The Week I Learnt I Need to Dance

This week I learnt something I did not expect.

I need to dance.

Not in a nightclub. Not in a class. Not in a way that looks coordinated or cool.
I need to dance because my body told me the truth before my mind would listen.

I kept hearing the same message.
Shimmy a little. Sway. Loosen your ribs. Get back into your body.
From my osteopath. From my acupuncturist. From the universe. From the part of me that is done filing emotion like a colour-coded archive.

Every time I thought the same thing.

I am not a dancer.
I repeat.
I am not a dancer.

But I kept hearing the nudge.
So I decided to dance anyway. Not because it feels natural. Not because I am good at it. Not because I magically transformed into someone who glides across the floor.
I danced because my body asked for it and I finally stopped ignoring the signal.

Here is the truth most high-performing women forget.

Animals shake after stress. Ever seen a zebra escape a lion? It tremors its way back to safety. Humans were designed to do the same - to move negative energy out of our bodies and shift our nervous systems back into safety, back into rest and digest.

But, we freeze instead. We hold. We manage. We file the emotion under sort later while we go back to the meeting, the board paper, the Zoom call, the child pickup.

Then someone tells us we are too emotional.
Ironic, since half the time we are emotional only on the inside while looking like a fortress on the outside.

The challenge is that stored emotion creates static in the body. Static creates leaks in decision quality, clarity, and connection.If you do not clear emotion, you cannot lead at the level your role demands.

Leadership today is connection.
Connection requires presence.
Presence requires emotional regulation.
Regulation comes from letting emotion move through the body, not wrestle it into silence.

Imagine if women walked around with placards saying:
Let me feel. Let me show emotion. Let me be fully human at work.

The same way women once fought for bare legs and miniskirts in the office, maybe the next frontier is allowing our bodies back into the leadership conversation. How wild that we had to fight to show bare legs in the first place.

So here are three simple ways to release emotion after the kind of experience that hits hard and sticks to your ribs if you do not move it.

• One: Physically shake.
  Literally shake your hands, arms, shoulders, legs.
  Two minutes is enough.
  It tells your nervous system the moment is over and you can put the armour down.
• Two: Name the emotion without the story.
  Not the meeting. Not the email. Not the person.
  Just the feeling. Sad. Frustrated. Let down.
  Naming it releases half the charge. You cannot process what you do not acknowledge.
• Three: Swivel, sway, or move in a way that feels slightly ridiculous.
  A hip circle. A shoulder roll. A slow sway.
  This is where emotional residue clears.
  Movement is medicine. Your body knows exactly how to reset.

Here is my realisation. Leadership is missing emotional expression and that is why so many people feel disconnected.

Teams follow leaders who feel.
Connection requires vulnerability.
Vulnerability requires permission.
Permission requires someone who goes first.

So sometimes the bravest thing a woman can do is choose to feel her feelings, move her body, and dance even when she swears she is not a dancer.

One day being called emotional will not be an insult.

It will be a sign that we are leading with presence and truth. It will be understood and clarity, intelligence and power.

Let that day start with a shimmy.