I have had anxiety since I was a child. I remember when I was around 11 years old having some sort of episodes where I couldn’t breath normally due to it. Sometimes it gave me a strong pain in my stomach, like if someone was stabbing me with a sharp stick. So much pain that If I was hanging out with friends I had to rest for a while before being able to walk back home. I remember my mom telling me that was happening to me because I didn't know how to breath properly. When I grew up it started being difficult for me to concentrate and to not procrastinate, so difficult that I really thought I had an Attention Deficit Disorder. I did the tests by a psychologist and the results were that I had an anxious personality.

This anxiety blended with embarrassment and shame, which really hurt my confidence. I used to be a very shy girl. I don’t have any vivid memory as a child of me dancing. Over time dancing became something really difficult as I feared being judged for not being good at it. I used to compare myself with others all the time. I tortured my mind recalling all those negative comments related to dancing from my childhood. I remember people telling me I only danced with my shoulders. I eventually convinced myself I wasn't good enough at dancing and I ended up building a huge wall of fears around it that didn't allow me to enjoy the movement of my body freely.  

From my teenage days I was only able to dance when I was drunk or high and in any case I barely dared to try new moves. In the discotheque I was the kind of person who was talking to their friends, going uncountable times to the restrooms or going outside to smoke just to avoid the discomfort of being on the dancefloor without knowing how to move. With the years I started being more aware of that problem but my ego never let me recognise it as a fear. So that fact didn’t help me to overcome it at all. I kept pretending everything was okay and that was just my personality- I was not a dancing person. But it was not. I had a voice inside shouting “I want to be able to feel free to dance whenever the idea crosses my mind.”  But I just kept silencing it.

After turning 30 years old I traveled to Vietnam at the beginning of COVID-19. Ironically this pandemic saved my life in so many ways. I looked at the eyes of fear once again but this time something inside was pushing me not to look away. Meditation has had a big role in that. I had been working daily on some meditation techniques that included dancing for more than 3 months. I was told that if I had a fear I needed to confront that as many times as I could until the fear disappeared. And so I did. So after a lot of work and persistence I was able to dance in public and I was even able to do that alone. I truly could have never imagined that day was going to arrive.

It’s beyond coincidence that shortly after completing my meditation course I found Dork Dancing. I remember I was walking with a friend on the sidewalk of the beach in Da Nang the first day I discovered this community. It had been a while since the last time I danced in public and I was starting to feel I needed to incorporate a dancing routine, kinda fearing the fear was going to pick up again. This was a sign on my way, as a reminder to keep working to set myself free from any fear.  

Dork dancing gives me the chance to keep working daily on that fear that lasted for too long. It helps me to keep building confidence about my being, to accept better who I am and accept what is happening around me. It’s a way to expand myself and to keep evolving, it’s a kind of meditation. 

Dork dancing is a supportive and healthy environment, full of laughter and smiles, it’s a safe community where I find support in people; people I know I can rely on sharing my personal story without being judged. It’s a place to make new amazing friends and at the same time a place to keep my mind in a healthy state. It helps me to combat that anxiety that I carried heavily as a little girl.

During this Covid lockdown I have observed anxiety in me, especially being alone at home. The anxiety never fully goes away. It feels difficult to be doing only one thing at the same time, my mind is always in a kind of rush, thinking of all the things I need to be done by the end of the day. I have also observed myself eating when I wasn’t hungry at all, just because of the anxiety. 

Dork dancing is my special time of the day, a time for relaxing, observing and connecting with other people who are also sharing that at the same moment without being worried of thinking what to do next.