A Confidence Glow-Up on the Dance Floor + Shining Out Into the World

Ready to shine together?

This week's Moon Festival has me thinking about what makes us truly glow🌟.

For many of us there are little glimmers that give clues to what lights us up. They are those things that make us smile, moments when we feel most like ourselves, or things we feel a sense of ease and flow when we do. But with the pressures and stresses of life, expectations, responsibilities, comparisons, and self-doubts, our shine can start to feel clouded.

I often share about how my love for dance first took form in my childhood home basement, where I’d spend hours making up my own routines. But as I got older, that passion became fogged over by insecurities, especially when I lived in NYC, surrounded by professional dancers. The voice in my head told me I wasn't "good enough", so why even continue to dance?

Even moving to Taiwan, having long been interested in other cultures, I cried nearly that entire flight, worried I wasn’t adventurous or brave enough to be able to survive so far from home.

For a long time, the lines I told myself, I’m too this or not enough of that, were like a dull haze blocking out my light.

But what I discovered through my own journey was that true confidence isn't about being perfect or even perfectly assured. It’s knowing you can handle not being great all the time. True confidence is giving yourself permission to learn, to grow, and to enjoy the process without the pressure of perfection.

Honestly, this is a lesson I'm still learning and practicing daily, whether it’s working myself up to do a big dance event or stumbling through a conversation in Chinese.  Or even recently when I tried things like disc golf and pickle ball for the first time, and was able to laugh at myself and my beginner mistakes.

And this is what I love so much about our Zumba community. It's a space where we all get to be brave enough to try. There's enough room for all of us to shine, to smile, to share our talents and our imperfections, to try things slightly outside of our comfort zones, and to just get lost in the music and fun.

We dance and bask in each other's glow. 

So this week, take a cue from the moon! Think of something that lights you up, and go spread your shine!

If you are like me and that happy place is the dance floor, I’ll see you in class or online at home shining, sweating and smiling all through October!

Keep moving!

xx,Katie