Tami Simon: You’re listening to Insights at the Edge.. Today my guest is Natalie Southgate. Natalie is passionate about how dance, music, and the chakras can help people to a deeper connection to their true selves, [as well as] happier, more balanced lives. Natalie founded Chakradance in London in 1998. She combined her training and expertise in dance, psychology, and in chakra healing to create this new fusion of ancient wisdoms. She has run workshops at Dr. Deepak Chopra’s esteemed Chopra Center in California, and has led thousands through the healing moves and sounds of Chakradance. With Sounds True, she has created the new DVD 7 Keys to Freedom, and an accompanying music CD in which she takes listeners on the Chakradance journey.
In this episode of Insights at the Edge, Natalie and I spoke about how to help people experientially feel the chakra centers and the all-important role that music plays in this experience. We also listened to excerpts from three tracks from 7 Keys to Freedom—the track for the root chakra, the sacral chakra, and the third eye center. We learned more about how Chakradance helps us balance the chakras and even heal trauma and release old memories, and how it can help us move forward in actualizing our most authentic selves. Here’s my conversation with the pioneering creator of Chakradance, Natalie Southgate:
Natalie, to begin with, can you tell me a little bit about how Chakradance came into being? The birth story, if you will?
Natalie Southgate: The birth story of Chakradance. Wow. OK. Well, I was living in London. It was actually 18 years ago now—it was back in the late ’90s. I was living in London in a very different kind of life: I was running a recruitment agency. So, something very different.
My life, by all accounts, was pretty amazing: I was earning great money, I had my own company, I was in a great relationship. From the outside it all looked pretty amazing, but I was really—but I wasn’t physically—I didn’t look after my body, I smoked, I drank too much. There was this part of me that just felt kind of disconnected, and I think that there was this searching that started to happen—“Is this it? This all what I was aiming for. I’m kind of there. Is this it?” I think this is when it began—this search for something more.
In the building that I worked in, there was a woman that worked downstairs, and at five o’clock every day she would rush out the door, and I got intrigued as to what she was so passionate about. Where was she going? I asked her one day. I said, “Where do you go? What do you do?” And she said, “I teach. I teach at a place called the College of Psychic Studies.” And I was like, “What? There is a place called the College of Psychic Studies?” I just couldn’t believe it, and I really felt something within me go, “Oh my goodness.” Something really resonated. I’d dabbled in Reiki and meditation, but I hadn’t really found what it was I was searching for.
I can still remember vividly the day I walked into the College. It’s in South Kensington in London. The building itself is over 200 years old, and there’s teaching and there’s lectures and they teach healing courses and psychic development. Walking through those doors was just a moment of, “Oh my goodness, I have come home to something. I’ve found something here.”
The College was really the start of it all. I was there for five years and I trained as a healer, and that’s when I started to learn about the chakras. I couldn’t believe it, Tami. When I first learned about the chakras, it was like—it wasn’t so much learning as remembering something, something within me. I was a bit annoyed that I hadn’t learned this earlier! That I hadn’t learned this in school. It just made so much sense to me—this map of the chakras to help us navigate our way through life. I became really, really interested in studying the chakras—read as much as I could, did all my healings.
I then went on to study Jungian psychology. I was getting thirstier and hungrier for more, and Jung was one of the first Westerners to work with the chakra system. The chakras pretty much mirror his map of integration—the process of individuation that he talks about.
So, I started studying all of this, and I started to teach beginner’s workshops on the chakras. That was the beginning of it. People would be in chairs, and I’d have my little flip chart, and I’d be moving around and trying to explain about the chakras, and kind of getting a bit frustrated, I guess.
While all this was going on, I’m running my recruitment company, I’m doing the studies and the Jung studies—and the other great passion that I’ve always had is dance. I think dance has been a bit of a savior in my life, really. As a child, I was so chronically shy that I was sent off to dance lessons to try and bring me out of my shell. It didn’t really do that so much, but it really helped me to connect with myself a little bit more. As I got older, I was less into that sort of structured, choreographed dance. When I was in London and in Europe, I was always searching for new dance classes: shamanic dance, alternative dance, improvisation dance—whatever I could find to start to really express and feel that connection that I was looking for again.
And eventually what I ended up doing [audio breaks off] quite, quite right, so I ended up creating this practice that I would do at home where I would move the furniture off to the sides and light a candle, and set an intention for that connection I was looking for, and find entirely different styles of music—and [then] I would just close my eyes and dance. It became something that I did for myself for years really—it became what I needed to do.
