I Think I've Accidentally Created the Best Night Out I've Ever Had... and It Happens at 7am
By Ruth | Alcohol Relationship Life Coach, Glasgow
A funny thing has happened over the last few months, and I don't think I fully appreciated it until after my most recent Dance for Energy session. I switched the music off, made myself a cup of coffee, sat down at the kitchen table and thought, "I absolutely love this." And as the messages came in from those who had been online saying how good they felt and that the tunes were amazing I had this incredible feeling of gratitude and a strong sense that “They absolutely love this too”.
I loved it because of how it made me feel. More importantly, I loved how everyone else seemed to feel too. If someone had told me twenty years ago that one of the happiest moments of my month would involve dancing around my kitchen at seven o'clock on a Wednesday morning with a group of people online, I'd have laughed. In fact, online didn’t even exist!
The first Wednesday of every month I host a 90s Dance for Energy session on Zoom from 7am to 7.30am, just half an hour. There are no complicated routines to learn, nobody barking instructions at you and absolutely no expectations. I put on some brilliant tunes, have a laugh and move our bodies before the working day begins. It sounds incredibly simple, but every month I'm reminded that something much bigger is happening.
I recently came across a phrase I'd never heard before collective effervescence. It was first used by the French sociologist Émile Durkheim to describe that feeling people experience when they come together and share something joyful. It's the buzz you feel at a concert when everyone is singing the same song. It's the atmosphere at a football match when the crowd erupts. It's the energy on a dance floor when everyone knows every word. As soon as I read about it, I thought, "That's exactly what this is." We're all in different houses. Some people are in their kitchens, some in the spare room, some are trying not to wake the rest of the family. Yet somehow, despite the miles between us, we finish the session feeling connected.
It's a strange thing to explain if you've never experienced it. You log on still rubbing the sleep out of your eyes, wondering whether getting out of bed half an hour earlier was really such a clever idea. The camera comes on, people say good morning, somebody admits they can work their phone/laptop, somebody else is clutching a coffee, and before you know it the music starts. 30 minutes later everyone looks different. People are smiling, they're laughing, their faces have colour in them. The tiredness they arrived with seems to have softened, even if it hasn't completely disappeared. I notice it because the same thing happens to me. I'm 48 now and somewhere between perimenopause and menopause. To be perfectly honest, I couldn't tell you where one ends and the other begins. I just know that my body doesn't always behave the way it used to. Fatigue has become something I have to respect rather than fight. Some mornings I wake up feeling as though somebody has quietly unplugged me overnight. There are days when I have to pace myself, and there are days when my energy disappears for no obvious reason at all. Years ago, I would have beaten myself up about that. These days I've learned to work with my body instead of constantly being at war with it. The interesting thing is that dancing seems to wake up something that coffee never quite manages. I'm not saying it cures fatigue. If only it were that easy. What it does do is remind me that tired isn't the only thing I am. I'm joyful. I'm playful. There's something incredibly freeing about giving yourself permission to dance before breakfast. Nobody is trying to impress anyone. Nobody is comparing themselves with anyone else. We're simply moving because it feels good.
I think we've forgotten how important that is. As adults, particularly women, we're brilliant at looking after everyone else. We organise. We sort the washing. We answer emails. We work. We care for children, parents, partners, dogs and pretty much anyone else who needs us. Joy usually comes at the bottom of the list. Ony, if there's time. Only, if we're not too tired. Only, if everything else has been done. The problem is that everything else is never done. There's always another load of washing. Another meeting. Another email. Another job to tick off. I've started to think that maybe joy shouldn't be the reward at the end of the to-do list. Maybe it should come first every now and then.
As many of you know, I'm also an alcohol relationship coach. One of the questions people often ask me is what replaces a night out when you stop drinking. It's a fair question because most of us aren't really asking about alcohol. We're asking about connection. We're asking about belonging. We're asking where that feeling of letting your hair down has gone. For years I thought alcohol was what created those feelings. Now I'm sure it does not, music creates them, people create them, moving your body creates them. Laughing with other people at seven o'clock in the morning while dancing round your kitchen to Rhythm Is a Dancer creates them.
Who knew?
The best part is that when the session finishes, I don't feel drained. I don't spend the rest of the day regretting it. I don't wake up wondering what I said or wishing I'd had one less drink. I make my breakfast, start the day and carry that feeling with me. I've had plenty of nights out over the years, and I've got some brilliant memories, but I can honestly say that the feeling I get after these sessions beats almost all of them. That probably sounds ridiculous until you've tried it. So, if you've been thinking about joining but you've been telling yourself you're too tired, too unfit, too self-conscious or that you can't dance, I'd like to gently challenge that. People come because they want to feel more alive and so do I.
Every single month, we create a little pocket of joy before most of the country have properly woken up. We borrow a bit of energy from each other, we laugh, we dance and we remember that feeling good doesn't always have to involve staying up late. Sometimes the best night out you'll have all month finishes before eight o'clock in the morning.
I still can't quite believe I'm saying that, but it's true.
