“And suddenly you know… it’s time to start something new and trust the magic of new beginnings.”

– Eckhart Tolle

God morgon from Sweden! 💕

Soooo, last week, we were brimming with excitement because our HQ team had landed in Stockholm! ✈️ This week, our hearts continue to gush because… it’s official; Daybreaker Stockholm has launched. Our morning at Kulturhuset (Swedish for the House of Culture) blew us away. As with any new city, it took a little time for everyone to feel free on the dance floor, but the moment everyone recognized there was safety in this collective, they rushed to the stage and danced for all to see.

Our Swedish friends have told us it’s normal here to walk past one another without saying hi or offering a smile (ahh, something so familiar in NYC too), and there’s a Swedish word here they all try to live within. The word is “lagom,” and it means “just enough” or “just the right amount.” Though there are many beautiful things about the concept (moderation, balance), we’re told it also keeps some people from experiencing total self-expression. Talking to everyone here, we’ve found dozens and dozens who are ready to let loose just a bit more and encourage a new side of this beautiful culture to come out and play in the Swedish sunshine (ummm PS, the summer sun here doesn’t set until about 10 at night!) ☀️

Here in Sweden, we’ve continued to explore the music, the dance floors, we even made it out to a jazz festival. It’s safe to conclude: we adore this place. We adore the people, the beautiful parks, the happy disposition, the cleanliness, the fika… ☕️😁We love you, Sweden. Welcome to the fam. 💕

All right, that’s all we wrote for now. Keep scrolling for this week’s tunes, noodles and community events. Until next week, keep dancing…

With endless love & mischief,
// Team Daybreaker

“MY DANCING HAD TO BE FOR ME”💜

Malka, co-producer of Daybreaker NYC + Daybreaker HQ team member

Our latest edition of a more behind-the-scenesy Dancefloor tale…

The dance floor has always been a place for release — I’ve never met a dance floor I didn’t like, and that didn’t like me right back. Dancing is where I feel the most myself, where I feel like I express myself in the most authentic way.⭐️

For quite a long time, I found the dance floor to be a place where I felt intimidated or unsafe. From the time I was a teenager and the dance floor became equated with unwelcome grabbing, or entitlement to my body — I would shy away from the dance floor even though every fiber in me wanted to be there. Whenever I would dance, people would expect me to perform for them, and I would freeze up because later on, I realized I couldn’t do it for other people. My dancing had to be for me.

On a cold December morning in 2014, ❄️ I found myself at a coffee shop in Union Square where I experienced something I had never seen before. It was the first Daybreaker ever, and as I was surrounded by a crowd of people, completely sober and free around me, I felt safe and electric. That morning I danced harder than I could remember ever having done, and it was so freeing.

I left for work with something changed in me. It was as if a whole new world was opening inside of me, and I was reconnected with a part of myself I had missed for such a long time. Every morning that I woke up to go back to Daybreaker, I kept coming back to that place of love and life, of freedom and happiness. Now that I find myself on the other side of the experience, producing the events, I feel so much pride in helping create that experience for others. As I see elated faces on the dance floor in every city I dance with, I find home all over again.💖

With love & mischief,
// Malka

🤔 MORNING NOODLES 🍲

Traveling to new Daybreaker cities and waking up early to dance and do yoga at 6AM (#daybreaker 😝) has us wondering why shaking up the normalcy of routines feels so good. Here are a few tid bits of what we found.

🙌 Our Brains are Constantly in Search of Novelty

This is why our minds wander mid-task when working on an assignment. Simply breaking from your routine can re-inspire creativity because it can be the stimulus your brain is craving. Re-visit the task after doing some “routine-breaking,” and your task at hand instantly becomes less mundane. You’ll find your focus and engagement with it improves.

☝️Shaking up Routine Improves Memory

“Benedict Carey, author and reporter on medicine and science at The New York Times, says that changing your work environment and daily movements maximizes the brain’s effectiveness and allows you to retain more information.” Work from a different location than you normally do, use a different mode of transportation to get from point A to point B… there are so many things we can do on the daily to stimulate our hippocampus (the place that stores long-term memories).

💡Promote More Flexible, Open-Minded Thinking

Annie Murphy Paul, author of Origins and Brilliant: The New Science of Smart, suggests shaking up routine by not having a routine whatsoever — at least for the morning, This is when we’re slightly groggy and “the mental processes that inhibit distracting or irrelevant thoughts are at their weakest… allowing unexpected and sometimes inspired connections to be made.”

Essentially, by adhering to a “morning routine” that allows your brain to naturally unwind and for you to “go with the flow” – you’ll be setting the stage to tap into your most creative aha, light bulb moments.

So what if today you decided to shake. it. up?✨

👉 SUNDAY PLAYLIST 🎧

Boom box beats for happy feelz.

📝 WANT TO WRITE WITH US?

Send a Dancefloor Tale.
Or riff on a really cool topic.
We’ll work with u to make it perf.
Then we’ll share it with our community of 400k.

SEND 300 WORDS + A PIC TO:
[email protected]

#morningmischief