‘Learning to Trust’
Posted on Oct 27, 2022‘LEARNING TO TRUST’
I gave this talk at the Yes to Life Annual Conference.
Saturday 24th September 2022, London
Introduction
Good afternoon everyone, and welcome.
I would like to thank Robin Daly and the Yes to Life team for inviting me to give this talk. During the next 45 minutes I will be talking about ‘learning to trust’ through the lens of my own story, utilizing both verbal and movement languages.
I begin by introducing myself.
I have had the good fortune of traveling through this life doing what I love, which is dancing, more specifically dance improvisation, which I have taught and performed for over forty years. I had a successful career as an independent dance artist, as well as teaching for 13 years as a professor of dance at the University of Illinois south of Chicago. Since August 2020 I returned from the US to live in my home base in rural Wales, from where I continue to pursue life as a performer and educator.
Dance journey
I started out as a successful sports player through my school years, having been equipped with a strong and well-coordinated body, and a good eye-ball connection.
I loved the feeling of freedom that I felt running, dodging, flying, diving after the ball.
At around the age of 13 I began to realize that if I pursued sport as a career, I would have to focus on being better than and beating other people. I knew this was not something I wanted to dedicate my life to doing.
I started my dance journey at age 17 when my mother suggested I might like to try dancing. She had researched a school that sounded like a good fit. To this day I bless my mother as through her wise counsel I discovered my passion.
During my formal dance training studying ballet and modern dance it was discouraging to realize that the same atmosphere of competition was central to so much of what we did.
It wasn’t until I graduated and was introduced to the world of dance improvisation that I reconnected with my passion for freedom and spontaneity of moving in collaboration with others, which I went on to make my profession.
Learning to improvise is synonymous with learning to trust. You are offered the support of guidelines or parameters within which to dance, but no one tells you exactly what to do. So, as a novice improviser you begin the formidable task of learning to trust your own physical responses to the moment at hand, learning to accept whatever happens, facing whatever presents itself to you, and in split second timing allowing yourself to discover the ways in which you reciprocate.
As your learning progresses a process unfolds that generates intuitive and precognitive decision making which is the really thrilling part! It demands enlivening focus of concentration and deep listening.
To facilitate other people’s learning the teacher must create a safe space within which the student feels supported and invited to take the risk of expressing themselves with some measure of authenticity. Much of the work entails letting go of judgement of oneself and others, so the space becomes a friendly and inviting place to work.
I call this a sacred space, where love and trust can grow.
Interestingly over time if you continue to practice, just like with everything, you get better – better at seeing clearly, accepting, trusting, and responding creatively. As you begin to relax into this process of learning your state of being calms, and confidence in facing unknown situations grows. Naturally your mind and body become more pliant, more alert, more positive and ready – in line with the spirit.
I recognized early on that these same tools are necessary for negotiating the improvisation of life, and so I have called dance improvisation a ‘life practice’ and is why I have spent the whole of my adult life engaged in practicing and sharing this form of dance.
Epiphany, Spirit & Trust
I had learned early on that life was a dangerous undertaking and carried the scars of an often-unhappy family life, early sexual abuse, and a number of painful romantic relationships, all of which left me feeling deeply unsure about my place on this planet. These experiences gave me an understandable mistrust of the kind of life that I sensed I was expected to conform to. Thanks to my mother I met dance, and a passion was ignited with in me that opened opportunities and gave me the necessary means to begin to heal and transform.
Looking back over my career, I see one moment of insight that was instrumental in changing the course of my life. It was an epiphany which I experienced during one of my first dance improvisation classes in the early 80’s. I was performing a simple duet exercise where we were asked to lean against a partner, sharing our center of weight. What I remember now was an experience of ‘prior knowing’ that came to me with a clear message. “All I would ever need to know in this life was already inherently present within me.” It was that simple, yet I knew it was ALL encompassing and would demand a very different approach to life from the one I had hitherto followed. I intuited that my work going forward would be about cultivating an awareness of the habits, ideas, and learnings I had picked up during my lifetime that undermined and obscured the truth of this new understanding. Through this awareness I would enter a process of ‘undoing’ or ‘unlearning’, to find ways of letting go of misguided limitations that held me back. In other words, I was embarking on a voyage of discovery—one that would reveal to me my own unique expression of the whole.