And one day, I had just actually taught a beginner’s chakra workshop at the College, and I came home and moved the furniture and I started to dance in the way I normally would do. And maybe because I’d been in the chakras all day—I think that’s probably what triggered it—I started to realize and notice the different music that I was playing was kind of stirring up the energy of different chakras, and the feelings and images that were coming in my mind’s eye were connected to that. There was this moment of sheer dropping in, and I actually heard the name “Chakradance.” It was just like, “Of course! That’s what I need to do! I need to dance my chakras!” It just made so much sense to me.
And that’s how it began—it began as very much a practice for myself. I had no intention at all to take it out there to create a healing modality. That was not on my radar at all. It was a practice for me. That’s how it began—my own personal practice of searching wildly for the right music, and I learned how to do some basic music editing. I put drum loops with flutes, and started to create music that intuitively in me felt like it was connecting with that chakra. That’s how it began, and it was just me on my own.
Then some of my friends said to me, “What are you doing? You seem a little bit different.” I said, “Really? I’m doing this Chakradance practice just for myself.” And then they wanted to do it! I thought, “Oh, OK.”
So I used my recruitment agency, and at the end of the day, I would get brightly colored fabrics and cover the computers and light some candles. My friends came, and I led them through what I was doing for myself. Then, it was so organic from there. It really was. They wanted to bring friends. So, I thought, “OK, we’ll just rent a little hall.” So then I rented a little hall, and it was just really organic from there. It’s just been this unfolding naturally over the last 18 years. It’s moved quite slowly, and I think that’s because of my personality! [Laughs.] And now it’s reached where it is today. But that’s the birth story, I guess.
TS: Now you said it moved quite slowly and that might be because of your personality. What did you mean by that?
NS: I think for me, it’s—the biggest hold I had for Chakradance is that I have been—I think I mentioned earlier how as a child, I was very shy. It’s something that’s always been a part of who I am; I’m quite shy, quite introverted. I’ve never seen myself as a leader, as such. So I think, in many ways, I have moved slowly while I’ve built up my own confidence and done more and more of my own work. To facilitate Chakradance, you have to continually go back in and do your own healing work. Jung says you can only take people to the places where you’ve been, and I really believe that. I feel like I’ve just had to very slowly and organically in my own comfort zone start to come to that point.
I feel like I’m at the point—I’m certainly not this out-there person, but I’m more—I’ve become so in tune, I guess, with who I am, and the whole process of Chakradance. It very much connects you back to who you really are. It takes you back to that really authentic self. I feel that doing the work over and over and over, over the years, has brought me to a place where I now can actually just step out and be myself, and go, “Hey, this is what it is. If it works for you, great. And if it doesn’t, maybe it’s not your thing. But this is what I’m offering and I hope it can help you.” I’m really comfortable in that, and the more comfortable I’ve become in that, the more it’s grown.
For example, coming on your show now—I would have found every excuse under the sun a few years ago because I wouldn’t have felt confident enough. But just by doing the practice and keep going and going with it, I feel like it’s really helped me in so many ways.
TS: I want to talk some about people having their own internal experience of the chakra centers. You mentioned that when they were introduced to you, you had the experience of remembering something. I know a lot of people, when they hear about the chakras, it’s presented often in a traditional framework—you know, this is the color, this is the animal that’s associated with this part of the body, this is what the flower lotus number of petals will look like. And people will be a little bit like, “Huh. Yes, maybe. OK, I’ll try to tune in.” I’m wondering: how can you help people actually know the chakras from the inside experientially?
NS: Yes. Yes. Well, I feel, Tami, that’s exactly, exactly what we do in Chakradance. It’s not a heady experience, it’s not a theory-based experience. I mean, we do give people information, because there are some people who do really benefit from having that factual information first. But many don’t.
With Chakradance, what we’re actually doing is I see the chakras as these seven—well there’s seven main chakras. I see seven inner landscapes—these seven inner worlds, almost like these seven parts of ourselves. Each one’s got its own mood, essence, and feeling. Yes, the elements and the colors and so on connect in with that.
What we’ve done in Chakradance is the music is a big part of Chakradance. It’s what gives you that internal experience of it. I now work with an amazing musician who really gets what we’re doing [and] gets chakras—a man called Dale Nougher. He’s amazing, and together we work in creating the music.
And the music—yes, it’s got a science to it. There’s frequencies resonating to the colors and so on. But also, each chakra has this magic, and the magic is the magic of the feeling, the mood, the essence of each chakra.
So, just for example, the music for the base [chakra] is really earthy and tribal. There’s digeridoos and African beats, and it makes you connect with the land, with your ancestors—the mood of that. So in a class, the music’s loud, the room is dark—we do it in a darkened room by candlelight. We encourage everyone to close [their] eyes because it’s not about a performance, it’s not about “out there.” It’s about this internal, inner experience. Many people describe it as dancing in a waking dream.
