Diamonds By Rihanna

20 Self-Love Songs (for dancers) – #movetolove2019

February is supposed to be about love, but the most important kind of love for girls ages 8 – 17 is not romantic. We believe girls need more self-love. And we believe a key ingredient of self-love (& happiness) is doing what you love. The world needs strong & inspired girls doing more of what they love!

It’s the last day of our #movetolove2019 series, where we’re spotlighting Friday Night Show performances from our dance camps. We’ve chosen 20 self-love songs with lyrics that echo our dance camp mission: to empower girls to move to love.

What exactly do we mean by “move to love”?

MOVE – to pass from one place or position to another.

LOVE – to access the part of our mind that is connected to Spirit; the source of peace, joy, happiness and a whole bunch of other “positive” emotions.

So move to love means to move to a new place (or state of mind) – the state of mind connected to your Spirit (peace, joy, happiness…all that positive stuff). Please share your inspirational dance videos on Instagram this month! #movetolove2019 @danceadtc

Song #20: “Diamonds” By Rihanna

“Shine bright like a diamond. Shine bright like a diamond. Find light in the beautiful sea. I choose to be happy. You and I, you and I.

We’re like diamonds in the sky.”

Performed at our MD Dance Camp

Performed at our IL Dance Camp

Performed at our VT Dance Camp

The Self-Love Lesson from “Diamonds” by Rihanna

How do we “shine bright like a diamond” in a world full of fear? We must learn to live from a place of deep self-love. If we base our life on how we think others think we should be, we’ll never truly live. As Oscar Wilde wrote, “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”

Truly living involves doing what we love and doing it often. If we don’t like our job, we should quit. If we don’t have enough time, we should put down our phone. Here are 2 exercises to help us redraw our mental blueprint so we can refresh, restart, get motivated, and move closer to shining bright like a diamond.

Exercise #1 for How to Shine Bright Like a Diamond – The Five Fold Why

As Josh Kaufman explains in his book, The Personal MBA: Master the Art of Business, “very often we’re not consciously aware of why we want what we want.” In order to learn how to overcome fear, we need to know the motivations behind our desires.

So let’s apply Kaufman’s “Five Fold Why” exercise to the things we decided we want in exercise #2. Don’t try to force an answer – just ask the question in a spirit of curiosity and the mind will generate an authentic response.

When the mind provides an answer, ask “why?” again. Continue to ask why until the response is, “because I want it”, which indicates this is the root cause of our goal. Example for wanting to lose weight:

Why do I want to lose weight? Because I want to look better.
Why do I want to look better? So I don’t feel anxious.
Why don’t I want to feel anxious? So I feel secure.
Why do I want to feel secure? So I feel free.
Why do I want to feel free? Because I want to feel free.

So, our root desire isn’t losing weight – it’s feeling free.

Exercise #2 for How to Shine Bright Like a Diamond – The Five Fold How

After applying the Five Fold Why, we’ll likely discover that what we actually want is quite different than what we thought we wanted. Now that we’ve identified the root cause of our original goals, it’s time to figure out how to overcome fear and get what we actually want.

The Five Fold How is a way to connect our core desire to physical actions. Let’s use the previous example: the core desire is to feel free. Is it possible to feel free without losing weight? Absolutely – there are many ways to feel free that have nothing to do with a scale. So let’s take an alternative approach that addresses the real desire.

Ask “how might I go about feeling free?”

Pay off an outstanding debt.
Reduce my work hours, find another position, or become an entrepreneur.
Start a meditation practice.
Move to a new city or country.
Break off a restricting personal relationship.

Once we find a “how” that looks like a good idea, ask “how” again. Let’s say starting a meditation practice would give us the greatest sense of freedom. How would we go about doing that? Continue asking “how” until next actions are clearly defined. The purpose of the Five Fold How is to create a complete chain of actions from our real desire all the way down to things we can do right now.

More About Our Dance Camp Mission

American Dance Training Camps is a company inspired by and created for strong girls. Doing what we love enables us to embody, model & teach our sixteen character values, or “movement manifesto.”

The ADTC Movement Manifesto is one way we promote our values within our dance camp community. It is an ever-evolving collection of bold thoughts that allow for some real conversations to take place at camp and throughout the year.

Learn more about ADTC’s mission & manifesto here!