Identity..cliffbars?

Nowadays I feel like there is so much effort put into finding one's identity. I guess this makes sense, because it kind of drives peoples' source of action. But how do we define our identities? This is something that I have been asking myself for a while, and it especially hit hard last week. Really the possibilities to fine your source of identity are endless. We could go with your location....she is a california girl so that's why she eats avocados, dresses beach trendy all the time and says 'like' every other word, or maybe what you 'do'....she is a college student so she doesn't shower much, parties, and procrastinates until the last minute. How about ideological perspective? Well, she is a Christian, so she doesn't cuss, drink alcohol, let alone attend parties, go to bed late, or engage in sexual innuendoes. Could you imagine what would happen if we let these identities that shape little parts of our personalities control our whole self? Well guess what, we kinda do. This is why we spend so much time discovering our 'true identity.' We don't want to get it wrong. We don't want to identify ourselves with the bad parts of certain identities and we want to exaggerate the parts of others that we take pride in. Well I came to a lot realization this past week about my identity.

I am someone that would actually take pride in my lack of searching to define my true identity, but that is an identity in itself. I also unknowingly take pride in the knowledge I get from my education, my exposure of reading the news, and what I have been thinking about a lot lately...being a dancer. I arrived in Castro Valley one week ago to stay at my aunt Amy and unkle Kevin's house during this four-week dance intensive with the Line Ballet School. Even just writing down the name of what I am doing, there is an automatic sense of pride I get from being here...but now instead I should be so humble to accept this beautiful gift from God, yes God, not the gift of my efforts. Now if you are unfamiliar to the character of the dance world let me give you a little inside glimpse.

Your name is Suzy, you are an 18 year old dancer and your walking on the streets of San Francisco. So here you are, in your super stylish $65 Yumi leotard that you got delivered from Japan, covered by your worn out sweat pants, some sort of stylish top to show that you have a life outside of the studios, comfortable shoes (even if they are ugly) because you care about the health of you feet, carrying a loaded dance bag full of dead point shoes, man socks, needle and thread, a few cliff bars, vitamin water, and your hair pulled back into some sort of semi-neat bun...walking into Alanzo King's Lines Ballet school with a bunch of other dancers with very similar clothing habits that yourself. Your doing two things here: 1. don't admit that they are dressed the same to yourself because you are 'unique' and 'cooler' than they are. and you 2. Still try to see that you fit into the dancer 'type' with your choice of clothing. So basically you fit in and you stand out. Now is where the trouble starts, you figure out that the first day is an audition, and the faculty will be watching you dance all day with your name tag, taking notes on what your great at and what you such at. Then, they will judge their notes and decide whether you are good enough to be in the high level. If you are not in the level of your dreams than your a failure as a dancer and life as you know it in the program is over. The whole day you fight for a spot in the front, and it is a difficult battle because everyone else wants a spot in the highest level. In the meantime you know that it is not just your teachers watching you dance, but your fellow dancers. They are watching you, making sure that they are better than you...which they are not because we have already established that you are the coolest and therefor have the most potential. Wait a minute, you just landed that turn all wrong, you suck, no you don't just suck, your terrible and you will never get into the high level. Dance is not even cool anymore, it takes too much work and now you just look stupid. Everyone is watching you and judging whether or not you even belong in this training program!

Alright, so maybe I was having a little to much fun with Suzy's story and it is obviously kind of an exaggeration, but you kind of get where I am going. The point of Suzy's story is that sometimes we get so caught up and lost in these little worlds that we live in that we completely forget that we are humans and capable of so much more than one identity has in store for us. What if Suzy just went to this training program as Suzy? Suzy, a daughter of Christ, within her lives the Holy Spirit, when she begins to fall deeper into the tangible world she remembers that God is with her and all of sudden her dancing is coming from a new place, a true place, it is coming from her soul. And I can bet you a million dollars that this change of identity source would completely take over the way she dances and what she gets out of the program. She doesn't even notice that people are watching her, or that she is even placed in a level, these are just minor details about the world. What Suzy does notice, is that Mary is sitting alone before class starts and looks kind of nervous. Suzy begins a conversation with her about her hometown and soon they find out that they have more in common than their north face jackets and cliff bars, but actually enjoy talking to one another.

Last week I thought a lot about why I dance. I came to the conclusion that I have let myself become a slave to a lot of the superficial sides of dance that I have just poked fun at, but that is not the reason I dance. I do not dance to define myself. I dance, because there is something that lives inside of my heart that needs to dance. (Get prepared for some cheese) It allows me to express my deepest feelings, discover what is going on in my life, and seriously, just let me be with God. If dance was taken from me, I'd be sad and broken , but I know I would be healed with time. That is because I identify myself with Jesus Christ. I may be a dancer, but I am Yvette. I am daughter of God, follower of Jesus, and one that prays for the Holy Spirit. There is no single language that can communicate the whole truth of God. To me, dance is another language to supplement the Gospel. That is why so many broken people that dance, do so well....because everyday they get to embrace the truth of their spirit, whether they know it or not.

In the dance world, it is tough, because we let it be tough. We say yes to allowing judgement characterize our mood. But that is not what is about, and its called muscling through it. By muscling through it, there is a great chance that you will improve your technique and ultimately your body will become the perfect mechanic of movement, but by muscling through it, where is the soul? Yes, there is a great deal of work involved in improving, but with true motives, it won't be work. I know this, because today at Lines, the day finished in the blink of an eye, and I left the studios wanting more of this 'work' right then.

So my identity? Its pretty important to me, but its also pretty simple. I am nothing but my true self. This self comes from Christ, because Christ created all things (including me), He is above all things (including me), He is in control of all things (including me), and He is setting all things right (including me). I live in the name of Jesus.

It has been a struggle for me to accept these truths, because I am so attached to being the maker of my own successes. But then that would also mean that I am the maker of my own failures. That aint the truth yo! I am humbled. I am taking every entree in front of me with a grain of salt and not wasting single crumb. Life is not about me...no matter how much I trick myself into thinking it is.

So, God is kind of really rad. All week I kept getting this word of identity. Not just through my own personal thinking, but through a book a friend gave me, Reality SF's message yesterday, an extremely inspirational ballet teacher preaching love through dance, and a text message pretty much summing up this whole blog today. I can be sure that I will probably get more word to remind me to keep my head lifted but my feet on the ground, and of course simplifying this whole identity thing. Its not that hard, unless you get too carried away and lost in this world. But seriously, just get lost in God, because he's got your answer. He'd tell you. He told me. I'm simply Yvette.