Epiphanies in Motion

It was suddenly my turn to enter the Cypher:
‘Palms sweaty, knees weak, arms heavy’.
The fear in my eyes mirrored the wound of wings once cut, 
frozen mid-air. A cocoon. 

But here, I let myself be danced.

Cracked,
by a heart pounding louder than any
Drum & Bass.
A shy caterpillar.

Then the music slowed,
calm into my bones.
Wings beginning to flutter
My inner-child's silhoette, 
buried for years in a hidden cage,
finally dancing her way free...
Dissolve into the sound.
Disappear into the rhythm.
Integrated.

"I got my flow back!"
"But Kaj, you've always had your flow!?"

So on the outside, it looked like that, though it didn’t always mirror the inside. Maybe that’s how depression works, but high-functioning, is also shit.

Because no one sees your hidden battles. Maybe not even you.

When the thing that used to be your freedom suddenly becomes a place where you feel trapped, it breaks something inside of you. Internally I was forcing it, pushing against spirals I’d become blind to, and the thing that was supposed to be my release became my anxiety. And I’m no stranger to pushing past pain, but this was different. Because depression doesn’t break you with one big moment, it breaks you by disconnecting you from yourself. It steals your inner child, your joy. I couldn’t see it then. Not whilst, I was still in the darkness. Because when you’ve been stuck in a black hole for so long, the mind lies, and it calls every attempt shit. Because everything you see will mirror your own cage, and everyone becomes a delusional reflection of your own pain. And I had to learn how to bypass my mind and listen to my soul – which was my inner child all along.

I broke free 🐣 and I remember the exact moment – that cypher at 5Rhythms on 27/07/25 (just ~2 weeks after Uhuru summit):

I crawled into the circle, anxious af.
But this time, I let myself feel it.
No restriction.

Heart pounding out of my chest,
totally off-beat from the slow rhythm. 
I paused. Closed my eyes. 
Listened.

Forgot about the 30 strangers watching, waiting for a performance.
It was the first time I let me truly be myself-
By feeling all the crap my soul had been drowning in, without holding her back.

I rose up slowly. Eyes still closed.
Head tilted towards the ceiling.
Sunlight pulsing through a gap, spilling down onto me.

I let my body feel. Everything.
Inside and outside of me.

I entered the music.
I became the music.

Waves rose through my arms until they opened up as wings.
I spun, slowly. No room, no audience - just breeze.
The air of my inner child's first breath in a fucklong time.

The music stopped. 
I opened my eyes, slowly, elegantly.
No claps. Silence.
Just eyes that said: I felt that.

They didn't see my performance.
They felt my truth.
My metamorphosis, in real time.

I'd finally let go. 
And found my flow.

That day, I stopped hiding me.

---

Choreo never spoke my language,
Steps stacked neatly for others,
while my ADHD slipped through cracks.
They clicked on all count 8s,
while I was still catching echoes of step 1.

Water isn’t always calm or steady-
but it always flows.
Maybe my flow was never gone,
just hiding beneath polyrhythms
I already ride. 

Choreo never spoke my language,
but Freestyle did. 
Not perfect, but alive.
Not polished, but true.

By flow, I mean my wings.

Metamorphosis.