The music fades into silence as the people in the room slow into stillness. I hear sighs of deep knowing.
I gaze around the room and feel the air heavy with feeling.
“Gather round” I almost whisper.
“Let’s sit in a circle to bring to a close what we just experienced.”
No one moves.
Enraptured by each other and by the moments before, deeply intertwined in the dance of connection.
“Let’s all take three deep breaths” I say as we finally manage to untangle ourselves and sit in circle.
The release is palpable.
“Again” I say, as each sigh, groan, moan and tender tone weaves it’s way through space.
We all hold hands.
Not ready to let go yet.
Not ready to feel the longing to belong once more.
For right here, right now we all felt it.
And it felt like home.
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That was how I ended my first facilitated Contact Beyond Contact session this week. Co created with my two beautiful sisters – we held space for 25 people to come together exploring the wider sensitivities of self and other, feeling, sensing and flowing to co-create a dance.
Contact Beyond Contact is a movement practice focused on transformational healing developed by Evangelos Legakis which interweaves Contact Improvisation (a movement practice where you are always in contact with other person(s), Authentic Movement (a movement practice where there is a dancer and a witness allowing for safety and deep intuitive expression), Passing Through (group dynamics to create unexpected cohesion) together with Yoga, Qi Gong and other Eastern healing modalities.
I spent the last 7 days learning how to become a facilitator of CBC and I am freaken excited because this form of movement based practice combines my passion of learning how to help transform peoples relationships.
Relationships are the foundation of humanity.
Relationship to ourselves, to our parents, to our colleagues, our bosses, employees and to our loved ones.
I don’t know anyone who doesn’t want to have relationships that are easy, fully supportive, playful, deeply nourishing an where they feel listened to.
This training was gave me another tool that I can now teach you in how to deepen your relationships.
Here are some of the teachings I learnt that I can now share;
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Bio Magnetism is everywhere – the electro magnetic field of the human body is always flowing in a circular fashion out and back into us. We can tune ourselves into our energy field by cultivating mindfulness around our own body. Slow down. Breathe. We can use our energy field to start to interact with people even without them knowing about it (it’s a tool I teach already in how to become the most magnetic person in the room).
We spent a lot of time learning the basics of Qi Gong and learning how to cultivate our own energy before we pass it onto others.
Simple. Profound. Deeply nourishing. Powerful.
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Leading or Following.
Pushing or Pulling.
Saying Yes or No.
Basic movements that you can build upon to start to ‘dance’ in Contact dance can be wider applied to your life.
Are you always the leader, do you always follow and never stand up for yourself?
Are you always forcing your way or do you feel dragged into doing things in your life that you don’t want to do?
Are you a people pleaser? Have weak boundaries? Are you constantly saying no to opportunities that may benefit you?
The subtle contexts of these principles integrate so well into how we live our lives. Playing or dancing with these gave me great insight into how I show up in my life.
And as I always say,
How you do ONE thing is how you DO EVERYTHING.
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Music is key to allowing people to journey. Silence is also deeply beautiful in allowing the connection to deepen.
Knowing your music is a must.
We dived into how music relates to each of the chakras and how you can compose the moment by choosing specific music that can bring out the stability at the root or dive high into ascension and opening higher uplifting states. Choose your music with intention and it will guide the journey to a place of melting connections.
If you haven’t already, here’s my Sensual Sunday Playlist (free to listen to) if you want to feel sensual, alive and sexy in your body. I curated this playlist specifically to feel all the feels!
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Learning the art of holding space for people is something that gives me great pleasure, like the kind of pleasure after a bungee jump (or what I imagine the exhilaration feels like). It’s about gently guiding people to feel safe. Being present but not overly dominant in the space.
Allowing for transformation to occur without pushing for it.
Always being ready for what might happen and being able to integrate it into the moment.
Never expecting but always ready to give.
I love holding space and am so excited to announce my Bali April 2019 retreat.
7 days of immersion into dance, movement, ritual, creative play, hugs and more.
April 18 – 24
OPEN WIDE.
For women who long to belong.
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What is Contact Beyond Contact simply explained?
It’s a movement tool that is facilitated in a way for your to explore your relationship to yourself and your relationships to others. It draws upon your senses, mindfulness, energetics, intimacy and safety. It creates deep connections between strangers as you open yourself up to a dance that is co-created in every moment, releasing expectations, flowing with whatever is presented in the moment.
Ultimately it’s about presence.
And presence is about being in the here and now.
I am so deeply honored to have done this training and to be able to now facilitate my own unique version of CBC together with Authentic relating, movement medicine and of course my own flavor of Nora.
xox
Nora
A sneak peek of what we did
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