Finding Hidden Treasure Within, From Debbie Rosas.

At one time in their life, I believe questions most people ask are, “What’s it all about, this meaning of life?” and “What purpose do I and my life serve?” I certainly never expected to find answers to these questions in movement spaces, but I did. I only needed to open myself up to exploring the beauty and power of the human body as a map that can lead to the gold of myself within the vast treasures of the universe.

Meeting the body for me was like meeting an old friend, a lover, a philosopher, a scientist, an anatomist, and a master teacher. That meeting was full of surprises, bits of wisdom wrapped in physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual experiences. Each in their own way, revealing a nugget-sized bit of guidance about my path, my meaning, and my purpose for being here and doing what I do with myself in this lifetime.

I found my meaning and purpose in my bare feet with my body as the partner I had been longing to meet and fall in love with. Was I surprised? The truth is I was unaware of the significant meaningful and spiritual awakening I was having. I thought everything I was experiencing was all about the physical. I had very little understanding of the impact mental, emotional, and spiritual health had in my life.

Today, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t need tools to deal with overwhelming stress. We’re living in a time when the pressures are constant through noise, speed, and demands. We can no longer afford to treat meaning and purpose like a side dish or something reserved for special occasions. We need daily access to meaning and the purpose. Not through doctrine or dogma, but through direct, personal, felt experience.

The word “spirit” has always fascinated me. It’s a word that, depending on who hears it, can inspire awe, raise eyebrows, or trigger caution. It’s a word used in religion, in poetry, in science, in breathwork, and in celebration. It shows up in phrases like “team spirit,” “high spirits,” and “spirited conversation,” often pointing to something invisible yet undeniably meaningful and purposeful. Something that heightens our vitality.

In 1993, I was invited by IDEA—a national fitness organization—to sit on a Mind-Body committee to discuss what was, at the time, a new and emerging genre in the fitness industry. The conversation focused on how to define “mind-body” movement and more specifically, whether or not we could or should use the word “spirit” in our language and teachings. Could the word “spirit” be accepted by the general public?

I remember sitting and listening to the bantering, the back-and-forth, each person offering thoughtful concerns and careful ideas, circling around the potential “risk” of naming the unseen. After nearly an hour, there was a lull in the conversation. I couldn’t be quiet anymore. I asked everyone at the table: “Aside from your body, your thoughts, and your emotions; what do you call what makes you, you?

Then I invited everyone to close their eyes. “Imagine something that brings you a feeling of joy, connection, or meaning,” I said. “See it. Sense it. Allow yourself to sense and feel what arises.” After a few moments, I asked them to open their eyes and share. One by one, they spoke about a grandmother’s touch, a sunrise, a moment of music, a flash of clarity, a deep inner stillness. No two stories were the same.

And that was the point. I said, “Is this the magic of the brain? Or is this the magic of the spirit?” There was a stillness in the room. A softening. A knowing. Because regardless of whether I call it our essence, our spark, or our energy; spirit is something that we all feel, even if we don’t always name it. It’s the invisible thread that weaves through our stories, our sensations, our body, our voice, our longings, and our lives.

Today, more than ever, I believe I must reclaim this word, not from a place of dogma, but from a place of dignity. From a place of remembrance. Because to live a spiritual life is about listening to the quiet voice within. It’s about paying attention to what moves me, what speaks to my body, what lights up my being from the inside out. I need daily spirituality as a tool to meet the complexity of today’s world.

I also need spirit in motion. I need spirit in breath. I need spirit in community. Not reserved for specific locations, but embodied in the everyday, in my kitchen, on long walks, in the way I touch, move, speak, and dance. For me, spirit came alive when I stopped looking outside and started sensing inside. When I realized my body wasn’t just a vehicle, it was a doorway. And behind that door was a well of strength.

Spirituality, as I’ve come to know it, is not a belief system. It’s a lived system. It’s breath and body. It’s rhythm and resonance. It’s the invisible made visible through sensation. Over the years, I’ve come to see that spirit isn’t something I need to reach for, it’s something I return to. Again and again. It’s always there, waiting in the silence, in the sway of my hips, in the softness of a gaze, and in movement with meaning.

Movement spaces and my body became my sanctuary where emotions could move, truth could rise, and the unspoken could be heard. As I searched for healing and a sense of home inside myself, I kept finding it, not only in stillness, but in movement. My spirit revealed itself in the arc of an arm, the release of a breath, the tears that sometimes came with no explanation, and the laughter that burst forth like light.

It became clear to me that movement is one of the oldest spiritual languages we have. Before we had words, we had the body. We had rhythm. We had the impulse to reach, to bow, to gather, to shake, to rise. Movement as a spiritual language is not only steps it is the choreography of gestures and rituals of remembering. And in a world that so often numbs, divides, and distracts, these rituals are important medicine.

I’ve had students tell me that Nia saved their lives, not metaphorically, but literally. That for the first time in years, they could breathe. That they felt something holy pass through them. That they remembered they were not broken. These stories aren’t abstract. They are embodied evidence. This is why I still speak of spirit, even in a movement space. Why I stand for a body-centered spirituality that includes science.

This is the work I stand for. This is the practice I teach.

Please enter your email to receive your FREE subscription to Awakening Body + Life at www.debbierosas.com for the latest DR Education publications to support Your Body + Life journey, as well as all the Nia Technique news, information, announcements, and events!