In that moment of epiphany my relationship to life shifted from one of fear and anxiety about whether I was going to be good enough to succeed, to one that exalted in the potential for life-long learning. This profoundly liberating understanding rendered me ecstatic, and I have memories of running through the fields after class with tears of joy streaming down my face, in awe of the fact that this powerful revelation had communicated itself through my physical form. This is what I would come to define as the voice of ‘embodied intelligence’ which enlivens all life forms on this planet, including our own.
It seems highly relevant that this epiphany, which was my first real intimation that life was trustworthy, came about during a ‘trust exercise’ where I was sharing my weight with my partner – a physical action which required letting go, giving up control. An act of surrender.
From the moment of experiencing this glimpse into my true nature a clear pathway forward opened for me. I have explored the potentiality of embodied intelligence for over 40 years of involvement with life-affirming dance practices & processes which have engendered a deepening sense of trust in life. So, despite having lived through my share of traumatic life experiences and challenges, I feel lucky to have lived life primarily through the sense of joy, understanding, fulfillment, and freedom that dance has afforded me, and have been able to give back through transmitting that joy to others. I view and experience dance as a powerful healing agent and expression of the human spirit.
As I dance from this new perspective, I experience simple joy that seems to well up from within me. It comes from an inner place and has led me to realize that joy has something inherently to do with who I am as a human being – indeed in essence who we all are as expressions of the human spirit. I decided it was more important to allow joy to be the guiding principle in my life rather than pursuing any outer attainment like success, positions of power, financial and personal gain.
Reflections on what the word ‘trust’ might signify for us
What is trust and why do we deem it to be of such importance in our lives?
We know what damages or destroys trust. All of us have had life experiences that have led either to growing trust or to damaging it. Indeed, if we step back, we see that much of our lived experience revolves around dealing with questions of trust. It is a central issue that affects our mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being and quality of life, it is at the foundation of all our relationships, is central for our ability to face and move through challenging times, and for our healing and recovery.
Therefore, it’s something that is worthwhile spending time contemplating, indeed it seems to be ultimately important that we address it.
Many of us seem to move through life in semi-conscious ways, taking life for granted and so often our willingness to extend our trust depends on whether things are going our way or not. To some degree this makes sense, after all why should we trust when situations or person(s) are felt or proven to be untrustworthy. Yet the quality of our lives suffers as a result of maintaining this guarded position. Of course, it makes sense to be discerning, yet we are caught between a rock and a hard place as we negotiate an unwillingness to commit until we are given some intimation that we will be safe. ‘Staying safe’ requires for us to stand apart from life, never fully alive or connected. To protect ourselves we settle for what is known and secure. We play it safe whilst being haunted by a niggling sense of dissatisfaction and feeling that there is more to life.
The question is can we anyway control life? Doesn’t life tend to throw us wild cards which we were not expecting, both negative and positive, which catch us off guard.
Sharing my own cancer diagnosis & treatment
I received a major wild card in March 2020, concurrent with a world in lock down at the beginning of the Covid pandemic when I was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer. This was deeply shocking to myself and others who saw me as the epitome of health. The second shock came when I was diagnosed as a BRCA2 gene mutation carrier which I had inherited through my mother’s lineage. Nothing had prepared me for the shock of this mortal challenge. By great good fortune my tumor was discovered at the beginning stages of growth thanks to a 3D mammogram and an alert technician. I was told it was treatable.
However, my cancer diagnosis severely tested my trust and conviction about the ultimate benevolence of life, including all its challenges and hardships, a trust that I had built largely through my artistic and spiritual practices.
