Kaja Koppang's story

A LIFE WITH BOREDOM

I was 7 years old when I met it for the first time. I remember the physical sensation in my body to this day. My skin crawled with an invisible plague, a relentless, itching vibration that made me want to tear it off, to escape whatever lived underneath. My head was a void, throbbing with the kind of emptiness that felt alive, like something unseen was feeding on me from within.

My stomach twisted and clenched, a phantom hunger gnawing at me, not for food but for something I couldn’t name, couldn’t find. Every joint locked tighter, my body folding into itself like it wanted to disappear. The world blurred at the edges, sinking into shadow, while the static in my mind screamed louder. It wasn’t pain — it was absence. A silent erosion, stripping meaning from movement, weight from words, and purpose from breath. This was my very first meeting with boredom.

At that point I didn’t understand why boredom came to harass me, and little did I know that boredom was to become a regular visitor in my life from there on.

When I was 10 years old I could not stand it any longer. Boredom could visit me in school, at night, on soccer practice and on Christmas Eve. Life slowly got sucked out of me. I wrote a letter to my primary school teacher at the time. I can still remember her and me in the hallway outside the classroom. My hand was shaking as I handed her my A4 sized piece of paper packed with my handwriting. I had written about my meetings with boredom, and about the best solution I could come up with: leaving life behind. I remember her tears while she was reading. She looked at me and said “I don’t want you to be so sad.” We returned to the classroom and never talked about my letter again. And I didn’t go through with my plan. Luckily.

Boredom kept showing up, but the meetings got louder and more violent. At 14 years old I was exhausted.

My first real break from boredom was when I told my first lie. My made up story was louder than boredom. Unfortunately my lies created an even greater distance between me and the people around me.

My second real break from boredom was when I drank for the first time. Alcohol was stronger than boredom. Unfortunately alcohol made an even wider void between me and myself.

I kept taking breaks from boredom more and more often. I took so many breaks that I eventually dropped out of school, and from there I kept taking even more breaks. I tried anything that could give me a break. I ended up chasing breaks until I was 21 years old.

In my chase for breaks I stumbled across playing drums in a rock band. When I played drums I was wild on the outside, but for the first time I experienced stillness on the inside. It was like the beat was knocking on a door inside of me that I didn’t know I had. Something in me had caught my attention. After a year of drumming, the rhythms flushed the door open and in a heartbeat I realized I could ask someone to help me deal with boredom.

Shortly after, help was sent. Her name was Christine Schjetlein — a wise woman, a psychotherapist, a 5 Rhythms teacher from Gabrielle’s time, and by far the most expensive angel I have worked with. In the first 1:1 session with her, she looked me in the eyes and said “I will only work with you if you promise to not take your life”. She reached her hand firmly towards me, I shook it back and agreed on what would become a life changing deal.

She played music I had never heard before. I remember she invited me to the dance floor for the first time. I was sober, but hungover, in a small group of women in one of Christine’s women’s workshops. I was 22 years old in a group of women twice and three times my age. Boredom arrived quickly and I decided to leave the room. Christine followed me outside. I remember us standing in the hallway. She said “This is your choice, but I invite you to dance with boredom”. She returned to the room and the dancing women.

In that moment I made one of the best and most courageous decisions I have ever made: I decided to return to the dance floor. Shortly after I found myself being danced by boredom – stamping across the room in a frantic pace, my arms propelling in all directions. Surprisingly, shortly after that I was a river of tears in a pile on the floor. All I could hear was Christine’s voice “Dance. Keep dancing. Dance it.” I kept dancing through the cloudburst. It came in waves. Afterwards I had no idea what had happened. I only knew I had to do it again.

Dance became a lover. All I wanted to do was to dance. And so I did. I danced in the attic, in a public toilet, on a graveyard, by the harbor — even on public transport I could find myself closing my eyes and dancing on the inside. When I danced, something in me started to melt.

In the dance everything was possible — I was free and I was courageous. I could meet everything, move it through my body and come out on the other side — still alive. I felt powerful.

In the dance I could travel back to when I was 10 years old in the hallway, turn towards my younger self and give me a hug. In the dance I could be the adult I needed in that moment. I could cry my heart out and comfort myself at the same time.

In the dance I could say all the things I needed to say, but couldn’t because I didn’t have a language for it. Still, my body was talking. It had so much to say after all these years.

Until one day. Boredom started to return again. But this time I knew better than running away. For the first time I started inviting boredom to the dance floor on a regular basis. I was scared at first, but then boredom started talking to me. Boredom told me what to do in life — boredom pointed me in the directions and towards the decisions I had to make. Skeptical at first, I started doing what boredom told me. Gradually it got me closer to myself, people around me, nature and maybe most importantly: a life built on a sense of meaning and purpose.

Boredom and I danced my way out of the grip of addiction, through the halls of university, and into the courage to build a company rooted in earth's call for systemic change. Boredom and I danced into a new relationship with my family, danced for all my relations and all living beings — danced until I remembered that I was a part of a greater web of life.

But most importantly, boredom and I danced until I got in touch with myself again — and when I got in touch with myself, life started to dance around me.

Boredom pushed me to explore the world through dance. New Year’s Eve in the Sahara, moving to the rhythm of Bedouin drummers. A weekend of dance in a church in London. Workshops in New York, Helsinki, Prague, and the mountains of Norway, each place etched its story into my body. And the list kept growing. I lived for the next workshop. Boredom was clearly searching for something.

One day Christine gave me a book. I was 28 years old at this point. “Jaguar in the Body, Butterfly in the Heart” by Ya'Acov Darling Khan, it said on the cover. Boredom screamed loud and forced me to read the book in one go. The book told me about a map and a landscape I knew I had to explore. It was called Movement Medicine.