You follow the music, and we do guided imagery to help take you in. You may be dancing around an ancient campfire and your ancestors may be there. We give some imagery just to help people, to lead them into this world. Then, from there, you move into the depth and you start to actually express this energy. It’s like you become the energy of the base chakra. The base chakra energy floods through you, and you feel comfortable in that—you can let go and release and express. Some people may be a little bit uncomfortable with that, so they take it more slowly and start to have an awareness of, “OK, I might have a bit of an issue in the base chakra.” It’s not about analyzing it. It’s about starting to become a little bit more conscious of it.
So, that’s the base, and if you change that to even the next one up, the sacral—the sacral is so different. It’s this whole different inner world, this whole different inner landscape. The music is very sultry and Middle Eastern. It’s kind of like that ancient belly dance, a goddess kind of energy where we connect with our own sensuality and sexuality, and it’s hip-moving. We guide people in it so they’re dancing through water under the glow of a full moon. We bring in a lot of the symbolism—archetypal symbolism—in the imagery.
But, the experience is to go into that energy and to let that energy of that whole chakra move you, and get moved by it. You’ve got your eyes closed, and people report back all the time that they see images. They have memories surface. They may have had some kind of issue in this chakra, and the memory comes up and there is a release, quite often, of emotion. It’s not a cathartic, big, sort of smashing-opening type of practice. It’s very much a gentle but deeply powerful practice. We move through each chakra, and the music as you go—and the imagery and the essence and the feeling for each chakra is so different. And yet, if you think about it, we all have seven chakras. We all have this energy of each one available to use in our lives.
Running classes for 18 years, I can see that most of us tend to operate predominantly out of two or three or four chakras, and we really over-utilize and they become quite dominant in our personality. Then there’s parts of us that are maybe weak and dormant and a bit buried, and we don’t utilize that part of ourselves. Over time, that starts to throw our lives, our relationships, our bodies, our health out of whack.
So, the aim of what we’re doing here is to really start to bring awareness, bring energy, bring movement, bring aliveness into each of these parts of us so that we can—I mean, I know it’s a cliché —to reach the fullest potential, become as whole as we can be, become as balanced as we can be. A lot of that is just by starting to experience all of these different energies that we have. That’s what we’re doing in the practice of Chakradance.
TS: It’s interesting that when I asked you, “How can you help people have an inner experience that they can really call their own of each of the chakras, not from something that they’ve read?” you started by pointing out the music—that the music drives or invites or catalyzes, if you will, this inner knowing, because of the music opening us to images, memories, whatever. That’s interesting, how important the music is in your work.
NS: The music is the key component. Absolutely. Yes.
TS: Given that, let’s listen to a little piece. You talked a little bit about the root chakra, and I think it might be helpful for our listeners to actually get their ears on what you’re talking about.
NS: I’d love that! Let’s do that.
TS: I’m going to play a little bit now of the music from the CD and the DVD, 7 Keys to Freedom, by Chakradance. This is the track for the root chakra.
[Music plays.]
TS: Well, I definitely get how that kind of music connects me to the root chakra. I definitely get that. It makes me want to dance in a certain kind of really low to the ground, stomping kind of way. I get it.
NS: Yes.
TS: I think the question I have is, how does doing that change me, benefit me? You talk about music—that it acts, as you say, as a vibrational medicine. So what’s the medicinal part?
NS: Well, I think the frequency—if you think about what the chakras are, they are actual vibrational frequencies. It’s the energy field of who we are. So on that more scientific level, the vibrations of the music are vibrating at the frequency of that chakra, and in a way, acting like a medicine—like a vibrational medicine. It’s actually beginning to affect the chakra vibration in that way. That’s the sort of science behind it.
That’s one level up, but I also feel [that] a lot of the healing that’s taking place is that we store so much in the chakras. We store so much in the chakras and in our bodies, and when we surrender into the music and we start to have these experiences of the memories coming back up or the emotion that’s releasing because the music’s activated this memory, we let go of some of the old patterns we’ve been holding onto. We let go of some of the old trauma that we’ve been holding on to. It actually starts to release that.
We don’t even have to understand it or need to understand it. It’s not like we have to do a talking therapy around the whole thing; sometimes surrendering into that vibration of the music, which triggers—that’s moving it on that energetic level—it then triggers a release of something that’s being held on to. It clears the energy. So over time and practice—I say with Chakradance, I said earlier, it’s not a big cathartic explosion. It’s almost like, dance by dance, we unravel these little pieces that have been these blocks—little blockages of energy that we hold onto. We just start to unravel them piece by piece by piece until we’re suddenly feeling the difference; suddenly we’re more balanced in the base chakra.