Why me? I had lived as a vegetarian since age 30 and had always engaged in a healthy lifestyle. I seemed to have done things ‘right’ according to all the current research, but clearly cancer can visit any one of us – no one is exempt from the cards that life deals to each of us.
It seems that when life is good there is a thrilling sense of freedom that calls to be fully engaged with, and joyfully expressed. When difficulties emerge, as they inevitably will, and the path forward seems perilous, the work begins in earnest.
Where did we get the idea that life should be easy?
Was I afraid?
Was I afraid? Yes, I experienced dread in the pit of my stomach on receiving my diagnosis. I read plenty of books at that time about extraordinary people who had miraculously turned their cancer diagnosis’s around. I was desperately looking for support, inspiration, perhaps I was also looking for someone to lead my way forwards, to tell me what to do. They were inspiring stories, yet they left me feeling oddly disempowered at the same time as being full of admiration and happy for the good outcomes. But I was in the midst of the anguish and fear that a cancer diagnosis inevitably brings and found it difficult to identify with these exemplary people and their incredible stories.
I read about what all cancer patients and health practitioners deem imperative for a favorable health outcome and already felt I ticked many of the boxes; a healthy lifestyle, a spiritual practice, and the support of close friends and family, all of which encourage a positive outlook on life. The one thing that presented more of a challenge for me was the importance of finding a reason to live.
I have no partner or children with whom I desired to celebrate the future. When my mother died of cancer in 2012, I accompanied her as far as I could to what felt like the edge of life, and from that place of peace and infinite depth I honestly felt as if part of me didn’t want to return to face the mundaneness of life without her.
This point concerned me. I could not find any definitive reason to pinpoint for why I needed to go on living. Would this negatively affect the outcome of my treatment?
As many of you know, facing a cancer diagnosis is facing into the unknown, akin to suddenly finding oneself floating alone in the darkest regions of space with what feels like a tenuous attachment to one’s previous known reality. It’s pretty terrifying.
In this moment of existential threat with no one by my side due to the pandemic, life forced me to rely on my own ground as a meditator and practiced dance improviser. I had no choice but to rely on my own foundation and, albeit shakily, I was able to stay calm, aware, and focused on the imperative to find out what all this meant, and how it would impact my life.
I can honestly say that this was the attitude I managed to maintain throughout the few weeks that followed as my treatment options changed from a lumpectomy, followed by radiation, to a double mastectomy followed some months later by the removal of my ovaries and fallopian tubes, once my BRCA2 status had been discovered. I worked with a brilliant team of medical professionals to whom I will be forever grateful and had the indispensable support of friends both near, though distanced, and far.
I also knew that as I faced my own mortality I was not alone. In the first Covid lock down, all over the world millions of people were isolated and facing the same mortal fear of dying. I intuited that the reason my body became sick was directly connected to the ailing body of our planet for which I own my share of responsibility. The town where I lived in the US was surrounded by Genetically Modified farmlands which were sprayed four times a year with toxic chemicals. My suspicion is that this could have been a trigger for my cancer.
To my great surprise I discovered that this is what has given me the strength to face my illness and to commit wholeheartedly to doing everything in my power to heal my body. I see my own healing as part of the planetary healing which as we now know constitutes the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced.
Curiously I also found another motivation for wanting to heal was for my ancestors, a number of whom no doubt carried the BRCA2 gene mutation which had not yet been identified and some I am sure died prematurely from their illnesses. I have been able to alert my immediate family and together we have identified those of us who have inherited the gene mutation so that they can now be tested regularly. This gives me great consolation.
