A dancer in a diseased body is like asking an artist to paint, whilst snapping their brushes in front of their eyes. It hurts. My creative vessel is broken. A Singer without a voice. A Potter without clay. How do I express this grief?
I am Anna Podgorczyk. I am an invisibility diseased dancer. I have Chrons Disease, Ulcerative Colitis and Chronic Fatigue.
I used to be a dancer with a body that could defy gravity. I thought I was invincible. But my body lives within two worlds, I am a walking contradiction. The same body that can soar through the air, is the same body that sits and stares at my hospital room ceiling. The same body that can turn thirty two times on one foot, can’t even turn over in bed some days. But I persist. I am strong. I am determined. I will dance another day.
_______
#chronicdisease#mentalhealth#recovery#mystory
I’ve felt agitated. Like something needed to be released from me. It was this. Some insight into my experience of being in foster care, being sexually abused, starting a business at 17, depression, anxiety and being an athlete & dancer suddenly diagnosed with a chronic disease.
I hope this helps just one person. That’s all.
If it’s not your cup of tea, or perhaps triggering, simply carry on your scrolling or return at a later time.
Lots of love,
Anna Maria xxx
_____________________________________________
#wordsofinstagram#mystory#chronicdisease#depressionawareness#anxietyhelp#hope#kindness#dancer#dance#vulnerability#poetry#poetrycommunity
AMPED ⚡️ The feeling dance gives me, like electricity through my veins.
A never ending source of energy.
It was the name of my dance school - Amped Dance Company.
A.M.P is also my intials.
I feel most activated and alive in a storm.
When do you feel most alive?
I certainly feel most alive also listening to the INCREDIBLE @psychedelicprncrumpets ⚡️⚡️⚡️
***Perfectionism procrastination got me good with this one, but momentum over creating perfect art ✨
I read a brilliant article by @cosmogyny called “Chronic Pain is Psychedelic” and WOW did I feel seen and like I was gifted context to the insane experience I’ve had for 10 years battling chronic diseases. So what’s the pain like? 👇
To describe the pain of Ulcerative Colitis/Chrons …
This is no metaphor or euphemism.
It’s pouring acid on open wounds.
Your entire digestive system is full of bleeding ulcers, and every single time any amount of food, stomach acid or fluid passes through, it’s excruciating.
I think I’ve gotten so used to living life through this pain. I’ve forgotten to give myself grace how horrific it is.
It shoots up your spine, it can make you pass out. The pain is so immense it makes you vomit.
This disease is a reflection of everything horrific I’ve had to endure. The body saying, no more, I’m breaking.
I am exhausted
But I cannot rest
My body is fighting
A silent war
Unknown to the outside world
Ear piecing on the inside
I feel every cell in my body
Every vein
Like chaotic highways
Scrambling cars
Trying to connect messages
Lost in translation
My soul is screaming
But I sit here still
A silent storm
A mindful mess
Another day
In this body
#chronicdisease#poetry#chrons#chronsandcolitis#poetry#prose#writer#healingjourney
Let her d.ie
Let her decompose
Throw her in the fire
She’ll rebuild
Her own empire
Doubt becomes dust
Trust
Flames become
Larger than the f^cking sun
Nice to meet me.
———
I can alchemise anything
Lash me with lead and I’ll generate gold
Treat me like dirt and I’ll grow flowers
Curse my name and I’ll kill you with kindness
Aggravate me and I’ll turn it into art
Tell me I’m not enough and I’ll create a whole damn kingdom.
———
Captured & edited by none other than the cinematic genius @_powerful_vulnerability 🔥 I love nothing more than creating with you 🖤⚡️
⚡️🌟🌟🌟 I am open for work in the space of choreography, dance, directing & concept curation. Send me a DM or email:
hello@annamariacreative.com
It would mean the world to me to share this around! I’ve been battling severe Chrons/Colitis, Depression, PTSD, anxiety etc for over 10 years and my dreams are finally starting to come into fruition, never give up ❤️
Song: MARS - By @valy_mo & Charlotte Puppinck
Visuals: @surrealismtoday on YouTube “Ogie’s Forvever” projected on my @samsungau freestyle projector 📽️
Be the woman your younger self would have screamed in excitement if she met her. Be so intimidated by your future self. Accumulate every ounce of pain into power and see where it takes ya. I know where I’m going ⚡️🪐
She is a storm,
Electric magic.
