Joy: Find Your Joy & Know Your Domain | Maya Gandaia

What has been bringing you JOY lately? 🌿

Me (as usual!), it’s been nature… and I am super excited to start training with a choir from Monday: while it might feel awkward and clunky right now, I know that it is supporting me to express myself to the full!

This month, I spoke at the Choreography of Consent Symposium and since the event, I have been sitting with whether, within the dance industry… in fact in any industry… it is ever possible for everyone to be in their own domain at the same time?

For years, I would override my boundaries as a dancer: say yes when I felt a no in my body… brush over my own needs because I thought being good enough, being accepted was more important than my own inner wisdom.

And it came at a cost…

When we don’t know what our own domain is… our sovereign space, holding ourselves whole exactly as we are… we can’t set boundaries. We can’t trust our intuition. We might not even know what we want anymore…

It’s been a lot with everything coming to light right now: the Epstein files, multiple genocides still ongoing… a global reckoning around consent and power… and it feels more important than ever that we can keep our vibrations high, maintain our health and know what our own domain is: not just intellectually, but in our bodies…

So I have also been doing a lot of pelvic bowl work: clearing, listening, unclenching (more on this soon)…

And this week’s Full Blood Moon eclipse feels connected… in fact maybe it is all connected…

It’s a total lunar eclipse in Virgo on Tuesday 3rd March…

Virgo invites us to be honest with ourselves about what is (and isn’t) working… and as this Virgo moon is opposite the Sun in Pisces… it creates a polarity: a push-pull dynamic: inviting us to soften, to let go of control…

I feel that tension constantly: between what is happening in the world, between being honest with myself and staying open… and that is also connected to the tension of creating and of learning to feel our own domain and stay in our centre.

Last Lunar year, we were shedding: The Year of the Snake asked us to let go of old patterns of overriding ourselves. Now, the Fire Horse energy is about charging forwards… but from wholeness: not from performing, or freezing but with our whole selves at the centre.

So I invite you to grab your Journal to JOY and reflect… maybe it is just a free flow in response to these themes, or here are some prompts to inspire you:

Where in your life are you saying yes when your body is saying no? Write it all down. Let it flow. How do you know these feelings cannot change?

What pattern of overriding your centre are you ready to let go of? Place your hands on the part of your body that comes intuitively and breathe into it. Say out loud: “All that I touch, can change.”

Where do you feel most like yourself… and how can you be there more often? What would it feel like to replace your story with a new one?

And as always… where are you making space or can you carve more space for rest and unclenching in these different times?

Alive, moving, changing is your truth — not fixed or broken ✨

I would love to meet with you online or in person

Science has proven that survival mode (the FROZEN state) literally lowers our IQ… This is why I think JOY (and rest) are tools for revolution… because as much as all the 💩 in the world may have us feeling all the feels right now, might polarise us and bring down our vibration… we cannot pour from empty… and our JOY, our light, our creativity is what lights the way for others to come home to themselves too.

So follow that JOY,

Sending all the hugs, and I hope to see you soon for more love letters, musings and magic 🌙