And I think we should add: with chakra work, it’s less the work that we’re doing within the chakra, less the work we’re doing physically, but the inner world very much reflects our outer world. And this is something we look at in Chakradance all the time. It’s not just about what we do in this one-hour of class or we’re doing the CD at home or doing the DVD at home, it’s not just that one hour. The inner work that we’re doing with our chakras reflects then, very much, what happens in our outer world. So we then start to see the impact of healing the chakras. It’s just not—we haven’t [just] got this great, healed, balanced chakra. It’s reflected back to us through our relationships, through what’s happening in the external world. It’s like a mirror for the chakra work that we’re doing.
In the workshops, we dance a different chakra each week. And at the beginning of the week, we reflect back on the week that we just all were in, whichever chakra we were in. People report back of the things that happened in their outer life from dancing that particular chakra last week. The synchronicities and the similarities quite often—because it’s chakra, it’s quite archetypal a lot of the time—it’s quite amazing. So the healing—the music’s working on so many levels, if you get what I mean.
TS: Well, maybe you could give a concrete example. I mean, we heard the music for the root chakra, and I’m imagining I’m going to spend a whole week doing that kind of real kind of stomping—is what I felt listening to the music. What might get released or changed? Like, maybe give an example from your own life or from people that you’ve worked with?
NS: Yes. Yes. Well, from my own personal life, the first chakra, the base chakra has been one that I have struggled with right from the beginning. I said earlier that I was disconnected very much from my own physical body for a very long time. I was really underweight, and I was a vegetarian who didn’t like vegetables. I didn’t eat well. I ran on adrenaline, really. Working with the base chakra has been this really—oh, it’s been such an integral part of my own healing process. Just by continually, week by week, dancing the base chakra, I feel like it’s really, really brought me back into my body. It’s connected me right back to the wisdom of my body. And it’s really the thing—the practice—that I have used to get here.
So, I know for me it has been really healing. It’s almost taking me to a whole different level of being so aware of what—I mean, because the base chakra is all about our physical health as well. So, it’s really connected me to what I’m putting in my body, what I’m eating now, the effects of all of that.
The more balanced the base chakra becomes, the more I’ve had to be in tune with nature. I’ve always lived in cities, and the more I could feel this base chakra balancing, the more it was like, “I can’t do this anymore.” For me—it won’t be for everyone—but for me to take that last leap of healing or the next step of healing was to move into nature. I’ve moved to a place called Noosa. I live right on the beach, I live next door to a national park. I have to get out and I have to literally have my bare feet in the sand, in the mud, to feel here, to feel connected now. If you’d have told me that that was what my life was going to look like—you know—15, 10 years ago even, I would have laughed because I really didn’t have that healing in my base chakra. Whereas now, for me on my life journey, that’s the level of the base healing that I need to follow and to work with.
To be honest, I used to lead the base chakra workshops almost with this sense of—I’d lead people in with this guidance of connecting—“Imagine your feet growing roots and connecting you to nature.” I’d try to lead people in and part of me was going, “Oh, there’s a big ball and chain and you’re stuck here.”
What I learned about working with the base chakra for me is that I had this fear (it was very unconscious) that if I became really grounded, if I became really in my base chakra, that I’d lose my spiritual connections. Because I’m really intuitive, I’m really in contact with my higher chakras—they’re the parts of me that have been overactive. I think I had this fear—well, I know I had this fear, and I almost didn’t want to connect with the base chakra because of the fear—and you know, fear is very connected to the base chakra.
But I’ve just kept going very gently [and] very consistently with the practice, and of course now coming more and more into my base chakra, I realize the opposite is true. The more grounded you are, it’s almost like the higher you can go—the more you can bring your intuition into the real world and bring your spirituality into day-to-day life rather than being able to meditate and bliss out and have these incredible experiences, but not being able to actually bring them into daily life—into getting kids ready for school. It’s that connection.
So the base chakra, for me, has been huge. I’ve had many reports back—I get reports back every week all the time from—it’s often little subtle ways that the changes start to happen. And then, over time, you look back and go, “Wow, that’s quite big. That has actually really changed me.” But it’s quite often not this big, defining moment—it’s this unraveling. Does that help?
TS: Yes, it is. I have a couple more questions about it. I’m curious: when you play the music in a Chakradance class, and then there are these images that are given to help people tune to the inner landscape of the chakra, do you also direct people to pay attention to a certain part of their body as they’re focusing on each chakra?