I decided to retire from my stressful job at the university in the unhealthy environment of the Mid-West and return to do my healing in the Welsh countryside. Once back in the UK I contacted Yes to Life and Robin Daly helped me connect with Dr Nina Fuller-Shavel Integrative Medicine and Precision Health Director of Synthesis clinic. Under her guidance I am learning what it means to be truly healthy and realize in retrospect that in my former life I was barely scratching the surface. A whole new and revelatory perspective and knowledge about living health is slowly emerging. A new community of deeply caring people have entered my life, thanks to life-sustaining organizations like Yes to Life, who are doing exceptional work. I am deeply grateful to you all.
How do we trust in the face of enormous challenge?
So, the question is: How do we trust when the rug has been pulled from under our feet after a life-threatening diagnosis or some other catastrophic occurrence, when we are facing into an unknown void, and are mortally afraid?
Can we trust enough to allow ourselves to fully surrender to the storm of emotions and feelings swirling around us at those moments and not move. Can we wait until the storm dies down and there is a modicum of quiet within which we can regain our ground and from where, with the help of family, close friends, and medical professionals, we can begin to step lightly forward, testing the waters, carving out our path, doing the work. The step-by-step work. Can we discover that we have hitherto unknown reservoirs of strength, vulnerability, and courage to draw upon?
Can we realize we are doing our greatest learning at these times? That we will be forever transformed… and can we continue to move forward, hanging in there whilst immersed in the unknown, giving everything to continue to celebrate this life whilst having absolutely no guarantees of the outcome.
Life is challenge
Life inevitably will present us with challenges. My own feeling is that She tests us. It seems the good news is that as an integral part of the whole, we have everything at hand to be able to adapt, transform, uncover, and explore life-generating solutions, that are so much needed at this time.
It seems imperative that each of us find our individual ways to garner our deepest knowing of how best to respond to life’s challenges.
Our culture does not train us to trust our own powers of living and healing, we are not trained to listen to our intuition. Indeed, quite the opposite we are conditioned to be dependent on outer authorities and are rarely invited into a partnership where our voices, that resonate from our deeper knowing, are encouraged or listened to.
I have discovered my own way of grounding is through my body, but there is no one way that fits all. It seems that these traumatic life events offer each one of us the opportunity to dig deeply to discover the intelligence of our inner guidance and as such, ironically, they are perhaps something we can be grateful for. I have heard it said by so many people who have been through or are on a cancer journey that their lives are transforming as a result.
This is an extraordinary response and victory call from the spirit, this desire to flourish in the face of adversity no matter what.
Thriving not just surviving – cancer patients & the planet
My cancer diagnosis was the latest and most serious of a number of life’s tests that I have personally faced in the process of my 64 years on this planet – dancing has been the conduit for showing me how to negotiate through arduous times. Meeting dance was meeting my own desire to learn how to live life fully, but I never dreamt that I could feel the level of aliveness I now feel as a result of my involvement with cancer. Having faced into my own mortality, I now know a level of gratitude for being alive that was not available for me before. It accompanies me in the form of a deep underlying quietness or silence, a sense there is nothing more to gain or prove. I intuit that these lessons I have learned and continue to learn from my illness will be essential in moving forward to face this time of climate emergency as we fight for life on this planet. I believe that as cancer patients & survivors we are serving the earth by seriously undertaking this journey towards wholeness and healing, a journey that transforms our lives in line with a deep caring for life itself.
Waking up to life
It often seems as if life throws us these ultimate challenges to wake us up from the dream of a life half lived. Pushing us to recognize that life is a wild and glorious beast that we could never control. Trying to grasp onto security when we live in a universe that is the antithesis of a safe sanctuary seems to be working against the natural laws that govern us all. These times of enormous challenge stop us in our tracks, demand that we reassess everything, who we are, why we are here, and how much we are willing to give.
When we let go into life, we discover a guiding principle that is none other than our own true nature, who we truly are, a coming home to ourselves at one with the laws that govern this universe – call it Spirit, God, Higher Consciousness, Embodied Intelligence, Authentic Self or any other term that humans use to connect with their sense of a transcendent intelligence that pervades all of life.