She is the grandest of mountains,
With the softest, trickling streams.
She is wild, untameable,
In the most graceful of ways.
She need not to yell,
Her presence is power.
She need not to prove herself,
But she will always do herself proud.
She holds the entire universe,
Behind two green eyes.
She understands her purpose,
She is unstoppable, unshakeable.
She is every lesson, every struggle, every triumph, every joy and tearing pain.
She is the amalgamation of every. single. fucking. time. you thought you couldn’t do it. But you did.
Nice to meet me.
Didn’t you see it all along?
This life is my own song.
#artist#dancer#writer#poetry#prose
I’m grateful for my disease as it’s set me on a path of success rooted in stillness. It launched my work from home (or anywhere) career, it’s connected me with amazing humans, and it’s given me a profound understanding of my mind + body and how to heal it.
I’m soon to get the tattoo: The answer is always simple.
The questions to ponder today is:
Where in your life are you over complicating?
Are you unnecessarily running around like a headless chook?
How can you cultivate more stillness?
Be sure to take time out for yourself today x
Anna Maria 🪷
#sustainableselfgrowth#successmindset#womeninbusiness#healingjourney#chronicdisease
I’ve been a “sick person” for a decade. 10 years of Ulcerative Colitis/Chrons/Depression/Anxiety + more. Now I’m the age “most dancers retire”. You’d think I’d give up. Nah it’s just more fuel to my inner fire 🔥 My story from being a foster kid to being successfully self employed on my page xxx
Thank you Gaia, for always holding me 🤍 I wrote this piece below long ago, & felt called to share.
Isn’t it interesting how grief drops us, pulls us to the ground. Enveloped by gravity to sink back into the earth for a while. Feeling like you can’t take the weight of it all? The earth can, drop all that weight into the earth. It can take it. You can’t break it.
A mother’s heart, a father’s hold.
Pound the earth, throw it, scream.
Get muddy.
Paint yourself.
Become unrecognisable for a moment.
Be an animal.
Roar. Roar!!
Until the wails turn to whimpers. Then tuck yourself up like a small animal under a tree. Soothe your little animal body. Be held by the tree. Whimpers soon turn to whispers… “It’ll be okay …. It’ll be okay”, says the fungi, it all goes around.
But humans have halted the cyclical nature of life.
We take and take. Like The Kaonashi in Spirited Away.
We purge but we do not decompose.
There is no new life without the richness of rotting!
Once upon a Dreamtime our blood, sweat and tears would soak back into the earth.
Giving back what no longer serves us to be transformed.
Even our hair would be utilised by small birds to build nests.
But now there is no portal to channel our deaths, no gateways for our grief.
Flush it down the drain, stuff it in the trash, hide it in your home.
Nature always turns death into something beautiful, but we try to sterilise this process. Ironically this sterilisation creates disease.
Intentionally tossed food scraps to a opportunistic possum in the forest is now a feast for a friend.
But watch those same scraps waste away and fester in bin we throw on the street.
Interesting how we put out our bins on the street yet we do not grieve on the street. It’s somewhat “unacceptable” to cry and scream in the “real world”. Best to hide that in your home until you’re better they say …
But we don’t get better confided in our four walls.
We must air our grief out
Gift it to nature
Cry into the creek
Bleed onto the earth
Scream into the ether
Trapping grief is a terrible way to tame our humanness.
Embrace the richness of rotting.
Anna Maria 🪷
#worldenvironmentday#gaia#prose
Part 2: After stumbling across these pictures I also finally found … my story “Harry the Handsome Mouse” which I realised was actually called “The Night Garden”~ a sweet bedtime story about a fashionable and wise little mouse, some shrinking cacao, a secret wooden door, a majestic oak and a treetop surprise. Pop a comment below if you’d like me to send it to you ☺️✨🐭🌳🧚
📸 @francogaleamedia#dance#dancer#ballet#dancephotography#bangalow
Part 1: Just found these gorgeous captures by the incredible @francogaleamedia ✨📸 Perfect timing as I needed the reminder of my graceful body, not feeling so graceful today. But rather inflamed, in pain and craving to dance another day. Which I will, its just a pause on the path to my dreams 🧘🏼♀️
#dancer#ballet#dancephotography
