Innerdance- The Beginning

In Maia- home of innerdance

I guess the first question I should answer is: what is innerdance?

Many people attempted to define it, including its founder, Pi Villaraza.

However, the definition is always changing.

Innerdance is always moving and evolving.

I personally think it does not need to be defined because every definition is somehow reductive.

Therefore, instead of attempting to define it, I want to share my story.

This particular story is about overcoming severe traumas and it is about my introduction to innerdance. The space that we open during this practice is very powerful and I had many different kinds of experiences after my initial one, including emotional, physical, physic and visual ones, which I am hoping to write about soon.

The first time I attended innerdance was in Koh Phangan, Thailand.

I was 26 and my path was already unfolding- I was successfully massaging people in London and traveling around the world to expand myself. But it was still an early stage for me.

I had my breakthrough moment when I was 24- I attended my first Ayahuasca ceremony that completely changed my life because I was finally liberated from my alcohol addiction after that night.

Yet, I accumulated a lot of trauma during my teenage years and early adulthood- I was violated in many ways and I never processed some tragic events that occurred in my life.

I did not know what innerdance is but I like dancing so I was excited to move my body.

Turns out that what moved was much more than just the body.

We sat in the circle and I saw a graceful woman who I felt was bursting with Love. Immediately I was drawn to her and paid close attention to every gesture and every word. I was hypnotised by her presence. Her name is Flor. It was explained to us that during the session we will lie down with our eyes closed and we didn't have to do anything. No breathing techniques, no mudras, mantras, no special positions. All we had to do was to lie down and trust. Sounds simple, right?

I thought I will experience another sound healing. At this point I have had a few experiences with it and they felt nice so I didn't expect anything beyond that.

However, what happened, completely blew my mind.

At some point during the session, I started to cry hysterically. I didn't know it was possible because I almost never cried prior to this experience. No matter what happens to me, I swallow it and keep going. However, if you keep swallowing it, it ends up somewhere inside and you get fuller and fuller, heavier and heavier.

I was crying really hard but I didn't have any flashbacks or particular memories coming up.

I felt a male presence next to me. I was trying to stop crying because I could sense there was a facilitator next to me so I have to finish already because he is spending too much time attending to me. I was convinced I had to shut up so he can go work on other people who need it. But the cry was completely uncontrollable. After a while, I felt a hand on my heart and a female voice whispering to my ear- ''is it happening now?''.

I felt confusion for a moment- what is happening?

Then I suddenly understood.

I cried for every time I was raped, every time I was assaulted, every time I was violated. Every time I felt unsafe, every time my life or freedom was in danger. But it already happened, it is not happening right NOW. At this moment, I am safe, my life is no in danger. At the present moment everything is fine. But is is still happening? Are these events still occurring somewhere in the time and space, somewhere in my mind, somewhere in another dimension? Is my body still experiencing the effects ? I stayed in a present moment and felt an overwhelming feeling of love and peace. I was in a state of bliss. There was no past and no future, I just was.

I don't remember anything more than that but this experience had a massive impact on me.

I got to experience a total bliss of a present moment.

I realised that I have been holding so much inside, pretending to be strong, pretending to be fine but I wasn't. I felt like I am ready to work on myself, I am ready to face the past traumas, I am ready to rise up.

I also realised that I have been giving so much yet I could not receive. I felt uncomfortable receiving. I didn't want to take space. It was painful to realise that I didn't feel worthy enough.

Flor announced that she was organising her ''Creative Alchemy'' retreat in the Philippines around the New Year's time. I knew immediately that I will join her. Before flying to Palawan to continue working with innerdance I attended a Tantra training, which lasted almost a month. I cursed myself many times for joining a space where I had to face my demons yet I knew I can't keep running away and despite experiencing incredibly painful moments I could feel I am healing.

It was such an intense period of my life but it was needed for me to be able to move forward.

Fast forward to 2022. As a 31 years old woman I can say that I can speak about all the tragic events that occurred in my life with complete peace. The people who hurt me do not have power over me anymore. I remember my life before, I remember I wished them all to die. I remember I was visualising killing them and torturing them in horrible ways. I wanted a revenge, I wanted them to suffer and die and experienced all the pain I experienced. Now, I don't feel this way anymore. I feel compassion towards these men. How much are they suffering to be able to hurt other people so much? What happened to them that they are able to violate someone else?

I don't want to excuse their behaviour, there is no justification for their action but I just don't feel hate in my heart anymore. I know but hating them I was hurting only myself, not them.

I must say that innerdance, plant medicine and body work were all incredibly helpful tools for me to heal. Innerdance and Master Plants- Ayahuasca, Peyote, Huachuma and mushrooms allowed me to go into a space of an altered consciousness where healing is possible on many levels of existence. I cannot imagine how could I ever heal from everything I experienced by talking about it with a therapist. I had to go to spaces where the being is open enough to heal- not through the mind, not through thinking myself out of it but by surrendering myself and being in the spaces where these things are possible.

After my initial experience, I followed Flor to the Philippines where I spent time in Maia- an ecovillage- a co-creation of Pi and other people, which became a hub for the innerdance community and received hundreds (thousands?) of people seeking to heal and expand.

Some years later I met Pi and another main facilitator- Serena and I joined them for an innerdance immersion in Thailand.

After another mind blowing, intense experience I was invited to the Philippines by Pi.

I had no clue why and he didn't tell me anything, he didn't answer any questions. So I trusted and I travelled to Palawan, as usual not knowing what to expect. I ended up spending a few months there with Pi, Serena and a group of people, interacting with the innerdance further.

During this time I met my current partner and a father of my daughter- Angelo and our friend Veronique, who is living with us in Guatemala at the moment, where we continue opening innerdance space for ourselves and others.

Serena's website : https://www.innerdancetrust.com/

Pi's website: https://www.life-1a.com/