NS: We do, quite often in the beginning. We lead each chakra in because if you haven’t done it before or if [you’re] self-conscious about moving freely or you don’t know much about the chakras, it really doesn’t matter. But, we also will guide people into, yes, bringing your awareness down to the base of your spine, bringing your movement down into your legs and your feet—this is a dance of the legs a dance of the feet.
So, we’ll connect. We may, in the sacral, guide people to start to move their hips in a serpentine-like way—just to loosen up the pelvis, free the hips. Imagine a glowing orange light.
So, we do give kind of the general body part of where the chakra is located, without people getting stuck in, [for instance], they’ve got to do that whole dance with they’re arms if they’re in the heart chakra. The energy takes over your whole body. So, there is direction given to how you might want to move without telling people how to move. And giving people some imagery, without them having to take it, because so many people have their own imagery come up. So, we don’t talk all the way through it.
TS: Now, I get how I’m moving in this inspired way to the music in a class. I’m curious how you understand the insight part of Chakradance. It seems a little magical to me—during the week, some kind of insight happens. How do you understand that connection?
NS: Yes, yes. I think there is a bit of magic involved, actually. It’s funny, because for years when I was doing my own Chakradance practice and—as I said, I studied Jungian psychology, and in order to study Jungian psychology, you have to go into your own personal Jungian analysis. So, it was incredible for me because I would dance up certain themes and then I’d take them into my Jungian therapist and we could start to work with some of the stuff that was coming up.
It made me realize that in the Chakradance classes at the time, there was a missing element. Yet, people would get insights. People would say, “What does that mean? Why did I see a cat? What happened? Why do I feel like this?” People would want me to interpret and in a sense, it is a very Jungian practice. It’s not about interpreting what comes up; it’s about the energy releasing and shifting.
But, I could sense that there was a part missing, and probably for the first ten years, this part wasn’t there. Then, working with my Jungian analyst, who then became my supervisor for Chakradance—so, she really helped me shape it and make sure that there was all the good things that were needed from the Jungian point of view: the holding, the container, and the whole therapeutic side of it. What we came to was this idea of using mandala artwork and it really took Chakradance to the next level.
What we do now, after we’ve danced the chakra—and some people will have images, some people will have nothing. Some people just say, “I didn’t see anything. I didn’t get what everyone else got.” So, there’s a mixture.
But what we do in the end of the class, we stay in the energy—so if we just danced the heart chakra, we stay in that energy. There’s a feeling in the room. The whole room feels like the energy of the heart chakra. I sometimes joke that I could step in not knowing which chakra they danced and I’d be able to feel it. It creates this whole-room energy.
Then we have black paper with a circle drawn in the middle, and we start by asking people to pour the energy of that chakra, pour the energy of what they’ve just danced into the circle. Then, using colored pastels—again in a very spontaneous, non-heady way—to pour into the circle an expression of what they’ve just danced. That would be a literal image that they’ve seen; it could be a shape, it could be a pattern.
In a way, this process—this is the kind of magical part. I mean, “mandala” means “magic circle.” It says it all. In a way, what we’re doing is pouring this energy from the inner world to our outer world. It’s like an expression—a physical expression, a manifest expression—of what we just danced.
Then [there’s] the part where we’re not trying to interpret it, it’s still spontaneous, but I ask people to give their mandala a name—just go with the first spontaneous name that comes. And then just sit with their mandala and then ask, “Is there a question your mandala is asking of you? What is the feeling that you have just by being with this mandala?” Then people take their mandala home and they put it on their fridge or by their bed, and have this energy. In a Jung sense, mandalas hold the energy for years. They can pick up the mandala again and look into it.
What I feel it’s doing is it’s starting to bring to consciousness in some way—very symbolic, which is how the psyche works in many ways. It’s symbolism. The symbolism holds the energy. So, in releasing and expressing this energy, it’s starting to bring that into the external world and start to shift it. That’s when we then start to notice these shifts in our outer world. So that’s—does that help?
TS: That does help. You know, I think it would be fun to listen to some of the music that goes along with the sacral chakra. You’ve mentioned a couple times that this area is related to our hips, and you talked about how the music is a little bit more maybe like Middle Eastern, kind of belly-dancing style. I’m curious to know what kinds of impacts you’ve found happening either in yourselves or other people when they focus on Chakradancing the sacral chakra.
