Hunger & the Art of Descent
Like many girls, I was raised to believe that my hunger was dangerous.
Terrified of what I thought was my insatiability, as a teenager, I tried to control my weight with disordered eating. I underplayed my sexuality by waiting until I was 18 to have my first kiss, and then later, in my twenties, convinced myself that I was satisfied with infrequent and unfulfilling sex. I hid my anxiety and need for support behind a fierce independence that told the world: I’m in control; I can do this by myself.
But really, I just spent the majority of my teens and twenties afraid of the sensations in my body. Whether it was for food, for sex, for comfort, I was trying to turn off my hunger. I thought if I could just stop wanting, stop feeling, then I could avoid the shame I felt for needing so much.
I will forever be grateful to my first pole dance teacher, who helped me to unlock and unleash the craving I felt underneath my skin. In that sacred dance studio—candlelit and without mirrors—I learned to drop down into my body, into the quiet corners of sensation, to the place where my hunger and desire lived.
I learned the art of moving meditation: how to bring attention to every small motion of my body, every contraction of muscle. I felt every hair that brushed my forehead, every breath that tickled my upper lip. When I was dancing, I learned to be present in the moment and bring attention to the sensations in my body without judgment. Whether I felt tired, strong, sore, weak, or flexible, I was meeting my body where it was.
I also learned to freestyle by harnessing the power of music and allowing my emotions to guide my movements. Closing my eyes and freeing myself from rules about what was “appropriate,” I let my body speak without my conscious mind shutting it down out of shame or “self-control.”
Over time, after several years of dancing, I became more aware of the sensations in my body outside of class, too. I learned to identify when I was truly hungry or full, when I wanted to be touched or left alone, when I needed to rest or to move. I could more clearly identify the way I felt in certain situations: the way my stomach turned when I talked to a certain coworker or the way my heart fluttered with excitement when I got a call from my best friend. I was taking the lessons I learned during moving meditation into my daily life.
My body was saying things, relaying valuable messages about my desires and fears. I just needed to listen. And the more I danced, the better I could hear my body outside of class. My intuition sharpened. My courage grew. My understanding of the person I was (instead of who I thought I should be) became clearer and clearer.
This is a process, always unfolding, but through dance, I finally had a taste of what it felt like to be fully present. And it was the practice of descent—of dropping down into the dark, quiet space of my body—that gave me the tools to look my hunger in the eye and decide that it was time to feed it, without fear. To look for ways to satisfy, to satiate, but, more importantly, to want without shame.