The Healing Power of Whole Body Movement

What do Yoga, Tai Chi, Qi Gong, Pow Wows, kickboxing, and dance all have in common? This question arose as I listened to wisdom pointing me back to my own love of dance and the healing power I have found in this form of expression. 

Whole body movement has a way of bringing us back to center, grounding us in the present moment, and connecting us with who we are at the core. Dance is the universal movement of the soul and song is the universal language of the spirit. While Yoga, Tai Chi, Qi Gong, and kickboxing aren’t generally associated with song, they each offer a unique healing power rooted in conscious awareness through movement. 

Let’s explore why whole body movement has such a profound impact on healing from within. 

Various parts of our bodies are deeply interconnected

Underneath our skin lies a powerful connective tissue called the fascia. The Cleveland Clinic describes fascia in this way: 

Fascia is a sheath of stringy connective tissue that surrounds every part of your body. It provides support to your muscles, tendons, ligaments, tissues, organs, nerves, joints and bones. When your fascia is healthy, it’s flexible and stretches with you. When your fascia tightens up, it can restrict movement and cause painful health conditions.

As you can see here, healthy fascia is flexible and stretches with you. When it knots up, however, it causes stiffness and pain. During my PT career, I learned about myofascial release techniques and trigger point massage. What I have come to learn as I have continued to study this fascinating, all encompassing connective tissue, is that it is often an indicator of our emotional and psychological health as well as physical health. 

I know from personal experience that when I am dealing with excessive stress, the trigger points in my shoulderblades knot up, pulling my shoulders towards my ears, creating a zone of stiffness and pain that has a tendency to exhaust me further. Over the years of dealing with various pain points, I have come to recognize that a tight fascia is my first warning sign that I need to pay attention, become aware of what my body is trying to tell me, and lean into tools that will help me release whatever pent up energy might be present. 

Whole body movement restores flexibility

This is where whole body movement comes into play. When we are activating our whole bodies, the fascia has an opportunity to move, stretch, and release the tension it is holding. This is a key concept in Tai Chi, and is part of recognizing how fully body movement helps heal aspects that may not be fully conscious. Through the power of movement, in combination with breathwork or concentrated focus, we call ourselves back to the present moment. Regrets from yesterday fall away, fears of tomorrow drift off, and the body, mind, and spirit have a chance to rest and reset within the movement. 

I have spent many years trying to find the ways my body desires to move, and it has been through embracing the gentle, fluid movements of Tai Chi and Qi Gong that I have been able to consciously connect with my breath and my own personal energetic space. These modalities of whole body movement restore balance within my energy, shedding and releasing the energy from the outside world that does not belong to me, and encouraging me to reclaim the beautiful energy emanating from deep within my being. 

The universal power of dance

Dance, on the other hand, helps me to release whatever pent up emotions and energy needs to be released. A very short poem I wrote speaks to the expressive nature of dance. 

Life is like a dance.

The melody may change,

But eternal love remains. 

I’m sure you have heard the saying, “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass. It’s about learning to dance in the rain.” 

Music holds a depth of expression that our minds can’t fully comprehend. Whatever mood we may find ourselves in, there is a melody that can help us process and express that mood. When we dance to the rhythm with conscious attention directed at releasing what no longer serves our greatest good, we subconsciously bring our muscles, nerves, organs, minds, and spirits back into alignment and harmony through releasing the pent up energy held within this network of fascia. 

In my tradition of Bhakti Yoga, or moving through life in a mood of loving devotional service to the all attractive supreme, Krishna, song and dance are considered great acts of loving service. Mantras point us to the sweet, loving, and compassionate nature of higher consciousness rooted in our spark of eternal relationship with the divine. It is said that each one of us has a unique melody residing within, and when we pause enough to listen to the melody, we enter into divine ecstasy that pours out of us through dance. 

The Sufi tradition enters into ecstasy through twirl dancing. Indigenous tribes build community and deeper connection with the earth and all living beings through chanting and dancing. Ecstatic dance is creeping up throughout the country as we recognize the transformative power of dance. 

Hidden treasures in other whole body movement

Yoga may hold poses for longer periods of time, but the principle of whole body movement connected with deep breath work has the same effect of releasing tight fascia and reconnecting us to our most essential selves. 

I mentioned kickboxing because of its power to focus our attention and release the pent up energy of anger and boundary violations. This key focus of kickboxing helps to remind me that no matter what movement modality I choose, what matters most is the intention I set to become consciously aware of my body and environment as it is in the present moment. This conscious awareness is the key to unlocking the power of movement and releasing anything our bodies are unconsciously holding. 

Tai Chi and Qi Gong, as I mentioned earlier, helps us to reclaim our own personal energy field through gentle movement that helps us recognize the fluidity of the energy all around us. These gentle movements invite us to flow with life, embracing the goodness and releasing the challenges through a symbiotic relationship with the energy all around us. Tai Chi has helped me reclaim my energetic boundaries which is allowing me to express my energy more than absorbing the energies around me. This has been deeply transformative in my ability to show up as I am. 

Returning to our spirits

It is my hope that you can see how movement can return us to our inner spirits, unlock the healing power of coming home to ourselves, and support us in releasing anything that does not belong to us. 

Movement combined with conscious awareness has a powerful effect on bringing us back to the present moment, reclaiming our worth and value, inviting us to express what may be lying underneath the surface, and resting in simply being as we are with the world as it is.

Connecting back to the energy emanating from within, recognizing our unique energy has a higher purpose, and offering gratitude for the energy coming through the music, nature, or the dance itself helps reconnect us with the most amazing, beautiful, and loving parts of our existence that are capable of transforming our pain into strength, fears into courage, and anxiety into trust. 

The more we learn how to move with the flow of life, inviting the eternal dance to express itself throughout our activities, the greater opportunity we have to enter into playfulness and creativity. Purpose and meaning opens, clarity enters, and we learn to dance in the rain, trusting we are sweetly held by a power far greater than ourselves.