ATTITUDE AND GRATITUDE

Baby kitty Carmen,  my little "street tiger"

I'm home from my 2014 travels, and mistakenly made the assumption that things would quiet down a  bit... WRONG!  Aside from finally unpacking my on-the-road suitcases,  my house was a wreck cause I'd been away   about four weekends a month  for the past three months.  And, unexpectedly,  after  my two beloved senior citizen kitties Smudgie ( age 21) and Ni-Ni, (age 14) passed away within a month of each other, I was blessed with two tiny baby kittens!  They are  little  feral "street tigers", a brother and a sister, who have been rescued,  tamed and are now living in the lap of luxury in the Royal Palace. Beeper and Carmen are a handful, but they are amazing!   I am so blseed to have them,  The Universe brought them to me at the most perfect time ever. And  now that I'm home for a while,  we can bond even more and  I can watch them grow. 

On one of their crazy "let's chase each other around the house" moments, they knock a diary of mine from off a shelf. I had to page through it, and was kinda amazed at what I found. The diary covered a trip to Egypt from 1991.  In addition to Arabic translation of commonly used words and glue-in tickets from Luxor Temple and The Sphinx, there was a gratitude list.  I didn't even know I was thinking that way back then, but apparently I was!

  Just some of the things included on the list were  ( obviously) colored by my trip to Egypt, like  "I am thankful I can travel", "I am grateful that I can read" "I have a  a healthy, strong body" and, funnily enough, "I am grateful for modern conveniences"... yeah, I'll say!

 But there were many, many more. And there was also a list  on how to out-flow energy  and love to  people, things like " Keep a good attitude, try to be optimistic and positive, look on the bright side" ,  "Be helpful and supportive to other people", and " Communicate  as much as possible;  if I love someone or something, I will say it. If I am not happy with someone or something,  or find anything unsatisfactory, I will say that too but in a kind  and positive way".

  Seriously, I do not remember being so enlightened... but I guess I was, even back then.  For the past   fifteen years or so,  I've made lists like this  at the year's end, or whenever I thought I needed to count my blessings.

Since Thanksgiving is approaching, I made a Dance List of everything I am thankful for.

Dancing literally changed my life. On top of the “usual” benefits, like giving me a strong, toned, flexible body, the emotional and spiritual impact dancing has had upon me is so significant, I can hardly put it into words. In my writing, I am usually a confirmed abuser of the exclamation point, but the amount of punctuation I would need to apply in this case is boundless, so I will spare you.

From the age of three, I wanted to dance, but for many reasons (the foremost being a ballet teacher who rejected me at an early age because my feet were flat ) dancing wasn’t in the cards for me until  well after I had already reached adulthood.

Maybe I had a karmic debt to pay, maybe my life just unfolded the way it was supposed to, but I came to belly dancing fairly late in life, after the age of thirty. Though I still sometimes wish I had been able to study dance since childhood, I no longer feel robbed, or the regret I used to experience about not having been a life-long dancer; now I am just thrilled with the way things turned out!

Mere months after I began belly dancing-almost as a lark- my life did a full 360 degree turn-around. Instead of picking my body (and all the individual parts) to pieces by visually and physically comparing myself to unrealistic and “ideal” images in the media, I began to love my body for the way it looked while I was dancing. Soon, that sentiment morphed into simply loving my body. As I developed more skill, I began to be grateful for what my body could do.

Dancing also helped me quit some very self-destructive behaviors I had for decades: substance abuse and an eating disorder. A hardcore bulimic for years, my love of dancing helped me cultivate a healthy relationship with food…and need I tell you that it’s impossible to dance for hours with a hangover or while high? Suddenly, I had a choice to make and I picked dancing over controlled substances and being unhealthy.

Dancing helped me get through-and over- a painful divorce. The feminine energy and sisterhood I felt with other dancers was healing and gave me hope. I see this theme repeated with many other dancers, and I hope I can pass this feeling on to others.

Belly dancing also lead me to other forms of dance, and  for that, I am eternally grateful. It’s what directly lead to my career in burlesque, not to mention studying and performing other types of dance as well, like jazz, ballet, Bollywood, samba, contemporary, hip-hop and many other genres. Whenever my schedule ( or my creaky ole body) allows, I take dance classes.

Dancing has also allowed me to meet thousands of incredible, beautiful, intelligent and talented women the world over… that I may never have met normally during the course of my everyday life. Through dancing, I have made life-long friends with many strong women of all ages, shapes and sizes who are veritable super-heroines; they are giving, driven,  talented, and usually very witty to boot.

