Passion, Play, and Pleasure: The Major Takeaways
Love — Gratitude — Journey — Wisdom of the Body
Flowers in the Orada restaurant. Photo by Lonely Girl, Lonely World.
I’m sure you’ve all seen how much I can rave about the wonderful Passion, Play, and Pleasure dance retreat in Portugal I’ve been writing a whole series of articles about, and still there’s even more to say.
Seven months since, I’ve experienced one of the most adventurous and challenging periods of personal growth I’ve ever had through international travel, career reassessment, and personal relationships.
When I came back from the retreat, the first three days I was completely lightheaded and floaty. I felt like my body had been lifted into the air like a balloon and hadn’t come down. That’s how much bliss I felt. The revelations I experienced at the retreat catapulted me into making the changes necessary to keep on travelling and dancing.
Of course, life happens, and these days I find myself feeling more lost than not when trying to figure out how to make my passions work together. The clarity I had felt in my heart and soul was truly something rare and to be appreciated, and I’m trying to reconnect with that.
One thing I know for certain is that the human I was at the retreat was the most authentic self I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing. When I feel the pressures of everyday life compounding me, I think back to my time at PPP while navigating the murky torrents of future decisions. It’s so humbling to have something — a memory, an activity, something — to keep you from losing sight of your stars.
So, for myself and perhaps for you, here are my major takeaways from Passion, Play, and Pleasure:
Love
Love is an amazing state. It’s not quite one-fits-all; it will look slightly different for everybody, but when you feel it, you feel it, and everybody else will too.
The communal love and individual love I held for my retreat participants were states of being I never could’ve imagined myself immersed in. I’ve always had a difficult time finding my own community. There seemed to be so many barriers to creating deeper connections with people, yet when I let go and became me without judgment or fear (and accepted all others without judgment or fear), then love came naturally. It was a pleasure to love.
Gratitude
And with that love came a wealthy amount of gratitude. You could say love and gratitude are partners in crime. They support each other, lift each other up.
When all was said and done, I had but so much thankfulness in my heart for the experience. We were provided a cozy, safe space to live in for one week, and that one week healed more for me than two years of psychotherapy ever did plus a lifetime of rumination.
I was grateful for the place and grateful for the people. I was grateful for the me I was who had the courage to make this trek and explore what the world had to offer.
Jealousy (the Overcoming of)
I have a feeling gratitude and jealousy are difficult neighbours. I’d always been susceptible to jealousy (particularly in dance), and it used to be hard to admit that. I think I had this notion that a “good person” should never be jealous, and, gee, did I want to be a good person. Now, I don’t see myself in good or bad terms. I see myself as human, and jealousy is just one part of being human. The difference is how we manage our feelings of it.
The retreat brought out lots of feelings I wasn’t expecting, some of them not always comfortable. I decided to throw myself wholeheartedly into my own dancing as I learned to live with these emotions, and the rewards were unprecedented.
In the safe little nest we’d created, I could embrace the beauty of all I had in my life, my strengths and experiences. If jealousy hints at our deepest desires, I’ve found that the best way to overcome jealousy and replace it with gratitude is to follow your passion. Do what your heart and soul love; make yourself happy; take some risks. Then you can appreciate the unique story that is your life and, even better, appreciate others for theirs.
The green-eyed monster still comes to haunt me sometimes, but I no longer let it dictate me. I will acknowledge it — sometimes I’ll even express it aloud — and then I’ll remember the valuable lessons I inherited from a community of trust: love and gratitude. And the monster passes.
Passion
There are an infinite number of reasons this retreat was so special to me, but one of them was that it allowed me to reconnect with my initial passion for dancing. Circumstances over the years have widened the divide between me and dance, but this retreat built a bridge right over to the other side. I realized (once again) that I can’t truly live without dance.
It is my first love.
My home.
It lives within my body.
