Maria Alda Gomez Otero
Embodied Therapy to Transform Your Life
01392 573776
Dance your life, change your life!
We are spiritual beings with physical bodies!
Dance Your Life
Dance Your Life (DYL) is a barefoot type of dance, used for personal development, enhancement and healing. You will not be following a choreography of movements. You will dance or move in whatever way your body dictates, trusting the inner healing capabilities of your body.
Dance Your Life aims at dancing different aspects of your human reality, from birth to death, creating a safe space for you to explore your strengths and being compassionate with your shortcomings, while finding direction for a new you. It also adds a spiritual element to it that has no particular religious, philosophical or spiritual roots, but instead it can incorporate all. In Dance Your Life, at times you might feel that you are revisiting your past while dancing different aspects of your present reality. This can have profound healing effects that can transform your life.
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EXAMPLE
You have the feeling of not being supported by your family or your friends. While you are dancing, you will be invited to experiment with new ideas (called structures) and gain awareness. For example, you will be invited to dance with another person/group and feel their support. While dancing in this safe space, you may realise that you are rejecting that support. In the past, a part of you possibly rejected that support to protect you from the hurt of it not being available. As you try out these new ideas in the dance, you can create new experiences that can result into new and healthier neuropathways in your brain. For example, you may decide to let yourself be supported in the dance. After enough repetitions of this new experience, it will be recorded in your brain as your new reality, and you will find it easier to let yourself have support in your current life, creating a new future.
Dance Your Life is a safe, transformative and playful way of changing your life with gentleness and ease, following the wisdom of your body. It can help you discover your habitual patterns (your "automatic pilot") and change them. You can live new experiences in your body to create the life that you wish.
I was at an ecstatic dance retreat last weekend and in the two hours of Dance Your Life, I got as much as at that retreat. I never thought I would go that deep..
Wendy from Devon
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Influences
Dance Your Life was born soon after Alda qualified as a Dance of Awareness facilitator. Dance of Awareness was created by Tim Brown and Clare Osbond, body and dance psychotherapists, and group facilitators based in Hove. Alda ran several Dance of Awareness classes and during her facilitation experience, she saw the potential for something new and broader to emerge. Inspired by the teachings of many prominent authors, such as Bruce Lipton and his epigenetic understanding; Joe Dispenza's guided meditations, helping Alda find a new awareness of connection with the unified field; the teachings and example of many energy psychotherapists; and her own deep journey with energy and spirit through tai chi and qigong, she created Dance Your Life. The main influences of Dance Your Life are the following:
Dance of Awareness
This is the core influence for DYL, and incorporates elements of 5 Rhythms, Authentic Movement, Developmental Psychology, and Neo- Reichian Body Psychotherapy, among others. DYL follows the DoA's wave and core principles, with stages of charge and discharge in the experience.
Epigenetics
Recent discoveries have revolutionised how scientists perceive the world. It is now known that your genes are not ruling your life. It is your environment that causes changes in your cells and your physical and mental health. If you can change your environment (how you feel, behave and think), you can change your life. Working in a group is powerful and transformational.
Biodanza
Biodanza was originally created by a Chilean psychologist, Rolando Toro, to heal mental health issues, but soon was used as a self-development tool. In Biodanza, individuals explore their lifes in relationship with others, nature and themselves.
Awareness
It means being present and noticing what is happening moment-to-moment. You cannot clean your house by pretending the dirt is not there. Your mental/emotional/energy hygiene has to begin by noticing what you need to change. DYL will help you find the confidence to do it.
Dance Movement Therapy
This is a type of therapy that lets the body express what is holding inside. Mirroring, attuning and other therapeutic tools are used in an embodied way, with or without music.
Energy Psychotherapy
Alda is an energy psychotherapist. This is a type of therapy that uses knowledge about the meridians and the chakras to heal physical and mental conditions. Alda might offer energy tools to set the intention for the dance, and balance your energies to facilitate change.
I loved the dance session with Alda. It was fun and enjoyable; a safe and relaxing place and I loved the music. The loose structure for the session that Alda suggested really worked for me; and within it I could dance my own dance and sometimes dance with others. I enjoyed experiencing parts of myself that surprised me, such as the part that wanted to dance alone sometimes. It was a relief for me to realise that that was OK. Thank you Alda, such a lovely opportunity.
Anna S. Teignmouth
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Phases of a dance session (wave)
The dance follows a wave of different energy charges. It has six parts, each one with different melodies, exercises, and experiences. Each part represents themes of human experience: birth or beginnings, relationships, your different faces, social norms, belonging to a community, death or endings.
It might surprise you to hear that over 90% of your behaviour is unconscious, as if you were on "automatic pilot". Even more surprising is that your unconscious was possibly created between 0-6 years of age. If lack of attention, neglect, abuse or loss impacted those years of your life, that will be imprinted in your brain and your nervous system. It will manifest as difficulty in different areas of your life. As a child, you need a mature adult to show you what it means to be a mature adult. If that was not available, you would have created a child version of what it means to be an adult. If you find yourself acting in ways that remind you of that of a child, you are probably been taken over by the "automatic pilot" of your first developmental years. Your present has been taken over by your past.
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Dance Your Life gives you the opportunity to create new experiences by showing you the unconscious patterns of your child programming, and helping the adult in you to change them.