We discover that this is our only true sanctity and where we locate deep trust.
Caring enough to live life fully with no guarantees is the way of the warrior
During my research before writing this talk, I came upon a quote from Albert Einstein who said: “The most important decision we make is whether we believe we live in a friendly or hostile universe.” I could not find the context in which he said this, but it struck me that engaging this question is central to our ability to be able to trust and live life to the full.
In an earlier part of my life, I worked with a spiritual teacher who asked me to come to a fundamental reconning with the question: ‘Is life fundamentally negative or fundamentally positive.’ It was a hugely challenging decision to make on a soul level, but I discovered through intent listening into the place of my deepest knowing that life is fundamentally positive… irrespective of the abundance of negativity that surrounds us which seems to be an integral part of life. Perhaps this question is an important one for us all to give thought to, to help provide us with firm ground when the going gets tough.
It seems to be a measure of our emotional maturity when we are ready and able to shift our focus from having a guarded, personal, and conditional relationship to life & trust, to a place where we are able to decide to do the work it takes to become a trustworthy human being ourselves in service of life as a whole. Being willing to undertake this leap of trust within a world where there are no guarantees is scary yet ultimately empowering.
This is the way of the warrior, and interestingly it often takes a catastrophic life event to get us to realize the importance of not wasting any more time on a conditional relationship to living. It wakes us up to the fact that we want to be fully alive, that we care about life, and that life really matters. To take the risk of giving everything to life now with no guarantees is devotion to life Herself which takes us beyond our own limited perspective.
This it seems to me is the act of living, truly living that is filled with inspiration and insight, daring and risk. Isn’t this what it means to be fully alive? Trust, it seems, is not possible without risk.
Do we have this kind of monumental courage to grasp life by the horns in this way, even in the midst of tremendous hardship. What this looks like is not the romantic notions fed to us in fairy stories. It looks gritty, is often emotionally taxing, physically depleting, lonely, lost, overwhelming, painful, a formidable heroic struggle. Millions of people around the planet today are undergoing these journeys.
In my mother’s case her heroic deed was to decline any medical intervention when her cancer returned at age 85. She did this because she didn’t want to be a further burden on her family.
So, she chose to die calmly at home surrounded by her children. She gave me the greatest gift I have ever received by showing me that there is nothing to fear in death.
To conclude
So, to conclude, I realize this is what the epiphany experience was communicating to me all those years ago. ‘Everything you will ever need is already within you.’
As human animals living on this planet now, imbued with life force, the spirit that breaths through all life forms, we have the power to trust no matter what and to follow our paths fearlessly through life and ultimately into death and the great unknown. It has taken getting cancer to prove beyond any doubt the depth and truth contained in this message that came to me from somewhere within my own being.
Reflecting on this now I see it all as part of the mystery and miracle of life, and why we must never give up on Her no matter what.
Sharing a simple exercise
To end I would like to share with you a simple exercise which helps me to focus and listen to my body, to pay attention to it and to show gratitude. It’s an example of the kinds of practices I share with my students as part of our dance rituals. We can do this sitting in our chairs and don’t worry you won’t be expected to dance!
Reflecting on ‘embodied intelligence’
Before we begin, let’s take a moment to reflect on this question of embodied intelligence.
I would like to ask you to consider your own sense of embodied knowledge and expertise. The ways in which you experience pleasure through moving your bodies. perhaps through simple activities like walking, swimming, or taking a yoga class. I would like to stress that the word ‘pleasure’ is of ultimate importance here
In general, I have found it is often something we pay less attention to, don’t consider as being that important, which we place last on the list of things to do. We don’t prioritize giving ourselves this simple pleasure of moving. We forget the remarkable innate intelligence of our bodies that carry on the processes of life without our being consciously aware of the complexity of the ongoing miracle that is taking place within us.
And we forget that these bodies have been designed to move.