I’ve met dancers who are emergency room nurses, teachers, criminal attorneys, children’s advocates, speech therapists, accountants, trauma counselors, ranchers, authors, film festival curators, architects, coal miners, political activists, rock stars, explosives technicians, police women, sitcom actors, college professors with PhD’s… not to mention mothers, grandmothers and even great-grandmothers…and all of them are serious dancers!

I am thankful that I live in a country where women are free to dress as they please, to dance for joy-or professionally if they choose- and where dancing is considered an art-form.

Every day I give thanks that dancing, something I have always done only for love is also what I do for work, and how I make a living. I never take this for granted, sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure my life is real. When I walked into my first belly dancing class, if anyone would have told me that within a fairly short time I was going to turn professional-not to mention have a career  over twenty years later- I would’ve laughed so uproariously, the walls of the studio would’ve blown apart!

My dance career – my performing and teaching- has taken me all over the globe and I have loved every moment of it. It was a far-fetched wish, and that wish came true. The only thing I might add here (and believe me, my tongue is firmly planted in my cheek!) is the old adage about “being careful what you wish for”. Had I known that my wish was actually going to come true, I probably would’ve added in a clause allowing me to have a luggage valet and a personal massage therapist travel with me!

I am so thankful for all the wonderful women who have sponsored me to teach and perform. Sponsors are super-human, and in addition to paying for my travel, feeding me, housing me, fulfilling my backstage requests, and staying up til the wee hours talking shop, many of them have also gone wa-a-a-ay above and beyond the call of duty. They have taken me sight-seeing, brought me to amazing shows, given me gorgeous gifts, taken me hot-tubbing, booked me massages- even brought me to the emergency room, or dealt with my tearful grief when I was thousands of miles away from home and my beloved kitten disappeared. You ladies know who you are, thank you so very much! In general, my sponsors have gone so far out of their out of their way to make me feel comfortable when I am on the road, I cannot thank them enough; most of them have become life-long friends.

I am very grateful for my teachers and dance-mentors, women  ( and men!) who were dancing professionally long before I even  thought of starting to dance…all of whom were very generous with sharing their knowledge of not only technique, but also practical application, not to mention costuming ideas, crowd-control skills and career- building know-how.

My students, whether on-going pupils or one-time workshop attendees, make me feel such gratitude, I can’t even verbalize it. I learn something new from them every day!  The  drummers  and musicians I’ve worked with  are amazing and  love what they do… and  aside from learning a lot from them,   I love them for  caring, cause our shows have always been fabulous!

I would like to thank The Audience too- where would any dancer be without you? There is almost nothing more fulfilling than hearing an appreciative audience and seeing smiling faces in a darkened theater, just ask any performer! And of course,  all the behind-the-scenes people, those who never get enough thanks, like the artful  lighting and sound technicians,  all the harried- but unbelievably competent stage managers ( many of whom  are volunteers)  the  talented photographers and graphic artists I’ve worked with….and of course,  my long-suffering  friends and my boyfriend; all patiently waiting  for me to:

  a) get off stage  b) get my bag  packed up  c) stop talking about dancing!

Last but not least, I also gotta say that I am so very grateful for having a job that has the best, most amazing “uniform” EVER- what could be better than a blinged-out costume?

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you and yours!

Baby kitty Beeper helping  to organize my Belly Dance Handbook orders!

 In honor of the Holidays,  and to say  thanks to you,  I’m having a Thanksgiving-through-Monday, Dec 1  sale…  my  books "The Belly Dance Handbook" and  "Showgirl Confidential", and the new BaLAdi Tour CD by Issam Houshan will be on sale for big  discounts here:

http://www.princessfarhana.com/shop.html

GIVING THANKS FOR DANCE

It’s the end of November: do you know where the year has  gone?

 On these oh-so-long  autumn and winter nights, I tend to feel somewhat disoriented. Though my clock says it’s 6:30, because it gets dark so quickly, I feel like it’s already 10:00pm! I feel all paranoid, like I’m gonna get into full-on hibernation mode, and just eat and sleep my nights away. To avoid that, I start looking for “year end” tasks to tackle.

Usually, these are little things I’ve let slide during the past months, and haven’t been able to get to during the commotion-and constant travel- of spring and summer Dance Festival Season. Things like finally unpacking and cleaning out all my gig bags, organizing a CD shelf, throwing away outdated  make-up, sewing hooks and making alterations on costumes, and getting a jump on sorting my tax receipts. Feeling a mild sense of accomplishment, I then move onto lists… holiday card lists, lists of presents, and lists of things I want to accomplish in the next year.

Though it may sound a little overly sentimental, since Thanksgiving is approaching, I made a Dance List of everything I am thankful for.

