Once upon a time there was this 18-year-old chick named Amme that refused to dance with friends at nightclubs because she felt like she couldn’t dance.
Amme always felt as though she was the odd one out and would sit in the corner on her phone watching everyone else have fun.
She was paralysed by the fear of looking like an idiot in front of her friends and all the random strangers.
The fear of not being able to dance because no one had ever shown her how clouded her thoughts and she missed out on a lot of fun.
Always feeling as though she was super uncoordinated, this fear ran deep. To be fair there was a level of incoordination, let me paint you a picture.
Imagine going to an exercise class and everyone is going to the left and Amme is the one going to the right. Everyone is doing star jumps and arms are all in sync and down, Amme’s would always be high in the air in the clap part of the start jump.
Amme would go to concerts and be the one clapping off beat.
These experiences only added to the fear.
Eventually months and months (possibly years) later, Amme got sick of missing out on the fun when her friends were clearly having such a good time. So she decided that they way to get around it was to get really DRUNK so that she would relax and it wouldn’t matter if she looked like an idiot because that’s what happens when you drink, right?
So for the next decade the only time that Amme would ever dance was if she was pretty damn drunk, it was always lots of fun but always resulted in a massive hangover the next day.
Then Amme, goes to a seminar and there are people dancing in two ways. First one is following dancers on stage while they do a serious of combo moves, similar to an exercise class. Second way is like a nightclub with NO ALCOHOL OR DRUGS in sight.
The first day she refused to dance and sat down while everyone else was having an amazing time. Amme was wondering what the fuck she had gotten herself into. The more people tried to get her to stand up and dance, the more she resisted the whole thing.
Eventually Amme gave in and stood up and danced.
After another one of these seminars Amme became pretty comfortable with all the dancing UNTIL at one of them they had attendees up on stage dancing with the routines to lead the entire room.
A friend of Amme’s attempted to convince her to go up on stage with her to be one of the “Dancers” and Amme firmly sat her butt back in the seat saying “No way, no, no, no.” After a bit of persuading and a slight bit of arm dragging to get up there, Amme got up on that stage and was one of the Dancers.
Was it scary?
Yes.
Was it terrifying with all those eyes looking at you?
Yes.
Was it absolutely amazing?
Hell YES!
Did Amme get over her fear of dancing in front of people?
Yes she most certainly did.
Was it actually as bad as Amme thought?
Umm… No way.
Had Amme created this whole story and rules around when and how she could dance?
Yes.
Had it impacted her life in a positive or negative way?
Pretty negative since Amme has missed out on so much fun over the years from being way to self conscious when realistically, no one is really actually looking at you because they are way to involved in themselves!
To go from not even wanting to dance to being able to dance on stage in front of 400 people – I think that is a MAJOR accomplishment.
Imagine what else Amme could do if she got out of her own head!
If you haven’t already figured out from my once upon a time story, Amme is actually me, Emma.
The reason why I share this experience with you is because you may not have a fear of dancing, but what do you have a fear of that is holding you back in your life?
How is it affecting your quality of life and your fun factor?
What are you missing out of because your fear is holding you back?
The things you are most fearful of are the things that you need to face the most.
You can fight the fear and create bigger and worse situations than what’s actually going on.
Or you can face the fear and realise that you can actually do anything that you set your mind to and let the fear go because it is not serving you in a positive way.
I have added some video and photos for you to get an idea of what it was like when I was on stage when I was up there before the main super star came out, Tony Robbins. Check out the short clips below!
I hope this story was helpful to you and I would love to hear of your fears that you have overcome in your own life in the comment section below!
