CwL Ep89: Trust Your Dance

Welcome to the summer series of the Conversations with Lisa podcast. I am going to be bringing you really simple, actionable things that you can do over this summer break for us in the Southern Hemisphere, for you guys, your winter break to reboot and reactivate yourself after what was 2021. These simple exercises will help you get focused on you, what you want, what matters to you and ways in which we can start moving towards that.

It’s time for the final step in our summer series to reboot and reactivate. And I wonder how you’re feeling. I wonder where you’re at, at this end of January. And I really definitely hope that this process, these steps have helped. I want to leave you with something today, to just take you just a little bit further into, dreaming into, feeling into what might be possible for you. Because so often, I think that we run on the treadmill, right? We’re just so programmed to think that what we know exists is what is, and actually, so much more is possible. I love sitting in the space of possibility. I believe that if I’ve imagined something for myself that, well, it exists. Then I just sort of walk towards it. Or, I’m a person who attracts that back in.

And, we don’t know when things will happen. We don’t necessarily know how. I don’t really focus on now so much. I hold a vision. But a really big part of that for me, and that I encourage you to think about is, I have this little note that I wrote once at an event I was at. It was actually with Angela Henderson, who’s an amazing business coach. I was speaking at an event of hers on the Gold Coast and participating in it. And, I wrote down just on this little piece of paper, just something that came to me, and it was “trust your dance”.

And, in that moment, what it meant to me was, when I am in a place where I can just hear myself, when I can honour what is uniquely Lisa, without judgement , the good and the bad. I mean, good and bad is such a terrible term, the shadows and the lights, the whatever you want to call it. When I sit in that place, when I can hear myself, when what feels true to me gives me that, oh, lit up feeling inside, I ask myself to trust my dance. No one else dances like you. No one else on this Earth was put here to do what you’re here to do, to love the way you love, to heal the way you’re healing, to be a friend the way you’re a friend, to parent the way you parent. Your dance is so uniquely you, and I think so often, in this world of social media comparison and just all of the books and the podcast just like this that can make us sometimes feel like we’re not enough, or we’re not doing okay or as well as other, we lose our dance. We lose our light. It dims. We’re just trying to keep up.

So, in this final step, I want you to sink into your dance. If you were to trust yourself, how different might life feel? If you stopped the second guessing, if you knew yourself on a whole different level, if you removed all of the stories, the beliefs, the layers, the trying to be good for everybody else and just actually just sank into what was you and trust it and freaking dance it, what might 2022 feel like to you? What would it mean to you? I mean, those words, “trust your dance”, they mean something to me. It might not mean anything to you.

The words that might resonate for you might be, what is truly me? How can I explore more of me? What lights me up? And can we bring a bit more of that into the year, please? Because you can. Uniqueness, difference, acceptance of ourselves and all those quirks is not hugely celebrated. Is it? Well, fuck that. I’m not here for that. I’m actually not here to dance anybody else’s dance. I’m here to dance mine, and you’re here to dance yours. Could you give yourself permission, in 2022, to explore that a little bit more? To let go a little bit more? To honour yourself? Pretty amazing, just saying.

I was also, I mean, years ago, I had on a whiteboard, I’m sure I’ve done podcast episodes about this before, wrote the words, “What is your next level of liberation?” This was when I had toddlers, three of them. And back then, I would put that there, and I would just think, “What is your next level of liberation, Lisa? What does freedom look and feel like to you right now?” And that started off with little things, like being able to go to the shops on my own. Or, it feels like, once I’m finished breastfeeding, getting up and going for a walk before everybody wakes up. That would just feel so expansive and freeing to me. And then it became being able to travel on my own. And I was always asking myself, if you’re sinking into your dance, if you’re getting to know yourself on a really freaking honest level, and I’ve encouraged you to do that throughout this process, then what do you really want? Like really, not surface level stuff. You.

And, what might freedom, liberation, look and feel like? What’s waiting for you? I used to keep myself trapped in thinking that things were the way they were. What, if you were to release it, would feel like, “What? So much has opened up for me right now. I feel lighter. I feel expanded. I feel rested. I feel peaceful,” whatever it is that you desire more of in your life. And then when we get clear on that stuff, when we allow ourselves to trust our own dance, to listen to our own intuition and make decisions from there. And when we kind of get a sense of an opening up, of a little bit more, and it doesn’t have to be more as in doing more or having more, it’s just like more of whatever it is that you are desiring in your life. It might be more rest. It might be more downtime. Actually next year, for me, liberation feels like working three days a week, or only 10 till 2. Sometimes liberation can feel like boundaries. The ability to say no. The adding in some school holiday programme fun over the summer, to me, feels like liberation. It’s not on me to take care of the kids every single day.