I signed up for the prerequisites and applied to the Apprenticeship Program at once. David and Yasia, the stewards of that space, didn’t know me. Yet, they welcomed me like a sister. Their medicine was a quiet, unwavering radical acceptance.

They played music I had never heard before. It was slow, chewy, soft and spacious at once. Going slow and soft was hard for me. It gave so much space for boredom. Although boredom and I had developed a sort of uneasy friendship by this point, our encounters remained intense and overwhelming. I feared that the slowness and softness David and Yasia invited into the space might give boredom the chance to completely overtake me.

But little did I know. What David and Yasia didn’t advertise up front was the hidden treasure of their offering: belonging to a community that wrapped around us like a shared heartbeat. In that embrace and support from the group, boredom started to change color. For each hand I was holding, for each moment I stayed in connection with someone from my group, boredom started to surrender. For the first time in my life, I experienced that boredom started to loosen its grip, the armor it had forged slowly started to crumble. As boredom was changing its consistency, I could start to explore new ways of meeting boredom.

“Sing”, said Yasia through the microphone with her soft and grounded voice. It was the second module. Until that moment, my voice had never dared to take flight in a song. The thought of singing now felt like standing on the edge of a vast, uncharted horizon, both thrilling and trembling with vulnerability. What does she mean? Sing? Out of duty I opened my mouth, and started to add sound to my outbreath. Out of nowhere, a creature within me stirred to life, its awakening sudden and unbidden. My voice, like a bird long caged, spread its wings and carried me into the skies. It had been hidden in the shadows of my being, waiting patiently for this very moment to rise. It was a presence I had never known, never heard—until now. Even boredom found nothing to say, silenced in awe of the unfolding. Afterwards I had no idea what had happened. I only knew I had to do it again.

At the end of the Apprenticeship, boredom returned to me once more. In the stillness of the closing ceremony, it approached me with a tenderness I had never known — soft and sweet, like a gentle whisper from an old, familiar friend. Boredom became the musician, playing my voice as its instrument. Through a soothing song, for the first time in my life, boredom told me its real name: Longing.

Instantly, my body melted — my bones became honey and my belly became a soft baby rabbit as my heart received a new story: I was taken care of through all these years. I was never alone. My longing was watching over me and guiding me towards this very moment. Longing was guiding me home.

In gratitude to my longing I gathered the words in my heart and compiled an ode.

ODE TO MY LONGING

My longing drags me to the depths,
Far away from my suppose-to-be-life,
Into the wilderness of my soul,
Shakes me,
Tears my heart open,
Melt the illusions away,
So that I can step into the power of those before me,
So that I can protect those after me,

My longing lights my torch,
So that I can see the path of my soul,
Fills me with music, colors, song, dance and laughter,
Just enough sweetness to lure me away from everything I know,
So that I can step into the greater knowing,
So that I can protect those after me,

My longing teaches me to be a tree,
Leaning into growing,
Fed from the earth,
Danced by the wind,
Kissed by the sun,
Allowing life to happen through the veins of my trunk,
So that life can be created through me,
So that I can protect those after me,

My longing educate me in the invisible web of life,
How it flows through matter like water in a river,
How it carry darkness with ease,
How it can flush out dis-ease if we allow,
How the invisible patterns are the essence of life,
So that I can remember to which school I belong,
So that I can protect those after me,

My longing reveals how imperfection is the perfect pattern of life,
How patterns are patterns are patterns,
How perfection is like trying to stop the waves from washing ashore,
So that I can learn to surf the patterns in the patterns in the patterns,
So that I can protect those after me,

My longing leads me to the room within,
Where I can breath,
Where I can snuggle into being,
Where trust can be born,
Where fire is life and not aggression,
Where water is flow and not drowning,
Where earth is fertile and not collapse,
Where air is freedom and not doctrines,
So that I can step into my power,
So that I can protect those after me,

My longing introduces me to the mystery,
Humbles me into gratitude,
Undress me into awe,
Dissolves me into belonging,
So that I can hear the song in my soul,
So that I can sing those after me into being,
So that I can protect them,
Because they are life,
Just like I am,
Just like those before me,
Just vessels of life,
Worth protection,
Worth living,
Worth dying,
And longing is the sweet and painful pull that ties us all to the circle of life.

Through the years of dancing, I found healing — a lifeline that kept me afloat amidst the waves. But it was Movement Medicine that helped me mature, grounding me deeply into myself. The dance had been my life buoy, but Movement Medicine became the soil where I rooted. No longer was I driven by a need to travel from workshop to workshop, seeking something beyond myself. Movement Medicine made me want to live for my life, not in pursuit of the next thing. It anchored me, teaching me that I couldn’t walk this path alone. The strength of community gave me the courage to dance with boredom — not with resistance, but with softness and ease, transforming it into something I could bear – and meeting boredom for who it really was; longing.

My longing keeps pulling me through life — at the moment in the Professional Training in Movement Medicine and working as a change maker in our current economic system through banking and sustainable finance. I pray that my personal ability to transform is a trait of our species – and I pray for everyone to find the tools and the gateways that help them transform towards their greatest potential. These times call for all of us to reconsider what it means to be a human — and for all of us to listen to where our longing is trying to guide us.

Thank you for your time. Safe journey.

Kaja Koppang

Kaja is a Systemic Designer living in Norway, her first language is Norwegian. As well as being a Movement Medicine Teacher and Facilitator in training, Kaja is the co-founder and CEO of TILT Lab - a transition agency aiming at contributing to systemic change through system-oriented design. Kaja believes in the power of dance to foster personal and societal transformation.