Dancing literally changed my life. On top of the “usual” benefits, like giving me a strong, toned, flexible body, the emotional and spiritual impact dancing has had upon me is so significant, I can hardly put it into words. In my writing, I am usually a confirmed abuser of the exclamation point, but the amount of punctuation I would need to apply in this case is boundless, so I will spare you.

From the age of three, I wanted to dance, but for many reasons (the foremost being a ballet teacher who rejected me at an early age because my feet were flat ) dancing wasn’t in the cards for me until  well after I had already reached adulthood.

Maybe I had a karmic debt to pay, maybe my life just unfolded the way it was supposed to, but I came to belly dancing fairly late in life, after the age of thirty. Though I still sometimes wish I had been able to study dance since childhood, I no longer feel robbed, or the regret I used to experience about not having been a life-long dancer; now I am just thrilled with the way things turned out!

Mere months after I began belly dancing-almost as a lark- my life did a full 360 degree turn-around. Instead of picking my body (and all the individual parts) to pieces by visually and physically comparing myself to unrealistic and “ideal” images in the media, I began to love my body for the way it looked while I was dancing. Soon, that sentiment morphed into simply loving my body. As I developed more skill, I began to be grateful for what my body could do.

Dancing also helped me quit some very self-destructive behaviors I had for decades: substance abuse and an eating disorder. A hardcore bulimic for years, my love of dancing helped me cultivate a healthy relationship with food…and need I tell you that it’s impossible to dance for hours with a hangover or while high? Suddenly, I had a choice to make and I picked dancing over controlled substances and being unhealthy.

Dancing helped me get through-and over- a painful divorce. The feminine energy and sisterhood I felt with other dancers was healing and gave me hope. I see this theme repeated with many other dancers, and I hope I can pass this feeling on to others.

Belly dancing also lead me to other forms of dance, and  for that, I am eternally grateful. It’s what directly lead to my career in burlesque, not to mention studying and performing other types of dance as well, like jazz, ballet, Bollywood, samba, contemporary, hip-hop and many other genres. Whenever my schedule ( or my creaky ole body) allows, I take dance classes.

Dancing has also allowed me to meet thousands of incredible, beautiful, intelligent and talented women the world over… that I may never have met normally during the course of my everyday life. Through dancing, I have made life-long friends with many strong women of all ages, shapes and sizes who are veritable super-heroines; they are giving, driven,  talented, and usually very witty to boot.

I’ve met dancers who are emergency room nurses, teachers, criminal attorneys, children’s advocates, speech therapists, accountants, trauma counselors, ranchers, authors, film festival curators, architects, coal miners, political activists, rock stars, explosives technicians, police women, sitcom actors, college professors with PhD’s… not to mention mothers, grandmothers and even great-grandmothers…and all of them are serious dancers!

I am thankful that I live in a country where women are free to dress as they please, to dance for joy-or professionally if they choose- and where dancing is considered an art-form.

Every day I give thanks that dancing, something I have always done only for love is also what I do for work, and how I make a living. I never take this for granted, sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure my life is real. When I walked into my first belly dancing class, if anyone would have told me that within a fairly short time I was going to turn professional-not to mention have a career  over twenty years later- I would’ve laughed so uproariously, the walls of the studio would’ve blown apart!

My dance career – my performing and teaching- has taken me all over the globe and I have loved every moment of it. It was a far-fetched wish, and that wish came true. The only thing I might add here (and believe me, my tongue is firmly planted in my cheek!) is the old adage about “being careful what you wish for”. Had I known that my wish was actually going to come true, I probably would’ve added in a clause allowing me to have a luggage valet and a personal massage therapist travel with me!

I am so thankful for all the wonderful women who have sponsored me to teach and perform. Sponsors are super-human, and in addition to paying for my travel, feeding me, housing me, fulfilling my backstage requests, and staying up til the wee hours talking shop, many of them have also gone wa-a-a-ay above and beyond the call of duty. They have taken me sight-seeing, brought me to amazing shows, given me gorgeous gifts, taken me hot-tubbing, booked me massages- even brought me to the emergency room, or dealt with my tearful grief when I was thousands of miles away from home and my beloved kitten disappeared. You ladies know who you are, thank you so very much! In general, my sponsors have gone so far out of their out of their way to make me feel comfortable when I am on the road, I cannot thank them enough; most of them have become life-long friends.

I am very grateful for my teachers and dance-mentors, women  ( and men!) who were dancing professionally long before I even  thought of starting to dance…all of whom were very generous with sharing their knowledge of not only technique, but also practical application, not to mention costuming ideas, crowd-control skills and career- building know-how.

My students, whether on-going pupils or one-time workshop attendees, make me feel such gratitude, I can’t even verbalize it. I learn something new from them every day!  The  drummers  and musicians I’ve worked with  are amazing and  love what they do… and  aside from learning a lot from them,   I love them for  caring, cause our shows have always been fabulous!