NS: The sacral chakra. The sacral chakra is a big one. I mean, they’re all big, but I think because this one relates a lot to our sexuality and that whole sensual part of ourselves, I think there’s quite a lot of women in particular—and Chakradance does tend to attract predominantly women—there’s quite a lot of, quite often there’s trauma at some level around this area. So, this is probably one of the chakras where, although we’ve got our eyes closed, I see a lot of people go to a corner to dance. A lot of people make sure they turn their backs to everybody to dance.
It’s the center of our emotions as well. So, this is the one—it’s soft, it’s gentle, but it’s sultry, it’s sensual, it’s sexual—all those parts of ourselves. So, surrendering into that can be a really vulnerable experience for a lot of people. There’s a lot of safety in the group, so people do feel like they’re letting go, but it can start to, just start to release some of the old blocks that are there.
It can also help tap—I think one of the really amazing things that I’ve personally experienced with this chakra, and I’ve watched it in others as well, is that when we start to really work with this chakra, there’s a whole—I mean, the name means “sweetness.” There’s a whole tapping into the pleasure in our lives that we can, I think, so often deny ourselves, especially if this chakra is really blocked. There’s this sense that you can’t really connect with your passion, and it’s about finding that sensuality, that pleasure for ourselves first.
It’s then about, obviously, connecting with a partner from this place—this sexual place. But it’s firstly about—I almost call it like in a temple. It’s about connecting back in and really tapping into that self-nurturing and the pleasure for ourselves. And that might be just giving ourselves more rest or tapping into our artwork more; just listening to what we really need. I feel like the more we dance the sacral chakra, the more we’re connecting with that side—that sense of self-nurturing and pleasure and passion. Connecting in with what really lights us up and making sure that there’s a place for that, that there’s a space for that in our lives. It’s releasing the blocks we may have around sexuality, but it’s also opening up to just play and pleasure.
TS: Let’s definitely listen to the music here, for the sacral chakra!
NS: [Laughs] We might have to dance, Tami!
TS: OK!
NS: [Laughs.]
[Music plays.]
TS: It was interesting, Natalie, to hear those water sounds in the sacral music track.
NS: Yes. Each chakra, as you were saying earlier, has an element connected [to it] that helps it—it acts like a gateway almost, into the chakra. The element for the sacral chakra is water; the base [chakra] is earth, and with sacral it’s water, so that we can really connect in with the flow. Quite often in the classes, we actually do a water dance of releasing, flowing, letting our bodies flow and move like water to free up anything that we might be holding onto. Working with the elements can be really helpful, especially through movement where you’re becoming like the element.
TS: Can you tell me what the elements are for the other chakras that we work with?
NS: Yes. So, we’ve got base, we’ve got the earth. Then [with] sacral, we’ve got the water. The solar plexus is fire, and then the heart chakra is air. Then as we move up further, we’re moving into more of the etheric realms, so the throat chakra is the ether—some would call that sound. Again, it’s ether in the third eye, but again, you could take that further and say it’s life. Then finally with the crown, it’s spirit.
TS: Now when we were talking about the sacral chakra, you said that this was a very important Chakradance for people to do because for many of us, we have some type of trauma or we could have some type of trauma, whether it’s sexual trauma or other ways that we’re shut down in this part of our life. And I thought, “Wow. Trauma is something that often people think, ‘I’m going to have to be in therapy for decades, and this is very complicated to work through, and here on Insights at the Edge, Natalie Southgate, who’s created Chakradance, is saying that it’s possible actually that I might be able to dance out some of my traumas.’” Really? I thought that was extremely interesting and promising.
NS: [Laughs.] Well, I can only go from the experiences that I have had myself, and the experiences that I’ve witnessed through others. I’ve been leading these groups for 18 years, and we’ve now got 400 facilitators in 35 countries, and I get email after email after email—which is an amazing way to keep going with this because it’s what feeds me the most. [It’s] hearing the reports of what has been released [and] the changes that can happen. It’s literally moved me to tears.
This week in particular, I’ve had one of those weeks with loads of those emails. With our facilitators, we’ve got a private circle where we can all chat and share experiences. I was in there, literally in tears, saying, “Thank you for sharing these experiences of what you’re taking out there to the world.” A lot of these facilitators are taking the practice into lots of different areas—areas with people who have intellectual disabilities, learning disabilities, eating disorders, women’s prisons, women’s refuges—it’s being taken to a lot of different places. We have some amazing, [an] amazing team, really amazing where it’s going.
