I danced for 1,000 days
Here's what happened...
On January 1st, 2021 I started dancing… and I never stopped. On September 28, 2023 (last Thursday) I hit an arbitrary milestone that still feels like a big deal — I reached my 1,000th day of consecutive dancing.
I don’t want to downplay my achievement… but we’ve all done things for 1,000 days before. I’ve brushed my teeth for at least 1,000 consecutive days. I’ve eaten food for 1,000 consecutive days. And I’ve woken up in the morning for 1,000 days (at least I’m pretty sure). Dancing for 1,000 days is not hard. Do you know what’s hard? Just living every single day. Life is challenging… being a human is moderately confusing on a regular basis… and attempting to navigate whatever-the-heck we are doing here on earth can also be a bit of a doozy at times. Dancing for 1,000 days? That is a gift.
So, what’s up with the dancing? Well… funny you should ask, because I’m going to tell you. As some of you probably know, I like to be goofy… and I REALLY like to be goofy on Kula’s instagram. On one such ‘goofy’ day, I shared a video of myself pretending to be one of Britney Spears’ backup dancers. Wearing an entire outfit of Arc’teryx raingear, I flailed around in front of the camera and … to my surprise… I had a BLAST doing it. I’m not sure exactly what happened… but something ‘clicked’ and I let go and allowed myself to have fun. Then, on Christmas day, I challenged myself to hike 10 times up the hill behind my house. This was a relatively stupid idea — and, if I’m being honest, if was predicated primarily on a feeling of complete loneliness. My husband, who worked 12-14 hour shifts at the railroad, was working all day and I decided that hiking myself into oblivion would be a better fate than sitting at home alone on Christmas Day. As it turns out, by lap 8 of hiking up and down the exact same hill… I was bored. So, I turned on my headphones and started dancing. I danced up and down the hill and jumped around as I hiked… and I noticed that same feeling again… I was having FUN.
So, on January 1st, I decided, “Self, let’s try dancing every single day and just see what happens!”. For reasons I can’t possibly describe, I decided to share my first dance video on Instagram. I was very uncomfortable doing this, and I preemptively believed that everybody would be making fun of me… so even though I was dancing to pop or rock music… I selected Kenny G Smooth Jazz music as the 'Instagram story soundtrack’ to my dance video. I thought to myself, “Well … since everybody is going to be laughing at you already… you might as well turn it into a joke and beat them to the punch.”
Here is my original video for Kula’s IG … plus the very VERY first dance video I ever shared on January 1st, 2021:
When I started dancing, my goal was simple — I’ll dance for about 25 minutes per day and just see what happens. I didn’t have any specific ‘results’ in mind… and I wasn’t intending for it to last for a certain number of days. As the days progressed, I really started to enjoy it. I felt a lightness in my step that I hadn’t felt in years… I felt like I was having fun and something within me started to change a little bit. I kept going. The first few weeks, if I’m being completely honest, were pretty tough. Dancing is hard work and while I hiked quite a bit… my dance muscles were non existent. I could barely last through an entire song. My feet and legs hurt… but I kept going. Suddenly, I had danced for an entire month — 31 days! I decided to keep going.
When I first started sharing videos, they were all filmed in the dark. Honestly, I was a little bit embarrassed to share my dancing videos. But at some point… I started to feel OK about sharing them, and I decided I didn’t really care what anybody thought anyways. Afterall, I was having a lot of fun. I stopped setting the videos to smooth jazz… and I started sharing small clips of me actually dancing to the music that I was listening to. Somewhere along the way, I watched a YouTube tutorial of somebody shuffling and I was…. enamored. I decided that I wanted to learn how to shuffle. Slowly, but surely I taught myself how to do the foundational shuffle move: The Running Man.
Caution: the video below is the dorkiest video I’ve ever made.
I am not a dancer by nature… and, in fact, I was usually a wallflower at weddings who told people, “I don’t dance”, or “I can’t dance.” When I was 4 years old, my mom enrolled me in ballet. I still remember participating as a dancer in the Smurf’s All-Star Show ballet concert… and when I was not presented with a trophy at the end of the recital, I quit. Needless to say — dance was not something that I innately felt was in my wheelhouse, except that I found myself loving shuffling… and loving the time that I spent dancing.
