Sharing (5)

The latest article in my Progression Into Beauty column...

"Growing by the Minute"

At the beginning of May, I was given the opportunity to dance my essence dance. For the first time in 20 years, I allowed myself to dance. At the end of my performance, I stood at the end of the stage and stared at the room full of people who were sitting on the edge of their seats, jaws agape and eyes wide. Then the room erupted in a standing ovation.

I felt tears burning behind my eyes. They were tears of release. I had released myself and I felt like I was soaring. I soaked in the victory and the applause and the feedback. I reveled in the tears of joy on the faces of my friends and the delicious words they bounced back to me. I cherished the reflection of my beauty.

Breathing it all in, there on the stage, I checked in with myself and discovered with a gasp that I felt taller. It was a wild sensation and I shared it with the group who offered some of their impressions of what that could mean. For me it meant that I finally understood what/who I am. I finally got that I am a big, powerful being with a super-huge essence. As I have strived to not recognize my power, stay small, play small and make myself smaller so those around me are not intimidated by my grandness, I have compressed myself. And my little frame, to accomodate this voluminous energy, has made itself wider and rounder to hold it all. There was nowhere for it to go because I wouldn't allow myself to show my true self, so it just devolved into fat and wound itself around my skeleton until I became only a slightly recognizable, more rotund version of who I once was.

Since that day, Megan, one of the facilitators who witnessed my explosion onto the stage, approached me to say that she had dreamt of me. It was a lucid dream wherein she actually heard herself say to herself, "Remember this. You need to share it with Angie." In this dream, she saw me as flowing and tall.

Since that day, several people have stopped me to say, "Angie, have you done something new? You seem... different... somehow." Each of them, when they have said the word "different" have gestured vaguely with their hands somewhere above their head. As though they are unable to tag the change but that it seems to be going on above my physical head.

Then, the other day, my assistant/replacement invited me to go to lunch with her friend. When we stepped in the door of the Sushi restaurant, he was already there. His back was to us and I heard myself think, "I love a man in a pink shirt. It shows me they are confident and strong in being a man and can still wear pink." I was grinning at my thought and staring at his waistline, since that was pretty much where my line of vision leveled out on him. He stands over 6'4" tall.

She introduced us, we sat down and we proceeded to have one of the best conversations I have had in a long time. It has been ages since I have met anyone, especially a man, who was willing to stand in the face of my inquisitiveness and answer me with full-on eye contact. No matter what I asked, he answered it without a twitch, without a shrug. He was completely open, completely transparent and I was completely in awe.

At one point in the conversation, my assistant, was commenting that she wasn't short and that she could ride a Harley if someone would just teach her.

He said, "Oh yeah. You're what, a towering 5'4"?"

She laughed. "Yes. But Angie's shorter than me."

"She is not," he said, eyes wide with surprise. "She is way taller than you."

I was surprised and I imagine it registered on my face because he looked at me and said, "Is that true? How tall are you?"

"Yeah, it's true. I'm five foot even."

"No way! I could have sworn when you walked through that door that you were towering over her."

Later that night, it hit me. I suddenly realized that people are seeing my essence, that I have allowed myself, my true authentic self, to come forward and that is what people are interacting with. I see that people are seeing who I really am rather than what I have incorrectly believed them to be seeing. I realized that my true self is a beautiful, lyrical, flowing, graceful and big spirit. I realized that this short, squatty, "voluptuous" figure is not a true representation of who I am. Moreover, I realized that this me, the physical me that I am right now, is beautiful in her own right and that I am in transition and aligning all parts of me authentically.

I feel such a sweet surrender in this.

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