And the feedback is that yes, we don’t have to analyze everything. We don’t have to replay, go back in that head story, go back into the story. So much of what’s happened to us is held in our bodies; it’s held in the chakras. If we can really surrender—really surrender—it does take a certain just letting go, surrendering into the movement, coming [audio cuts out], coming out of your head and just feeling, letting the feeling release in a very contained and a very held and a very safe way. I think that’s a big part of the practice that makes it work for people—is that it is very Jungian, very held and safe. In that holding, in that boundary almost, there’s this sense of the unraveling, the freedom, the spontaneity can all release and unravel. I know it sounds like a big claim, and I guess there’s always been a part of me that would be too scared to stand here and say, “This can happen,” but I’ve seen it too many times now, and I’ve felt it. I think—
TS: Yes. What impresses me too is—
NS: —dance your way out of these things!
TS: —yes, is the naturalness of it. I mean, one of the things that I read in your description of Chakradance is the ancient roots in what you’re doing in tribal healing rites and ceremonies, and music and dance and the way that it was used in tribal cultures. It made me think, “Maybe some of our approach to healing is we’re making it more analytical or complex than it has to be. What you’re offering is this, one could say, quite ancient approach. Maybe you can talk a little bit about that, the ancient roots of Chakradance?
NS: Yes. You know, it does feel really ancient. There’s a real ritualistic—in a very non-scary way—in Chakradance. Obviously, the chakras themselves are an ancient system discovered 5,000 years ago through the practice of yoga. And dance has been used forever as a way of healing. All different tribes, different cultures, have used dance as healing [and] used dance as celebration, dance as ceremony—dance in all those different times in our lives, the transitional times in our lives. There’s so many cultures that use dance to express things and to honor these transitional paths.
And music—music has been used for healing, sound healing, as well. All of the parts that go into Chakradance are all very ancient. There’s a real ancient tradition that’s woven from lots of cultures—really, that’s woven into what Chakradance has become. But, I feel even in our modern-day version of this, what we do in Chakradance itself has a very, very sacred, honoring, and ritualistic feel. It’s not like we just go in, turn the lights out, pump the music up, and dance; it never starts like that.
It starts with creating a sacred space, asking for higher guidance, setting a very clear intention of what we are aiming to do here, which is to be unraveling the blockages in a gentle way. The integration, high intention—we start every class and we say on the CD and the DVD as well in the guidance if you’re doing it at home, do the same! Create your sacred space at home; light your candle, it can be that simple. Set your intention. We always begin with an opening meditation, because it’s really about—again—creating that inner intention of what we’re about to do.
We do all of this work and it’s also about letting go. In our opening meditation of Chakradance, we have the intention of letting go of your daily life—letting go as much as possible of the thoughts that are troubling you and what happened with the argument you just had with somebody, and having that really clear intention of arriving here into this sacred space for healing.
It’s amazing how the energy in the room completely shifts when we do that meditation. Everyone comes in there chatting—this, that, and the other going on. We do the meditation and it’s like vroom—the energy completely changes. There’s this sacred holding field that goes on. And it is ancient, it is deeply spiritual in many ways. It’s—the best way to describe it is that it is a soul practice. It’s a practice for your soul.
TS: One of the things in tuning in to the ancient roots of Chakradance that occurs to me is how so many tribal people understood that natural trance states can actually help heal us. I wonder if you can talk a little bit about that—the power of natural trance states.
NS: Oh my goodness. Well, I know the North American Indians—they used to dance for three to five days to go into trance. In Chakradance, we do a trance dance for the third-eye chakra and the music is quite repetitive, quite hypnotic in many ways. When people are dancing, it’s less like they’re dancing and more like they’re just moving in quite a repetitive kind of way. It’s just kind of repetition.
The research I’ve done around this is that it really shifts us out of our logical, left brain, much more into that intuitive right brain. It’s like a switch almost takes place. From there, we’re able to open up to insights and to—when we do a trance dance, it’s almost like we clear an empty space—this is how it feels to me—we clear an empty space where we open up to the images, the insights to literally drop in.
That’s going into a trance. It’s like an undoing in many ways. In our culture, we’re doing all the time, we’re trying all the time, we’re grasping for this insight. I think what we can learn about the ancient practice of trance dance is that it’s an undoing. It’s a letting go. Again, it’s like you’re surrendering into the music, to the monotonous music. It happens in everyday things—like whenever I’m peeling vegetables, bang, I get an insight. It’s sort of like—I’m not doing anything, but I’m doing something really repetitive; I’m peeling a carrot and as I’m doing that, it’s almost like that’s that undoing, that’s that stopping, and I’ll just get an insight. It can happen at sort of odd times like that as well, but in a trance dance situation, you’re really setting the scene, creating that real sacred space around it and it’s quite phenomenal what can come through to people in that trancelike state of the third eye.
