A Book-Flavored Wellness Hack

I need to start today’s blog by telling you something you probably don’t know about me — I’m a horrible dancer. Embarrassingly, objectively, 100% really, truly awful. (It’s okay, I’ve accepted it.) So when I now tell you that my new favorite book-related wellness hack is dancing (dancing!!), you have to know it’s been a stretch for me. And you need to know I only take part in this wellness hack in the privacy of my own home ~ mostly in a locked bathroom. You can probably guess I first tried it because of a book.

It was entirely because of a book.

Here’s how it happened. . .

I was reading the last chapter of The Gifts of Imperfection by Brené Brown where she lays out the details of guidepost #10 to a “Wholehearted Life” — the idea of cultivating laughter, song, and dance in our lives by letting go of being cool and always in control.

Specifically, the part that gripped my heart (and made me try dancing) was her story about catching her 8-year-old daughter in a weird twitchy solo dance party in a department store and choosing to be goofy and dance right along with her even though a group of well-dressed moms and their tween daughters were watching in shock and horror.

She danced.

In public with her daughter.

All because she heard her heart cry out, “Choose Ellen! Be on her side!” And that one experience has since led her to choose dancing in the kitchen with her husband and kids almost nightly ever since. (At least it had when she wrote that book quite a few years ago. I don’t know how that’s going now that she has teenagers and adult kiddos, but the lesson stands.)

Here’s what Brené Brown says about that experience:

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“When we value being cool and in control over granting ourselves the freedom to unleash the passionate, goofy, heartfelt, and soulful expressions of who we are, we betray ourselves. . .

Life is way too precious to spend it pretending like we’re super-cool and totally in control when we could be laughing, singing, and dancing.”

~ Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection

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Here’s the thing — it works.

Dancing has been improving things for me in the wellness department for over a month now.

It’s still working.

Every night when I step into the bathroom to grab a hot shower and dive into my ever-increasingly time-consuming skincare routine (thanks, 40s), I’ve been cranking up a certain playlist on my phone and starting my own weird twitchy solo dance party. And it makes my heart feel like it’s bursting with joy, even on the toughest of days. There really is something about moving your body that leads to wellness (there’s a reason movement is considered the magic pill for improving wellness ~ and some very real science behind why dancing in particular works so well).

So, my friend, if you’ve been feeling over it all, a little low, or if you’ve had a severe case of the Aprils lately, I hope you’ll turn off your screens, put some dance party music in your AirPods, and dance for five minutes (even if you need to lock yourself in a bathroom for privacy).

Here’s the Dance Party playlist I’ve been using.

Happy dancing!

Celeste

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P.S. I’m hosting my next women’s retreat on October 25-28 where we’ll be hiking, e-biking, and watercolor painting outdoors. Details are live at wellandwanderretreat.com. Hope to see you over there!