I would like to thank "the audience" too- where would any dancer be without you? There is almost nothing more fulfilling than hearing an appreciative audience and seeing smiling faces in a darkened theater, just ask any performer! And of course,  all the behind-the-scenes people, those who never get enough thanks, like the artful  lighting and sound technicians,  all the harried- but unbelievably competent stage managers ( many of whom  are volunteers)  the  talented photographers and graphic artists I’ve worked with….and of course,  my long-suffering  friends and my boyfriend; all patiently waiting  for me to:

  a) get off stage  b) get my bag  packed up  c) stop talking about dancing!

Last but not least, I also gotta say that I am so very grateful for having a job that has the best, most amazing “uniform” EVER- what could be better than a blinged-out costume?

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!

 In honor of the Holidays,  and to say  thanks to you,  I’m having a Black Friday-through-Cyber Monday  sale… many of my DVD’s and my new book Showgirl Confidential will be on sale for huge discounts here:

http://www.princessfarhana.com/video.htm

ON GRATITUDE...AND ATTITUDE

  

 Because Thanksgiving has just passed and The Holidays have started in earnest, many of us are reflecting upon our lives, and what we are thankful for.

Gratitude is the tonic that makes our cups runneth over.

 Appreciation for what we receive or what we already have, whether material, emotional, or abstract, fills us up with joy, and spurs us to count our blessings.

 The concept of grateful thinking and positive psychology have  become buzzwords lately; these theories are studied by mental health professionals  and are also practiced by many people in their daily lives.

It is now widely believed that happiness begets more happiness, and that people with a positive outlook on life will reap benefits ranging from more meaningful emotional connections to better physical health.

Undoubtedly, you know people who are embarking upon a “Thirty Days Of Gratitude” quest, or maybe you have done it yourself, or are in the middle of it right now.  Keeping track of the many things both great and small that you are thankful for will only enhance your dancing and fill it with real joy.

So how can these ideas be applied to your dance practice?

COUNT YOUR BLESSINGS

Trust me, you have many!

 When I was younger, I was surrounded by drama, both real and imagined. I was literally a starving artist, I routinely wanted things I couldn’t have-including men- and I had really bad taste in men.  The ones I always fell for made me cry pretty often.  I used to feel like I wasn’t pretty enough, smart enough or talented enough. I  just wasn’t good enough, period. And speaking of periods, these thoughts always intensified when I was PMS-ing!  

Through the wisdom of age, I now look back on these raging emotions I had, and I  call bullshit! When I see pictures of myself from that (fairly long) time period when I thought I was pudgy and unattractive, with a   despicable round baby face, I now realize I could’ve ruled the damn world…that is, if I knew then what I know now.  And believe me when I tell you that I  these days, I  just wish I had some of that baby-fat collagen  still left!

 Who is anyone- your family, frenemies, your dance teacher or even the media to tell you that you aren’t good enough?  That you aren't beautiful enough, or a good enough dancer?

 You are. Take your  gilded cup  and see it not just as half-full, but  as overflowing and enjoy the heck out of  it…And Dance Like You Mean It!

ADJUST YOUR ATTITUDE

 As far as your dancing goes, instead of comparing yourself to others, measure your progress against your own achievements.

 Dancing and the joy you receive from it is not a competition. Even if you believe you are too young, too old, too heavy, will never be a professional or lack innate talent, you are still dancing!

 Yes, talent is a gift…but so is merely being able to dance.

 Many people do not have that luxury.

People who are injured or infirm can only dream of dancing. There are millions of women  who would love to dance that are currently living in countries where  dancing is against the law. 

Dance for them…as well as to make your own soul sing.

BEING SATISFIED WITH YOURSELF IS NOT BEING COMPLACENT

 There is a huge difference between being happy and being smug. If you love yourself, the best way to show it is by striving for greatness.

  In the world of dance, as with anywhere else, true satisfaction comes from a job well done, not from resting on your laurels, or skating by  while phoning in a performance.

Apply yourself to your dance practice and be the best you can possibly be. Be realistic about your goals and achievements and be thankful for them,  but keep challenging yourself.

BEING GRATEFUL MEANS GIVING CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE

This is not merely good professional behavior; it is also a way of thanking your dance teachers, your mentors, your costume seamstress, or anyone else who has enabled you to dance.

Remember this also includes your spouse, family members or partner; if you are lucky, they are all 100% supportive of your dancing…let them know you realize that they care.

It doesn’t matter if you are a student, a hobbyist or a professional performer- many people have helped you along your dance journey, and by acknowledging this and letting them know you are grateful for the time, knowledge and support they have given you, 

 you’ll be filling up everyone’s cups!