This week’s Dance First Member Spotlight is brought to you by LA-Based Birgitte Tan, founder of Dance Away Sadness.
Happy Autumn!
How time flies. It is almost holiday time already. What a year 2020 has been! Who knew we would spend most of this year with Covid-19 and social distancing? Initially, we were told it will be two weeks, then two months, but now it seemed like it’s going to last forever.
July 4th, 2020.
My mind goes back to July 4, 2020. It had been three and a half months since the lockdown started here in Los Angeles. Since I am an essential worker, we decided that it would be safer for my family members to stay away from me. It had been three and a half months since I saw any of my loved ones in person. I missed my dad’s 75th birthday and my partner’s 50th birthday. I was sad, lonely, and anxious. And to top it off, the city’s annual 4th of July fireworks were canceled due to covid-19. How frustrating and depressing.
There is a saying, “put your own oxygen mask first.” I had been so busy moving my work to online and taking care of others, I forgot to put on my own oxygen mask! No wonder I felt exhausted and emotionally suffocated. Thank goodness I have my Dance Away Sadness: Move Beyond Your Grief™️. This grief support system helps us to release the part of grief that words cannot touch. Dance Away Sadness™️ is designed to help us release frustration, reduce anxiety, alleviate heartache, ease depression, diffuse anger, and restore our hopes. As its founder, I have seen it help countless people – and now, it was helping me.
I realized that I had been using the dance for helping people but not specifically for myself since Covid-19 started. It was time for me to take my own medicine. Thankfully, one session of Dance Away Sadness: Move Beyond Your Grief™️ immediately started to lift my spirits. I could breathe again. I scheduled myself to dance every week for a few weeks and got my bearing back.
November 4, 2020.
Halloween came and passed. The strangest Halloween indeed. Soon Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year are going to be here. Even without COVID, people with recent and not-so-recent losses experience more intense and a resurgence of grief during the holiday season. Grief is the conflicting feelings caused by a change in our familiar routine. Covid-19 has thrown most of us into an unfamiliar territory again and again as we tried to navigate the ever-changing official recommendations. Almost everyone is grieving to a degree because of it. And grief is cumulative. Therefore, know that it’s normal if you feel even more intense sadness or anger this holiday season. These feelings are often different camouflage of grief.
The good news is, there is help if you feel you might benefit from one. I am grateful that, as the Dance Away Sadness™️ founder and a Grief Recovery and Life Mastery Specialist, I am well equipped with the knowledge, tools, and skills for navigating changes and grief with more confidence and poise. This Halloween, instead of watching treat-or-tricksters, I did Dance Away Sadness first online and then for myself in my Halloween costume. My clients had fun, and so did I. We know we will keep dancing through the holiday and beyond.
If you feel you might benefit from any form of grief support, please feel welcomed to contact me at support@BirgitteTan.com or (805) 864-2002, or check out my book “Seeking Peace: The Proven 5-Fingers Method to THRIVE through Change Effortlessly” available on Amazon.com.
As an expression of my gratitude to this dancer community, I am gifting you a 30-minutes laser coaching! (schedule it here: http://
Move Beyond Your Grief™️ on Saturday, December 5, 2020 (simply email support@BirgitteTan.com by Dec 1, 2020, and put “Dance Pass” on subject title).
I wish you a peaceful, joyful holiday season, despite any adversity. With gratitude and love from my heart to yours,
Birgitte Tan
References:
1. The Grief Recovery Method. (n.d.). Retrieved October 1, 2019, from https://www.
2. Seeking Peace: The Proven 5-Fingers Method to THRIVE through Change Effortlessly. Tan, Birgitte. Dance Away Sadness Pub. Thousand Oaks, CA. May 2020. “A beautiful book of inner and outer peace making.” (Dr. Jean Houston).
http://www.SeekingPeaceBook.
All materials copyright Birgitte Tan LLC 2020
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