I haven’t always been able to stand naked in front of a full-length mirror and smile. In fact, there are still days that my shoulders slump as I uselessly gaze at myself. All I can see are the soft love handles above my hips and the sprinkle of pimples on the left side of my chin. On those days of useless gazing I have to practice with a little more assertiveness the re-programming of my vintage belief system and ACTIVELY choose to BELIEVE in my worthiness….

You see, I MUST show up for my community, for my students and for my clients as a role model, as an inspiration, as someone who makes it a practice to walk their talk of being imperfectly perfect: I must transform the old belief system that I am not enough, which causes vasts amounts of useless suffering, into rich and juicy clay from the Taos mesa. I can then mold the soil and earth with warm and tender hands into who I truly want to be: An Authentically Beautiful Reflection of Life.

Sometimes, maybe almost all of the time, I am so sore after the nights I teach dance that I can barely get out of bed the following morning. And yet I do it, again and again, for over 8 years: this intense love-service of my body… This coming to be Danced…

I give myself up: in entirety. If i died tomorrow, I want to know I danced with my Entire Self Tonight. I want to float to The Great Spirit knowing I opened my Vulnerable, tender and Authentic Heart in trust. I surrender to what my tribe needs on the Dance Floor.

So you see, there is no time for feelings of un-worthiness. How could Spirit move through me and dance me for my people if I felt unworthy of The Gift: The Gift of being alive.

My Mama Mabiba Baegne walks with a significant limp at 3 years shy of 60 years old. She has such drastic pain in her ankle and hip. And yet, when the drums begin, she looses all sense of bodily encumbrance and becomes a vessel: a vessel of Spirit Dance. She dances with such fluidity and grace that everyone becomes entranced and the room is silent… Who wants to disrupt Spirit moving through a Sacred Body?

Back to this feeling of Worthiness… Why is it that so many of us powerful, gorgeous and intelligent women choose to suffer with thoughts of un-worthiness? I find it absolutely astounding that we go out into the world and work as powerful teachers, lawyers, doctors and nurses, janitors, humanitarians and activists and yet we STILL struggle with the deeply rooted belief system of un-worthiness, of not feeling proud, beautiful and at ease with our gorgeous authentic being.

Life doesn’t question if it’s perfect or not. Life just IS. Life just LIVES. It doesn’t write a hypothesis on the question of feeling Worthiness and Greatness. Life doesn’t waste time wondering if there is more evolving and love to be experienced in the future. Life just knows that’s it’s doing it’s very best every single day.

“The highest point of your journey back to yourself is the moment you see yourself through the eyes of truth. If you can see your authentic self, you will love what you see. You see the magnificence of your presence; you see how wonderful and beautiful you are. You see the perfection in you, and this breaks any doubt that anyone else ever put into your head. You see that you are light, that you are life, and when you accept your own divinity, you become a better reflection of life.” -Don Miguel Ruiz, The Five Agreements.

I noticed a brand new wrinkle on the right side of my face last week. You know, down by my mouth. I had a warm feeling come over me: evidence that I smile big and often. Praise this getting older and wiser. I feel so utterly beautiful and worthy of these lines. I need not to conceal them or agree to what our society labels a wrinkle on a woman’s face. My laugh lines have stories to tell!!!

If Rosangela Silvestre would have walked in front of my camera 5 years ago, I would not have felt worthy to photograph her. And guess what? I would have missed out on one of the most beautiful late mornings of my entire life. Thank God and The Goddess I havede-labeled my made up story of not BELEVING in my authentic worthiness. Instead, I cried in bliss behind my lens as I photographed Rosangela and her loving partner, dancing around in my studio in downtown Tucson….