It was April, 2020 I first stumbled across Awakened Bellydance https://www.awakenedbellydance.com/ or AwBd online - a friend told me about the 21 day challenge, consisting of a short live AwBd session for 21 consecutive days. I’d always wanted to try belly dancing, and with the extra space and freedom in my schedule (and shiny first time enthusiasm of) lock down 1, I eagerly joined.
It quickly became apparent that this was not your regular belly dance class (despite me never having tried one of those, either). As the founder, Katie Holland, began to lead us through some movements after a short intro the energy in my body was palpable. It was as though I had been plugged into a source of energy way higher than my usual voltage and the energy raced around my body, mouth and eyes open wide, nipples erect, every pore and every hair tingling with electricity.
There was no real focus on technique or aesthetic, more a functional approach which served as a means to an end of helping to move and transmute energy around the body. I was hooked.
We spent three days on each energy centre or chakra in the energetic body, starting with the root and working our way up to the crown. Different facilitators directed each day and I came to experience a glimpse of the different flavours of AwBd that every unique teacher can bring. Some I resonated with, others I didn’t - the same with the chakras themselves. Some days I found breezy, joyful, ecstatic - others hard, probing, wholeheartedly difficult. One thing it never was was dull - there was always emotion and electricity.
As the process continued various elements in my life began to morph and shift - mainly my perception of life and everything in it.
People and situations that no longer served my highest good became even more glaringly apparent, and the catalyst for change and evolution had been ignited.
At the end of the 21 days (like many others in the flourishing online community of hundreds in the AwBd online group) I didn’t want the experience to be over. Our wish was granted and the second 21 day challenge announced. I embraced the following 21 days with equal relish and watched as the world before my eyes started to brighten into 5D.
In the 8 months following the course I implemented a number of huge life changes - handing my notice in at my part time communications role to pursue my real love of teaching full time despite being at the beginning of the pandemic, moving into my own apartment for the first time in my life despite the financial uncertainty, taking the leap to allow myself to meet my now beloved after being heartbroken earlier in the year.
It was obvious to me that the AwBd process was far beyond the realms of the obvious, and the desire to go deeper into the process and learn with the founder of it all had been planted. When I saw that this year’s training was going to be held in the heart of the Sinai desert in Egypt I had to heed the call - Egypt has fascinated me since my childhood and the desert is forever my heart home - this was no accident…
See my next post for an account of this life changing course.