But then, when we have these moments, it’s actually requiring something different from us, right? Well, who would I need to be to step into this, to really trust, who am I being to not in the first place, and being someone who defers to other people all the time, and being someone who fills up her life so full that I have no time or space for silence and for just being with myself, popping on a meditation and just seeing what comes through. I’m being someone who keeps myself perpetually on the treadmill. Well, what if I were to get off the treadmill? What does that even look or feel like? Who do I need to be to make that happen? I need to be someone who actually places loving attention on myself. I need to be someone who puts my needs on the list of priorities. I need to be someone who’s coming at life with more clarity, with a sense of calm, with a sense of hope. So who am I being in this moment to create this next level of liberation, to be this next level of liberation?

Such an interesting question. And, at this stage, I hope you know by now, that you can just answer it simply, or you could just dive that little bit deeper, see what comes through for you. How could 2022 be a year that you trust your dance? You make decisions based on that stuff. I mean, of course, if you need help with removing all of the stories that keep telling you that you can’t, then you need to head straight to ready for change, because it’s what helps you peel back those layers, helps you see yourself. Some women see themselves clearly for the very first time. The letting go of all of that junk, it’s so refreshing. But then, also just whatever you are doing right now, it’s not going to be like this forever.

So when we allow ourselves and our attention to be placed on… If it could feel a little bit different, if it could feel more liberated, more free, more, whatever it is that you desire, what is that? What would that be for me? And then, who do I need to be to make that happen? Because it’s the beingness, that’s the key. It really is. I mean, if I’m saying I want to have three days of work a week, well, then that requires me to be a brilliant delegator. It requires me to be productive with the time allocated for work. It requires me to be someone who plans ahead. And, I can work on those things, yeah. The outcome, the result happens when we shift our way of being, and that’s a lot of the work that I do with women. It’s where everything starts. And it’s totally possible. And so, I want to invite you into your dance, wholeheartedly and fully, because we don’t know what’s going to happen this year. It’s bumpy out there. The world is, I mean, unpredictable, right? But who are you being amongst all that? Gentle with yourself or hard on yourself? What would the fullest expression of you in the world look like? Could you dance a little more this year in the amazingness of you?

I hope that you have enjoyed this reboot and reactivation and that you are feeling a little bit more activated. Because at the end of 2021, we have this beautiful new space of time. And, we have to remind ourselves where we have choice in amongst our life. I think the world is better when women choose themselves, when they activate that light that exists within them in gentle but expansive ways. Literally, this creates a ripple effect far and wide. And, any of the steps in this summer series will help you turn that light on.

And then you dance. We need you dancing. So sink into the questions in the workbook. Share with me. I would love to hear from you. On socials, tag away. You can write to me in the inbox, lisa@lisacorduff.com. Sort of we’ll be easing back into the inbox at this stage of January. I love to hear what this means for you. And for me, I mean, honestly, it changes all the time. So, revisit this workbook. Come back to it whenever you need a line in the sand. You can even listen to these episodes whenever you need. Be sure to share the series with a friend, if you found it useful, and they might want a bit of a binge listen. We’ve got this. 2022, here we are, and here we dance. See you soon.

The summer break is a brilliant time to do some deep diving. I’m not just talking about into the deep end of the pool. I’m talking about into you. So many women that I work with struggle to know what actually makes them feel good. I am on a mission to help more women than ever start to feel good now. You don’t have to wait for everything to change around you and wait for the perfect circumstances or wait for your kids to get to a certain age or your income to get to a certain level in order to actually feel good in the life that you’re living.

I’ve put together a brilliant four-part series called Feel Good Now to help you map out exactly what it is that you need to bring more feel goods into your life right now. If you want to get started, and it is a new year, how about the timing, then click on the link in the show notes and you’ll be taken to my programme, Feel Good Now. I think it’d be the perfect addition to your summer holidays. See you soon.

Hey, if you are enjoying the conversation, then it would mean the world to me if you head over to iTunes and give us a rating and review, it really makes a difference. It’s my intention to get as many of us involved in real conversations that really change the game as possible. Thanks so much for your help. I’ll see you in the next episode.