Lynleigh Rose
- Jan 1, 2016
- 3 min read

So I just danced on the side of a busy street...

I'm officially crazy. Or am I...?

Crazy or gutsy? You decide.

But whatever high I was on that morning was quite possibly better than any drug (although I can't say I've ever actually experienced a drug-induced high). It was more than just a "runner's high," although that was definitely part of it.

Have you ever had the flying dream? Or a lucid dream, where you know it's a dream and so you realize you can do anything you want and get away with it? Run around naked (I may or may not have had this one), rob a convenient store (ok I admit to having this dream- in my younger years I apparently thought that would be a fun thing to do with no consequences, even though I couldn't bring my stolen goods into the real world upon awakening...).

I felt something like that when I started dancing on the side of a busy street during my run.

At first glance it might have appeared I had temporarily detached from the real world. Disassociation, perhaps. Yet in truth, it was just the opposite. The world was suddenly just...the world. And I was suddenly just...a person in it. Nothing too deep or complex, just a heightened sense of reality, the reality that we are here for a very short period of time, and that caring what other people think of us is a serious waste of time.

I was tired of feeling like I had to hold back my desire to move with the music I was listening to just because I was in a public place. What was I afraid of? That random strangers passing by might do a double take? Because that's all they would have time for before driving past me. So what if the cars were stopped at a stop light and noticed me for longer than 2 seconds? They would probably be amused to see someone dancing, right? Is my dancing going to hurt anyone? Of course not. The more I thought about it, the more I struggled to come up with an excuse not to do it.

The past few weeks this desire to dance whenever and wherever I felt like it, had been brought into my consciousness repeatedly. I wrote in my journal about it. I mentioned it to a friend. I made a voice recording of my thoughts one day while driving. I couldn't get it out of my mind, or out of my heart. I kept feeling this huge desire to just dance...Dance...DANCE! So I danced in the kitchen, and in the living room. I danced with my kids, and embarrassed my older one who always covered his eyes (and ears, at times).

But on the morning of January 1, 2016, it hit me hard mid-run, and I knew that today was the day to let loose in public. So I took this video (above), cranked up my music into my earbuds and...danced on the sidewalk! (I would have filmed myself, but alas, I was alone, and my moves were not condusive to holding an iphone.)

To let myself go like that was one of the most freeing experiences of my life. Love, happiness and joy spilled out of me in the form of a huge, open-mouthed smile, almost as if I were trying to catch and swallow all the positive energy in the world and allow it to flow into my being.

Half dancing, half running, I experienced overwhelming gratitude. Gratitude for my body, for being able to move it and use it this way to express all the built up passion for life I've been holding inside for so long. And gratitude for my life, and my newfound connection to myself.

For that moment, it felt like my spirit, or my true inner self, and I were one. I was setting my true spirit free at last, breaking out of the box I had confined myself to. I never wanted to come down from that high.

So this year, my mantra is: Don't Hold Back. For me, this means: Don't suppress your positive desires for fear of what others might think of you. Connect with your inner self more, and listen to your intution. Then follow it, despite the consequences. Live every moment to the fullest. Be in the present. This life is truly a gift, and I don't intend to waste it.