For a moment let’s place our bodies at the center of our attention by doing a short simple internal body scan that I will guide you through, much like a guided meditation.
EXERCISE in LISTENING to the EMBODIED INTELLIGENCE
Please make sure that you are sitting comfortably. I invite you to close your eyes if you find it more relaxing, otherwise you can keep your eyes open allowing a soft focus with downcast eyes. This helps us to feel less distracted by our visual field of awareness. And if you would rather not join the exercise that’s totally fine too.
Take a moment to sense how the weight of your body is resting into the seat of your chair, how your feet are resting on the earth. How are your arms resting? Are they at your side or resting on your lap or onto the arms of your chair?
How do we sense our weight?
Through the feedback we get from the places where our bodies connect with other bodies, be it a chair, or the earth through the soles of our feet. Sense the feedback you are receiving from whatever you are touching at this moment.
How is your weight resting into the back of your chair? How is your body feeling as you sit and pay attention to it?
As we pay attention to our weight, we are noticing the force of gravity which continually falls through our structure, keeping us connected to the earth. Cosmologist Brian Swimme calls gravity ‘the force of love which binds all things together’. Indeed, without this force nothing would exist, everything would be in a process of disintegration.
So, this opportunity to feel the weight descending through our tail bones into our chairs is offered to us by the force of gravity or love that binds us in a mutual relationship with each other and our earth. From this perspective of gravity as the alluring force that brings all things together, we can think that it’s not just a one-way relationship, and that as we touch our world, our world touches us back. This is how the physical world offers us support and is the ground of trust.
Can we imagine or feel that whatever you are touching right now is touching you back, offering you support?
This is your true connection and relationship with the world. A clear way of knowing, in every moment as a felt experience, your place on this planet………..pause
Now let’s turn our attention towards our breathing. Take notice of the rhythm of your inhalation and exhalation. This is the life force entering and leaving your body. The force that enlivens our beings from the moment we enter this world, to the moment we leave, which we share with all other sentient beings on this planet, both human and other than human.
Let’s focus on our out breaths. Can we think about working with the force of gravity to release all the things we carry around with us that are unnecessarily complex and cause us to suffer. Breathing out our fears and anxieties, the things that create discomfort to our bodies, minds and spirits.
Specific things might come to mind or perhaps you can simply give yourself to this sense of letting go, releasing the weight of fear and anxiety, old stale energy, unhelpful thoughts that hold you back. Simply breath them out as you sense your weight falling through your chair into the earth.
Take a few deep breaths focusing on the outbreath and on letting go….. pause
This process of release opens space in the body, space for what is new, fresh and life-enhancing.
Let’s think about the fact that far beneath our feet there is an almighty fire that is burning, creating immense energy that pushes out to the surface of the planet. As we breath in, imagine that we are breathing in the fire of the earth that fills us with new potential and creativity.
For a few moments in your own time, focus on the release of your outbreath and the rejuvenation of your inbreath, knowing that we are part of a process of releasing the old and inviting in the new – breathing out the old, breathing in the new………….
Again take a few deeps breaths focusing on letting for of the old, inviting in the new.
Our bodies are an ecosystem at one with the process of life and with the world around us, constantly seeking for balance in relationship with the unseen forces that play through us – clearing the old and inviting the new. This is our nature, the dance of life with which we are an integral part.
As you sit and breath, take a moment to sense your fellow travelers in this life who are sitting around you, on each side, in front and behind you.. you don’t have to look at them to acknowledge them, you can sense their presences in your field of awareness. See if, in the act of sensing the people around you, you can feel supported by the warmth of their bodies, their processes of living and breathing, their felt relationship with the planet, as you are supporting them in return…………..
Now let’s see if we can take a moment in the silence to sense the whole of the room engaged in the collective process of breathing, sensing, and supporting.
See if we can sense the whole room as One Body that is breathing with the earth………..
I now invite you to gently open your eyes –
(KS dancing when public open their eyes)
Thank You