your time, it can be impossible to feel any sense of intention over your life.
We also know that "knowledge is a rumor until it lives in the muscle". Every experience we have ever had happened in our bodies but most of us do not know how to be in our bodies. We live mostly in our heads. We fear the future and regret the past and rarely do we feel and embrace the moment. Without understanding how to bring our experiences into the body, our subconscious, wounded parts will take the driver’s seat of our lives without our knowledge.
Jed will lead us in writing exercises, future articulation, and hikes (obviously).
Ruthie will teach us tools in self love, body kindness, story integration, and more.
Over the weekend of October 13-15th, we’ll gather in Los Angeles, CA and write together, laugh together, hike together, talk together, and try to figure out what the heck we’re doing with our one-and-only lives.
Pricing
Early Bird Pricing: $399 (until July 31st)
Regular Pricing: $444 (Starting August 1st)
This Week’s Paid Subscriber Offerings
Every month, my paid subscribers receive exclusive offerings such as monthly gatherings, meditations, and additional content. For just $6/month (the price of a latte), you can get in on the fun too! Scroll below to see what we have for this month!
Join Us For a Very Special Breathwork Night with Scott Stabile Thursday, July 27th from 6-7:30 PM CT!
Thank you for being a paid subscriber of Love's Invitation!
Join Ruthie and Big Love and Enough as You Are author, Scott Stabile, for an online, guided breathwork journey and sharing circle.
From Scott:
“The breathwork practice I guide can be unpredictable (in the most wonderful ways). I’ve learned to trust where the journey takes me, even if I'm not always clear why I'm going there. I've learned to trust it because of how I tend to feel during and/or on the other side of the journey: relaxed, peaceful, grounded, aligned, clear, you get the picture. And frequently the experience feels holy, divine, like being cradled by Spirit, held in the most loving and beautiful light, reminded of my oneness with all that is, given access to the light of my soul. It is just so extraordinarily beautiful when this happens. The breath takes me to places within myself that are always there and too often buried by this busy, insane world, and by my busy, insane mind. The breath reminds me I am love, and joy, and creativity, and possibility. It reminds me I am not bound to my stories, or to my wounds. That healing really is possible. As is peace with wherever I am along the path to it. This specific breathwork practice is, for me, the most dynamic, surprising and life-affirming tool I've been exposed to so far.
We’ll gather for ninety minutes. To begin, I’ll introduce the practice, we’ll set intentions, and I’ll guide everyone in a brief meditation to get us grounded and ready to breathe. The next 45 minutes will include the breathwork journey and relaxation that follows. After that, we’ll circle up and give each other an opportunity to share whatever we feel called to share about the journey.
Breath is life. It is one of the most powerful tools we've got to create healing in all aspects of our reality. Being able to guide people through a breathwork journey is one of the great joys of my life right now.”
We look forward to seeing you at there!
*Preparation details will be sent out before the session.
This is an offering for paid subscribers to Love’s Invitation. Scroll down to register for this event. If you’re not already subscribed, you can do so before the event to join us!
Emotional Release is a beautiful way to help move our emotional energies through the body and make sure nothing gets stuck or blocked or suppressed. But how do we do it? In this workshop, Ruthie shares 10 different emotional release techniques that helps to move the body and free up space so your beautiful being can express itself freely. Check out the clip below to get a sneak peek, and scroll below for the link to the full workshop recording! (And remember, the full recording is for paid subscribers only, so be sure you subscribe)!
Here are all the details to join these offerings:
If you’re already a paying subscriber:
Register using the link below.
If you’re a free subscriber:
Join the monthly or annual subscription to Love’s Invitation.
Once subscribed, come back to this post and scroll to the bottom to access the offering links.