Dance and I have been engaged in a marriage of time and devotion, tested through the years. There was a while I worried I’d never have it again, but it always comes back to me in the most unexpected of ways. My understanding of it has changed, and it probably wonders at the evolution I’ve been through since my days as a little, starry-eyed girl in love with ballet.
The Big Dipper. Image provided by Unsplash.
I am still a little, starry-eyed girl in love with ballet! But my horizons have expanded, and I am in love with so much more about dance. If anything, our bond is even stronger now as I strive to incorporate new ways of dancing and loving into my life.
Another passion the retreat ignited for me is travelling. I once said my dream is to travel the world at an icebreaker for a new job, and while that was partly because I wanted something substantial to say, it turned out to be true.
As I lay there under the night sky, a wave of total peace and giddiness over me, I could see myself in all these places I wanted to go. Be with the person I wanted to be with. I could envision my future — my dreams come true — in picture-perfect clarity.
I realized, then, that I could have anything I wanted in this world. I felt the realms of possibility all around me. (For my quantum physicists out there, perhaps there is something to parallel universes!)
Wisdom of the Body
I’ve heard time and time again that the body is unbelievably smart, that it can heal itself if we just allow it to. I’m not sure how much I’ve ever thought deeply about that, but I certainly experienced it for myself.
This retreat was a gift to myself as an act of encouragement to keep on dancing. I’d underwent ACL reconstruction surgery a few years ago and had been feeling disconnected and unhappy with the course of my life in the months leading up to the retreat (I didn’t want to be crunching numbers, for goodness’ sake!)
The entire time I was there, my knee didn’t hurt one bit. Even with daily dancing and activities, my knee behaved as if it had never been injured at all (there are some things that couldn’t be helped no matter what, like the persistent crackling from scar tissue, but there was no pain or aching). Only once did a sharp pain suddenly shoot up my joint, and that was when I was stepping down randomly from the stairs on our last night there. The universe knew I was returning to the city, and it didn’t like it.
The dancing body … the human psyche … the dancing, human body.
We have so much to learn about the powerful home body we preside in; I’ve barely scratched the surface.
I Felt Beautiful
This is probably one of the best takeaways — if not the best one — from the retreat. I felt beautiful. And the feeling stayed with me for a long, long time afterwards.
As a woman or a human or anyone who has been hurt, we all know the struggle of feeling beautiful within ourselves. It’s one thing for someone else to say you are, but when you believe it deep down, it’s a joyousness so freeing and solidifying that you wonder why you never saw it before.
That person naked in the mirror? That’s me. And I’m beautiful.
The Stars Know Best (Serendipity)
Or maybe they don’t! Maybe Forrest Gump said it best:
I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floatin' around accidental-like on a breeze. But I, I think maybe it's both.
It certainly felt like the stars knew what they were doing for us. Certain situations transpired and maybe coincidences too that allowed us to meet at this retreat.
What’s that? I think the stars are winking at us.
Here’s my little selfishness: I don’t want to go back a second year in a row because the first one was so special. I don’t want that comparison. There were some returners from the first year who said the second retreat felt markedly different from the first, more relaxed, whereas the first year’s felt extremely energetic and chock full of activities (the world was just starting to come out of COVID at that point).
I know some people already who are returning to the retreat this year, and I support them so much. In another few years, I’ll perhaps make a return myself, but for now, I want to hold this dear memory close to my heart. I want it to take a special place because it was a very special time for me. This is from a girl starting to see the world for her own two eyes, to live on her own terms.
Sometimes it can feel like I’m the only one still swimming in this sea. I wonder if what happened was real, and I have to remind myself, yes, it was real. We really had that connection. Like the sea, life goes on, and people have lives within lives. But it wasn’t a dream, and it did all happen. Even if communication trickles away and memories fade, feelings will not if we choose to nurture them.
And in times of hardship, I will be comforted by the knowledge that this experience will always remain an exceptionally special memory for us.
Last edited: March 13, 2024.
Sunbeams on pillows. Photo by Lonely Girl, Lonely World.