I'm not going to sugar coat this next part and tell you that I started dancing and then was instantly happy every single day. That would be false. I’ve already shared with most of you that I spent a great deal of time… many years in fact… focused on the things that I didn’t want in life. It was a near death experience that became the catalyst for beginning the process of awakening. Awakening from what? Awakening from the idea that I was my thoughts. Awakening from a state of being entirely ‘asleep’ and identified with the noise in my mind. While my near death experience was the beginning of this process for me — I’d be remiss if I told you that I moved forward with perfect clarity in a state of enlightenment. Our brains are very powerful computers, and they are conditioned by repeating patterns… trauma… our childhood upbringing… cultural experiences… etc… The thoughts that we think on repeat are the thoughts that create familiar grooves in our minds — grooves where we tend to stay, unless something happens that awakens us from the dream of where we think we are.
Dancing was a part of this journey for me, but I won’t lie to you and tell you that I had it all figured out while I was dancing. Sure, I looked like I was having fun — and I really was… none of it was fake, and I don’t want to give the impression that what I’ve shared on Instagram was wrong or misleading. However, as I look back on that initial period of dancing in my life, I now can see that I was still, unbeknownst to me, deeply embedded into my familiar and destructive pattern of seeking attention and validation from outside of myself. Our patterns are sneaky and unpredictable. It’s like life is asking, “Oh… so you think you’ve healed? Well, here’s another situation that’s similar, but wearing a different disguise. Best of luck to you.”
For me, while dancing was a beautiful way to express and connect with myself and others… it also fueled my desire to seek affirmation from outside of myself. It was a distraction from things that I should have been dealing with… yet another form of escapism. My relationship with my husband was struggling… it had been several years since I had left my job as a railroad police officer to start Kula Cloth, and he was still working 12-14 hour shifts at the railroad. Our marriage consisted of seeing each other for approximately 30 minutes to 1.5 hours per day and most of that was just logistical communication about packing lunches so that he could get out the door in time. On weekends, he was exhausted from working long nights and our once robust communication and desire to spend time together slowly started to fade away. Instead of looking deeply into this problem, I hid from it. I danced my way to happiness, because at least when I was dancing, I didn’t have to confront anything difficult or challenging. I hid this period in my life from everybody — but I could tell that a few close friends could see that there were cracks in my facade.
Once, during a very low point in 2021, my sister Mare (who works with me at Kula), sensing that something was wrong… blocked me from the Kula Cloth Instagram and asked everybody to send me cards telling me how much they cared about me. I read those cards… one by one… and wept profusely. On the ‘stage’ of Kula Cloth, I was the happiest person you’ve ever seen… at home, I was a wreck. One day, in early 2022, I hit a rock bottom so low that I called my husband at work and told him that I didn’t think I was going to make it through the day. I felt like I was having a heart attack and I told him I needed to go to the hospital. He left work in the middle of his shift - the first time he had ever done that in his entire career at the railroad - and rushed home. I collapsed in a heap, and I wasn’t sure if I could continue.
I danced… even on that day.
I don’t share any of these ‘sad’ memories for any sympathy — because the sad memories are a part of my experience, and they were an important catalyst that needed to happen for me to ultimately discover the way to find more peace and wholeness in my life. I share them because I want you to know that, for me, dancing has not been about ‘being happy’ and ‘frolicking through meadows’. It has been about getting back up again… even when I didn’t want to. It has been about committing to something that I believed in, every single day, even when I absolutely did not want to do it.
Near the middle of 2022, I started to come out of my self-induced fog. I started to wake up to the love and abundance and good that existed within me and around me. I stopped sharing dozens of dance stories on Instagram, mostly quit social media, and I let go of any need for outside validation. I decided to spend more time in the world that I lived in… and less time in the world that existed in the palm of my hand. I looked deep within my heart and faced some wounds that were incredibly painful to bear - and I forgave myself for them. I let go of the need to be perfect. I let go of the need to be happy. I let go of the need to be anything except for myself - exactly how I was, in every moment of every single day.
On day 365 of my dance experiment, which was New Years Eve 2021, I wrote the following:
365 days ago I started a ‘silly dance experiment’ as a joke. I wanted to answer one question: What would happen if I danced everyday… with no expectations or experience? I honestly had no goal in mind - I never set out to do it for a full year… I just wanted to see what happened.
