To express is to give space and voice to the truth of who you really are. No longer ashamed of any aspect, but proudly and lovingly standing up and saying in a loud and clear voice…THIS IS ME! and I am unapologetically claiming what is mine. No longer hiding timidly in the shadows and peeking out, just eyes hiding behind a sturdy boulder of entrenched fears and habituated defences.

To express requires peeling off all your protective layers, dismembering your outer armour, removing the protection that your fancy, pretty and carefully constructed masks pretend you to be and standing completely naked and vulnerable, without ever knowing who may cast judgement or reject the parts of you that you have kept hidden, up until now.

To express is to not give credence to the opinions and value judgements of other people, because it is your truth over that of all others that you hold most dear. Your knowing, that you give most weight to, over the whispering voices of doubt and deception that were planted by your ancestry, your enemies and your past experiences. To express liberates you, setting you free from the rusted chains of slavery and victimhood that have kept you twisted up in tightened knots of self-pity and powerlessness, taking a stand against the gremlins and saboteurs and cutting off their heads once and for all.

To express is to sink deep inside the fortress and folds of your aching beating heart and find the buried feelings, words, symbols and images that have been locked away like precious treasures, covered in a layer of time aged dust, waiting patiently for a very long time and yearning to be brought into the light of day.

Expressing yourself is the final act of showing up as an instrument of creation so that you can make music or paint pictures, sing your song, dance invisible cartwheels or speak your truth, for no other purpose than the pure joy, fulfilment and lightness of being this leaves in the heart of the dancer-painter-creator-expressor.  Is that not enough? Does it have to be about anything more than that? Can there be anything more valuable than that?

To express is a bold statement, a courageous act of putting yourself out there for all to see, knowing full well the possibility that you may be judged, humiliated or rejected. With an array of all of your colours and complexities, twists and intricacies on display for the world to either appreciate or not. Does it really matter whether someone else likes or appreciates your expression. Is the joy and fulfilment experienced from the act of creation and expression not in and of itself enough?

Because the point is that you are not expressing for them.  You are doing it for YOU! To express is to show up to and for yourself, every time, to commit in a way that allows you to shine and shimmer at the fullest vibration of your being and the fullest expression of your highest potential.