Finding Your Center

Ritama’s Spiritual Path begins

Ritama: “My spiritual path started at my dance academy. I remember the exact moment that birthed the new me. When I arrived at the academy I was eager and full of talent. Dance was a joy and I loved performing. I had confidence in myself – I knew I was good at this. I was even a bit cocky! You can imagine my shock when I received a D in a course. ’Why? How is this possible? Me? I’m one of the best dancers in the school. There must be something wrong with this instructor. I really need to talk to her.’

Upset, I went to her. She said: ’Ritama, you don’t have a connection to your center’” I had no idea what she was talking about. My immediately response was, ‘And you give me a D for this? Can’t you change it? I have A’s in all my other classes’”

She said, “No. I am doing this because I need to get your attention. Being centered is one of the most important things for becoming an excellent dancer.”

I could feel that she meant well, and I intuitively felt she was right, but mentally I had no idea what she was talking about. I did not understand the concept. Where is my center? What center? How do I get the contact? If I wasn’t in my center, where was I?

That moment started a quest for me to discover my center. However, center eluded me for a long time. What I did find early on however was an important step on the way – and that was how I was off center.

How do you know that you are off-center?

We all know the feeling of being off-center; we have spent a lot of our life there!

  • You have certainly experienced being insecure or tense.

  • Perhaps you weren’t fully present or were preoccupied.

  • Maybe your actions were not as powerful or effective as you would have liked them to be.

  • Or your emotions were turbulent and clouded the situation.

  • If you were doing something physical, perhaps you were clumsy.

All these exemplify ways we are off center.

Being off-centered is well embodied in language:

“I’m all over the place.”

“I’m not together.”

“I’m spaced out.”

“I feel besides myself.”

The Main Directions to which we go Off-Center

The following images show the energetics of some of the ways we go off center and the text gives hints on how to recognize that off-center state. As you look at the pictures, you may notice each evokes particular sensations in your body. This is your energy body reshaping itself, just by looking at the picture. You’ll probably recognize all of them, but which ones do you tend to resonate with the most?

There are many other ways we go off center that we haven’t listed here, such as going off-center to the side or to the diagonal. Add your own off-center direction.

Your Energies are in Front of Yourself

person pushing to achieve their goals

Caught in doing and pushing to achieve your goals

person overdoing things to care for others

Overdoing things to care for and please others

In front of yourself:

  • Hooked into doing or action
  • Spun-up or scattered
  • Aggressive
  • Bossy or pushy
  • Proving yourself
  • Juggling too many balls

In front of yourself:

  • Pleasing others
  • Caretaking another
  • Emotionally over-invested
  • Trying to get attention

Your Energies are Contracted or Behind Yourself

person knotted and behind themselves

Knotted and behind yourself

Contracted or behind yourself:

  • Tight or frozen
  • Oversensitive
  • Protective
  • Feeling like a victim
  • Hiding, escaping
person tight and frozen

Tight and frozen

Your Energies are Above Yourself

person that's overly mental

Overly mental; disconnected from body, feelings

Above yourself:

  • Disconnected from your body
  • Ungrounded
  • Spaced out, daydreaming
  • Too much in the mind
  • Too “spiritual”, not realistic
person that's spaced out and dreamy

Spaced out, dreamy

Your Energies are Down

person that has low energy

Low energy, dragging yourself

Down or blobby:

  • Tired, flat, low energy
  • Lazy, “couch potato”
  • Lost your drive
  • Addictions – food, drink, drugs, sex
  • Hopeless, sad, depressed
person that's blobby and sluggis

Blobby and sluggish

Ritama: As I became more aware of my energy field my first insight was that I was in front of myself. This had many implications. On a technical level while dancing I had problems with my balance. On a performance level I received the feedback after a dance presentation that I was giving too much. And in my personal life I would often be overpowering and bossy, and others would get overwhelmed by me.

The awareness that I was in front of myself led to my next step – how to come back in. A whole new department in the school that before was of no interest to me suddenly drew me strongly. The quest of finding center became such a fire that I decided to change to the Faculty of Modern Dance. There the classes were based on breath and yoga and I began training in Tai Chi. Through all these new methods I came to understand what it meant to bring myself back and drop in.