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Many adults in our current world are not able to self-regulate, act in a mature way, and behave adult-like when triggered by events, news, people in life. A lot of people from all spheres of life act fearfully, angrily, passively, submissively, etc. with the unconscious programming of their child years. The world is in nappies. If the human species is to survive, we need to grow up. Dance Your Life is offered to you as a tool to grow out of your child programming, and believe that you can be bigger than you ever imagined and, together with others, upgrade the world's programming. Many groups are doing it around the world with different tools. Join the community of upgraders!
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Here are the six different parts of a Dance Your Life wave:
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Birth - Emphasis is on arriving to earth, being conceived and born. It is the right to exist. Your focus will be on physical sensation and the five senses.
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Relationships - As you make the first steps and stand up, you ground yourself on Earth, finding support in others.
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Ego Faces - Expressing whatever wants to emerge, letting your physical body guide your movements.
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Social Norms - Your true self is met by the laws of your tribe. As you dance in a new tribe, you are invited to let go of some of those rules (expressed as trapped energy in the body).
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Community - As you clear your body of trapped energy and unnecessary rules, you will find a more authentic community. You will dance your new sense of self and your connection with others in the world, finding your tribe, and leaving your prints.
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Death - Completing the journey and returning to nothingness.
Your Facilitator, Alda
Dancing has always been one of my passions. Being a very shy person most of my young life, dancing was the one thing I could do without being shy. I could move around, express myself, let myself be seen. Dancing is what makes me feel more myself and more joyful. I am also an experienced therapist and qigong instructor. I ran Dance of Awareness classes since November last year, and now I am so excited to offer you Dance Your Life, which was created with love, attention and dedication with certainty that it has the potential to change your life, and eventually the world.
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Dance Your Life is a barefoot type of dance with therapeutic effects. You will be able to dance your life and there is potential for transformation.
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I've danced many types of these dances over the years and experienced incredible changes in my life as a result of being supported by the groups.
Qualifications
Dance of Awareness Facilitator - Licensed by Tim Brown and Clare Osbond.
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Over 15 years dancing in self-development groups.
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Tai Chi & Qigong Instructor - Tai Chi Centre (Level 3) - Master Liming Yue.
Health Qigong Instructor - Qualified by the British Health Qigong Association.
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​MA in Psychotherapy.
Accredited Certified EFT Practitioner.
Trauma trained.
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What happens next?
If you wish to experience Dance Your Life for the first time, or if you want to continue deepening your experience of this transformational dance journey, you can join one of the classes below and gain insights that can help you transform your life. In 2023, the monthly events will alternate venues between Holcombe Village Hall, near Dawlish, and Alphington Village Hall, in Exeter. The dates are as follows:
21 January - Finding Your Strength in the New - Holcombe
18th February - The Dark Side of Love - Exeter
18th March - Surrendering to Abundance - Holcombe
15th April - Dying Once Again - Exeter
20th May - Purpose-full and Thriving - Holcombe
24th June - Blossoming in the Light - Exeter
22nd July - TBC
To book a space, email Alda at info@aldacounselling.com. You will then receive details of how to pay and other information regarding the day.
Venues: Holcombe Village Hall, 60 Holcombe Rd, Holcombe, Dawlish EX7 0JB
Alphington Village Hall, Ide lane, Alphington, Exeter, EX2 8UP.
Time: 10am-12pm (Music from 9:45am)
Cost: Early bird £12 (up to two weeks before the event); £14 (at the door).
Other Testimonials
The music was fabulous and nourishing. I loved the piano - I think it was Einaudi, at the very beginning, and it was just brilliant to hear music from other cultures, and their instruments and rhythms. The music made for an experience that helped mend a sense in me of being closed down and withheld from the world, from COVID and lockdowns- the global nature of the music selection created a sense of delight in me at “being back” - connected, responsive to, and involved in the world, beyond within the workshop and my own journey in the time in the class. Emma from Devon
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At first I was very nervous at joining a group of strangers to join in a totally new (to me) dancing experience. However, Alda's clear, warm and friendly manner and the structured approach to the dancing meant that I was soon moving from dancing alone in a small space to moving all around the room and feeling part of a supportive group/movement. By the end of the class I felt very relaxed and comfortable, and that feeling stayed with me for several days. Indeed, throughout the rest of the week my mind kept floating back to that dance session, leaving me with a warm, comfortable feeling, happy that I did something new and different, and really enjoyed it. Alda is a great teacher, whose warmth, kindness and enthusiasm shine through. Thank you, Alda.
Gill from Devon
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There is a power in self expression achieved through Alda's facilitated Dance of Awareness that can be surprisingly insightful, revealing and healing.
Sally W., Dawlish
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The world seems a better place after any class with Alda.
Sonia, Poole
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Alda has unique and special qualities as a teacher, she always adds light, sensitivity and warmth to whatever she teaches - I feel a glow of calm and positivity after her classes.
Paula F., Dawlish
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If you have ever wondered how it might be possible to combine the joy of free dance to good music, along with a deeper personal journey, in a supported environment, then dance of awareness with Alda might be your answer. It’s great that something so enjoyable can also be therapeutic - try it and see!
Kerry C. from Devon
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