TS: Well, maybe this would be a good way, then, to end our conversation, which would be to play a little bit of the music from Chakradance that’s for the third-eye chakra. I wonder, before we have our listeners hear the music: can you just give them some instructions? How can they make the most out of this listening experience?
NS: Yes. Well, I would say try and—well, not try, but stand up. If you’re sitting down, if you’re laying down, actually stand up. Stand up and have a shake. Just bend your knees softly and have a bit of a shake and just [exhales vocally] let go of it. [Exhales vocally again] let go with the sound, shake it out, and then very gently close your eyes and bring your awareness to the space between your eyebrows, your third eye, but don’t really draw it in. Imagine it expanding out. Imagine this eye almost looking out, expanding out, almost reaching as far as a star. Have your awareness out at this star, and then literally listen to this music and just let your body move.
It may be really subtle. You might be moving on the inside. But, it’s about finding whatever movement your body starts to do and just be open and ask for anything you need to see. What do you need to see in your life right now? Some of you may get an image or a memory; some of you may just get a feeling because that’s how your intuition works, through feeling. Just be open to what you need to see, what you need to feel, what you need to know, what insight is needed for you right now. Set that intention, find the movement, focus out on that star, and let go.
TS: All right. Let’s listen. Let’s do it.
[Music plays.]
TS: Natalie, as our conversation is coming to a close, I think what’s really impressing me at the moment is how material like this—the music of Chakradance—an instructional DVD, 7 Keys to Freedom—where you share the inductions, if you will, the vocal guidance that invites people into each of these inner landscapes—how readily available this is. It’s amazing to me that people at home, all over the world, can be experimenting on their own with these kinds of sacred technologies. I think that’s what I’m left with at this moment.
NS: Yes. And thanks to you, Tami, for that. I really appreciate you taking it on to Sounds True, and taking it out so that people can experience this in their own homes, to have the DVD and the CD. The DVD—it’s hard because we’re closing our eyes and the experience is internal, but the DVD shows you the kinds of ways that we move. It also shows you the feelings; a lot of the images that come up in our mind’s eye when we’re dancing are reflected in the DVD. For those who are visual, it’s a really powerful way to help connect with the practice, and then having done the DVD, you can then do the CD and then close your eyes and really go within.
TS: One final question for you, Natalie. Our program is called Insights at the Edge, and I’m [always] curious [about] the edge that our guests are working with in their life. I’m curious if you could put it in chakra language for us; what would be the edge in your own life, and which chakra is it connected to?
NS: [Laughs.] Oh goodness. I think I’ve had to battle my way through every chakra! I think they say it’s what you teach what you most need to learn, don’t they? [Laughs.] It’s been true. I feel that—I touched on it earlier. I feel for me, it’s the throat chakra. I feel that it’s stepping out and really sharing the truths of who I am and the truths of what Chakradance is out there. It’s that authentic expression.
Many years ago, I bought a gold/bronze statue, and she had the chakra crystals along this golden statue. I was dancing one day, and I flung around and I knocked her over, and cut her head off, right at the throat chakra. The crystal was half-sitting up there. I burst into tears; it felt so symbolic to me. It was like, “Oh my goodness, it’s this throat chakra!” It’s truthful expression; it’s taking that creativity out there. It’s all in here, but how do I take it out there?
I feel like that’s the work that I’ve been doing for years now—is really working with this throat chakra of exposing who I am—that real, truthful expression. That’s been a really big edge for me. It’s been really challenging and it continues to be, but I do feel like I am moving through that now. In fact, I’ve glued back together my golden woman now, and she’s got this sort of wound across her throat. She sits by my bed, and it’s amazing how I feel like, “Yes, I’m getting there.” I’ve still got the wounds and they’re still issues to work with, but it is about just stepping out freely and saying, “Hey, this is who I am and this is what Chakradance is.”
TS: Well I’m so glad that I could give you this throat chakra workout today here!
NS: [Laughs.] Yes, exactly! Exactly! That’s what I mean, the anxiety that will come up. You know—Sounds True!
TS: You’re giving all the rest of us a seven-chakra workout, but we just had a really good throat chakra workout, so . . .
NS: [Laughs.] Again, exactly!
TS: Thank you so much.
NS: You helped with my healing process, thank you.
TS: Thank you so much, Natalie, [for] the great gift of Chakradance.
NS: Thank you, Tami. It’s been such an honor to be here. Thank you very much.
TS: I’ve been speaking with Natalie Southgate, and she has created an instructional DVD as well as a music CD called 7 Keys to Freedom. Really useful, really available, you can put it right into practice.
SoundsTrue.com: many voices, one journey. Thanks for listening.