Something cracked open in me last year. A lifetime of seeking validation from external sources and a shedding of deeply rooted shame from a childhood of being bullied - they were put ‘on display’ and I watched as they crumbled back into the cosmos - replaced with the love that was always there. Replaced with the freedom to be myself, regardless of what anybody else thinks. Replaced with the ability to express parts of my soul that had been afraid to show themselves. Replaced by a knowing that I can live life without disclaimers… that I can be exactly how I am and that I am whole at this moment… there is nothing I can add and nothing I need to become. I am enough by simply being.
I can’t put into words what this year of dancing has done for me - for the nature of my soul - for the way it has connected me to the infinite nature of the consciousness that resides within my body. It has been a true gift, and one that continues to breathe life and aliveness into each day for me.
It is my greatest hope that my ‘silly’ experiment will inspire other people to discover their own voice and expression - without limits. When you are open to the possibilities of all things, you are a blank canvas and life will paint the most beautiful things .
As the weeks and months pass, I am looking forward to allowing this experiment to continue to bloom - as Thich Nhat Hahn says, “My heart, open like a flower.”
As I reflect on this passage now, I find it somewhat ironic that I am currently calling myself out for seeking validation… in a passage where I told everybody that dancing had freed me from the need for validation. Ha! Irony is a bitter pill to swallow sometimes, but these are the Kula Diaries, which means that it would be dishonest for me to share otherwise with you. I will say that at the time I did genuinely believe that I had found freedom from within. What I didn’t realize was that my illusion of freedom was based on the false premise that ‘escaping everything’ in my life by refusing to look at it was ‘freeing myself’.
But, friends, you can only dance to Blinding Lights so many times before the cracks start to show. When it all came crashing down, it was a cathartic opening of epic proportions that revealed to me, in all of its glorious ugliness, how wrong I had been. And yet, I kept dancing. Because the dancing was not the problem — I was the problem. My incorrect thoughts were the problem. The unconscious, imaginary circumstances that I had created in my head that told me that I needed to ‘change things’ about my life in order to be happy — those were the things that were the problem. It was a pattern that had repeated itself in my life so many times before… and I felt ashamed that I had not noticed its sneakiness. I felt ashamed that I had fallen for it again.
Picking up the pieces can be messy, but it can also be beautiful — particularly, when you have a person by your side who is willing to be there with you through the process. Over the past two years, my husband Aaron has been present, kind and forgiving as we navigated turbulent waters together — intentionally reestablishing a connection that we had once thought was impossible to find again. In the early days, Aaron went out and bought a book called ‘The Adventure Challenge’. Each week, we would try a new adventure… or cook a new meal in the Adventure Challenge Dinner Date book… and each week it felt like we were picking up pieces that we didn’t know we had lost. One night, we carried a mini ‘bonfire’ up to the ledge above our house and drank hot cocoa while telling stories from our childhood — things that we had never known about each other. Our curiosity bloomed again, and we started feeling hopeful and excited about our future. During this time, we also decided that Aaron was going to leave his job at the railroad and jump into the unknown. We were a little nervous, but mostly excited about what was coming. One night, I plugged in my silent sound system transmitter and we both went out onto our back porch together… and danced. A few days ago, I walked past the bookshelf in our living room and noticed the Adventure Challenge book sitting there — we hadn’t used it in months. Why? Well… we’re simply just too busy doing fun things together now.
I have danced in every imaginable weather condition over the past 1,000 days: torrential rain, a blizzard, gusting winds, and sweltering heat. I have danced in the mountains and in the desert. I have danced on a ferry crossing the Puget sound… I have danced wearing motorcycle gear… I have danced at a gas pump at Safeway. I have danced when I did not feel like dancing (many times). I have danced when I enjoyed dancing so much that I couldn’t stop. I have danced at sunrise and I have danced at sunset. I have danced in the dark and I have danced in the brightest sun. I’ve danced wearing silly costumes, and I’ve danced wearing nothing at all. I have moved in ways that felt ridiculous and unfamiliar… and I’ve cried while I was dancing as I felt energy move through my body.
