I’ve been witnessing a lot of bravery lately. I’m not speaking about within myself, but observing it in others. I don’t mean the bravery publicized with muscles and bravado, but the more subtle bravery-the bravery of trying something new, alone.
Wouldn’t it be interesting to be a fly on the wall of the individual’s internal dialogue that led them to try something new all by themselves? Like a rom-com where the happy ending is falling in love with the self. Can you imagine sitting on the sofa cheering for the hero of the story, feeling their anxiousness and weeping when they do? Deeply understanding their burden of ‘what if’ going on inside and understanding that in some situations the only thing more scary than trying, is not to try at all. And then observing them discovering a community of people who are better because they decided to go.
If only we had more opportunities to be there for people like that. Would we be overwhelmed at how many people could be out there with the capacity to be supportive of us?
Our society is bombarded with negative messaging and that makes stepping out all the more daunting. I think people who are looking to make a move are more careful about the places they chose to be vulnerably new in. They’ve thought it out to some degree. In the studio its all of our responsibility to hold space for those people. You likely won’t know who they are, maybe you will later, but in the meantime, when you walk into class, you get a new opportunity to be the quiet cheerleader of everyone in the room, just like someone else did for you.
Hold each other carefully,
~Carmen