Finding Home In Hard Times: Reflections on a Dance Therapy Session in San Francisco
During the COVID epidemic our world has been shifting constantly and that seemingly unending series of changes makes it difficult to find stability. Anxiety is often a response to not knowing what will come next and appears when the days ahead don’t seem to offer many positive things. Many people cannot fathom looking to next week right now, let alone the next month without a sense of dread. If looking ahead doesn’t offer any hope, how can we not think of the future with anxiety? Where do we find our stable core and sense of safety?
One of my clients, a young woman who had recently been navigating a series of different housing moves, became tearful when discussing the changes that came with moving. The neighbors in her newest apartment were being particularly rude when she told them she would be taking classes that might cause a disruption for part of the day. She felt as though she couldn’t find a place that was her home—a place without intrusions or where she didn’t feel like a guest.
To help the client access a feeling of safety, I suggest she close her eyes and encouraged her to find parts of her body that felt secure. We began with the premise that her body was her home and that she would always have her home with her. I used the analogy of a hermit crab—our bodies are our homes and we live in them. The client noted that she felt as though her feeling of safety started from her back and wrapped around her body. Her home in her body extended beyond her physical presence and could be envisioned as a bubble that she held in front of her.
After that short visualization, I suggested the client move from that sense of safety in her body. She imagined her home/safety coming with her as she moved. With her arms spread wide in front of her body she kept the envisioned space in her body as she explored the room. The client voiced that it felt good to imagine her home coming with her. . .wherever she went and remarked “It IS like a hermit crab. We can carry our home with us.”
As I watched the client move, I noted how her connection to the earth did not seem solid. She did not have particularly strong or light weight. Since she mentioned her back being the start of her safe space, I asked her to engage her lats (latissimus dorsi—essential some of the muscles in her back) in order to both engage the back of her body and hold space in the front of her body. When the client engaged her lats, she automatically began to press more of her weight towards the floor and contracted her abdominal muscles. I asked the client how it felt to use the lats and what physical or emotional shifts she recognized. The client replied that she felt stronger and more powerful. In her movement, her sense of purpose and ability to hold space for herself looked clearer and sharper, like she could own the space she occupied. It was evident where she saw herself and though her location in the room might change, her sense of who she was and her power radiated through her physical body.
I began to think about all the cliches that might apply to how we move and our sense of safety. It’s not a coincidence that we are told to “stand up straight” to show confidence and “having a spine” is a metaphor for courage. What we feel in our back, or figuratively, “having our own back” may be how we embody the idea of a safe space within ourself or protecting ourself. However, that sense of safety comes from a connection to the earth (being grounded in both our physical body and the present moment). If we lack that groundedness and connection to the floor, it doesn’t matter how straight we stand up, an essential component of safety is missing. To find our home within our respective bodies, we first need to find the gravity that connects us to the earth and every living thing. We must use what is stable beneath us, the earth, to push off and grow taller through our spine. When we lack stability, or a sense of home, belonging, or safety, we need only explore our feet touching the earth underneath us as a constancy.
This blog described what can be uncovered during a dance therapy session. If you have questions about dance therapy in San Francisco or dance therapy in general, please feel free to contact me, Lisa Manca, MA, LPCC, BC-DMT, at (415) 212-8780 or email me at lisa@lisamanca.com.