When I started dancing in 2021, I was, yet again, trying to escape where I was in my life. This is startling to me — because where I was, was exactly where I wanted to be. I had created the outdoor gear company of my dreams from the ground up… what else did I want? Where was this nagging sense of discontent coming from? Why couldn’t I just be happy exactly where I was? Ironically, I knew all of this, and yet, I was so unconscious of my own repetitive thought patterns that I didn’t even realize that I was saying one thing and doing another. I could quote Eckhart Tolle and the Power of Now like my life depended on it… but my unintentional unconscious patterns were rooted so deeply that even I was unable to see them. Ultimately, as with all good facades, when mine started to crumble… the light started to shine through again.
This past year, dancing has been a different experience for me. While dancing was once an escape and a facade for a deep-seated sense of loneliness… it has taken on new form that is no longer tied to a sense of approval or validation. I still share my dancing on Instagram, because it does bring me joy to share it, but it is no longer from a place of needing or wanting anything other than to inspire others to see what happens when they dance every single day. In January of 2022, I invited the Kula Cloth community to join me… and since then, over 1000 people from around the globe have joined me to dance. We have danced every single day — together.
Dance is no longer a way for me to escape. Dance is a way that I can connect. A way that I can connect to people that I care about — a way that I can connect to myself. A way that I’ve been able to understand that the light is only blindingly bright because when you truly learn to look within, you see and remember how precious and beautiful you really are. I’ve said this before, but I will say it again here. In 1,000 days of consecutive dancing I have learned one thing that stands out above everything else: Every single day deserves dancing.
Every single day on this earth is a gift — and I came here to accept all of it. I came here to accept the difficult moments and the good ones. I came here to stand in the storm and weather it — and to come out on the other side and watch a sunrise. I came here to allow the universe to show me what I need to see in order to grow, expand and heal so that I can contribute to the collective healing of all the energy that exists in this cosmos. I came here so that I can be a part of the remembering of who we are and why we are here. I came here to breathe and to feel my heart beat and to love and to cry and to spin around on the top of a peak and feel the sunrise on my face until I can no longer tell where the mountain ends and I begin. I came here to be a part of life… and that, my friends, is a reason to dance.
Today is my birthday. I forgot to mention that earlier — but I mention it now, because I’m going to tell you a story about my birthday last year. Last year, I had a zoom call planned with a few of my Kula employees to talk about event planning near my birthday, so I hopped on the call at the scheduled time, thinking that it was nothing other than a normal zoom call. Suddenly, I noticed that all of the Kula employees were on my call — I was shocked! I quickly realized that they had planned a group zoom call so that we could all talk and chat to celebrate my birthday. We all laughed and talked for about 20 minutes… when, suddenly, another name popped into the waiting room for the zoom call… a name that I recognized from our daily dance experiment … and then another… and another… and another. Within minutes, dozens and dozens of people from our Dance Experiment flooded into the zoom call - a birthday surprise of epic proportions. One by one, people started sharing how the Dance Experiment had changed their lives. They read poems… sang songs… and shared words with me that had me… quite literally… sobbing. I had no idea. I had no idea the impact that my ‘silly Dance Experiment’ had on other people.
I know that maybe I’ve shared some things that sound ‘dark’ — but I want you to know that I don’t see them that way. The light is always there. Maybe it doesn’t reveal itself at first or maybe it is obscured… but it is there. In the darkest of moments, I know that it guided me. By the light of my headlamp… I danced and twirled and jumped, and as the sun appeared on the horizon, I could finally see that everything I had always wanted was already within me. I have no plans to stop dancing. Every single day, no matter what, I will set aside time to dance. On the day you read this message… I will likely have danced already… probably at sunrise. I hope that you will join me. I hope that you know that your life… that life itself… always deserves dancing.
Love,
Anastasia
P.S. On OCTOBER 4th, we are hosting a virtual dance party to celebrate my 1,000 days of dancing. ALL ARE WELCOME. You don’t even have to dance. 100% of donations are being donated to Dance to Be Free… an non-profit that teaches incarcerated women the power of dance. I hope to see you there, it would mean a lot to be able to share such a fun and special milestone with all of you.
P.S.S. Here’s my Dance Experiment Storage playlist - enjoy!!
Xeo
You are so o adorable- I love dancing up and down the hill to Santana & Earth, Wind & Fire I just can’t do it everyday !