“I found my rhythm when I realized that even the steps backward were part of the dance,” unknown.  We all feel like we take steps back every now and then.  Like no matter what we do we can’t catch up. That is the nature of life, it ebbs and flows, waxes and wanes just like the moon.  The natural rhythm of life is a filling and emptying that happens all on its own.  Everyone gets on the back step every now and then.  Some of us are just better at turning it around than others.  We learn to make the move into a step rather than a fall, and suddenly we understand what life is telling us.  Our balance relies entirely on our ability to pivot and in order to dance well, we have to learn to understand the rhythm.  We have to FEEL it.  Our hearts beat on their own every day, carrying out their cadence and keeping us alive.  It’s a series of impulses that keep moving, that keep going no matter what we do.  We have to do the same.

Sure, there are hiccups along the way, we all stumble.  But how quickly we rise and move allows us to keep moving.  Some people stop dancing even when they still hear the rhythm.  That is a life wasted, that is a life where we miss the beautiful sounds and feels of living.  Sitting out is always our choice, always an option—but that option leaves out the core of the experience.  Life gets messy, life isn’t meant to stand still.  The essence of life is in movement.  We can look at steps back as mistakes or we can look at them as simply the next step in the dance regardless of which direction.  Sure, we WANT to move forward, that truly is the goal, but we must often pivot and that involves coming at things from new angles. We can only see new directions if we move—even if that means moving backward.

Quite simply, we must remember that moving backwards isn’t a bad thing. The only negative connotation we have with it is how we define it.  And sure, stepping backwards can feel crappy at times, but moving forward and taking the leap is an even better feeling, especially when we can bounce back from where we are.  As hard as it is to accept, those steps backward often aren’t personal.  We must learn the lesson involved and in order to move forward we have to learn how to handle the steps back, what our weight feels like as we shift our feet and our balance.  The only way we can learn that is to actually take the step back.  Again, I don’t pretend that is easy or comfortable.  But if we look at it from a different angle, we can at least see how it is useful.  When we stop carrying the stigma of a backstep as a bad thing, it all comes together into the exquisite performance of our lives, one in which there are no missteps—because there never were any.