After shy of a decade of debilitating chronic pain, I discovered that I could heal myself by reconceptualizing dance. Every time I would dance in this new orientation, my body would completely transform in as little as an hour.
But even though I am characteristically an independent and free thinker, as well as defiant of social norms and ideas, the indoctrination of the medical system is so strong that I kept going to doctors and body workers to heal myself, and they kept injuring me, because they did not properly understand chronic pain and hypersensitivity, as well as a host of other things.
My mom kept telling me to dance, reminding me that I had discovered this profound and revolutionary tool for healing myself. But somehow I didn’t recognize myself as sort of being allowed to defy and outsmart the medical system. So I kept going back to doctors and body workers, and I kept being injured and thrown into setbacks.
Finally, one day, I was crying, on the phone with my mom, telling her that I was just looking for a healer who could hold all the different parts – conventional medicine, holistic medicine, understanding of energy, etc. And my mother said, “LOOLWA! YOU ARE THE HEALER YOU ARE SEEKING.DANCE!!!!!” Somehow her words sunk in that time, and I began dancing my method daily, and in 5 years, I went from being bedridden to biking 30 miles at a shot, pain-free.
My mother was brilliant, insightful, and a visionary. She was not recognized as such, because she had a cocktail of mental health issues that made it difficult for her to function in our system. People routinely ridiculed her, dismissed her, put her down, dazzled by the flashiness of preordained institutes or systems or thought that everyone bowed down to.
**If you enjoyed this post, please consider becoming a patreon member, to support my writing – including the development of my new memoir, which incorporates this story. You can get a free trial for one week, and you can cancel at any time, with no fees. You will receive original and unpublished content, including articles, poems, songs, and/or photos of original journal entries, where all my writing begins – depending on which membership level you choose.