Home: Being Known

Home: Being Known

This November, MHT is participating in the Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraising Drive. The money goes to programs that support refugee families that have been resettled in the United States. In tandem with these efforts, our clinicians are writing posts reflecting on what home means to them.

“Everybody has a home team: It’s the people you call when you get a flat tire or when something terrible happens. It’s the people who, near or far, know everything that’s wrong with you and love you anyways. These are the ones who tell you their secrets, who get themselves a glass of water without asking when they’re at your house. These are the people who cry when you cry. These are your people, your middle-of-the-night, no-matter-what people.”

-  Shauna Niequist, Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way”
Paloma Franco, MS.jpg

In one of the chapters in her book, Bittersweet: Thoughts on Change, Grace, and Learning the Hard Way, Shauna Niequist describes the importance of having a home team. This home team is a community of people that you can count on, that you feel connected to and that make you feel known. Niequist highlights how this home team can change through time and seasons in your life. There is sweetness in being known by someone in all your humanness and still choosing to love you — that is home for me.

 In this season of reflection on the word ‘home’ at MHT, places come to mind such as my childhood home, that restaurant in San Pedro, and that grocery store that always plays Spanish music. Some people also come to mind, individuals who are my family and those that have become family. My home team – in their presence I feel known, seen, and connected. Over the last decade, I’ve discovered the power of being known and the comfort of being in a space or in the presence of someone who symbolizes home.

Home holds many meanings for every individual. As I reflect on the importance of being known – I think about the immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers hoping for a place to call home and a community where they feel known, once they have established safety in their new space. There is so much importance in ‘being known’ in order to feel at home.

“There is sweetness in being known by someone in all your humanness and still choosing to love you — that is home for me. ”

HERE'S HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN FRIENDSGIVING WITH US:

Give! Visit our Miry’s List campaign page and make a donation. It's that simple and no sum is too small. Truly.

Follow! Be sure to follow us on Instagram and our blog throughout the month of November. We will be reflecting on what it means to be welcomed, received, and known.

Share!  Help us spread the word. You can do this by sharing our social media posts or links to our Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraiser page.

******

A little about Miry’s List:
Refugee families come to the United States seeking a safe haven from violence and persecution in their home countries. They leave behind family and friends, as well as virtually everything they own. Many Americans, seeing these families in their communities, wonder: What can I do to help? Miry's List provides a mechanism for people to directly help new arrival refugee families with the things that they need to get started in their new lives – from diapers to beds to cleaning supplies and toiletries. To learn more, visit miryslist.org.

Paloma Franco, MS, is a Registered Psychological Assistant #PSB94024942 working under the supervision of Gabrielle Taylor, PhD, PSY# 22054. Paloma is a bilingual (Spanish & English) therapist who works with individuals, couples, and families to address a variety of issues, including anxiety, depression, trauma, relationship issues, and cultural challenges.

Home: That Feeling of Comfort

Home: That Feeling of Comfort

This November, MHT is participating in the Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraising Drive. The money goes to programs that support refugee families that have been resettled in the United States. In tandem with these efforts, our clinicians are writing posts reflecting on what home means to them.

“I was struck by something Miry [Whitehill] shared with us at Michelle Harwell Therapy when she came to tell us about how Miry’s List works: the importance of the color of the sheets.”
Allison Ramsey.jpg

I was struck by something Miry [Whitehill] shared with us at Michelle Harwell Therapy when she came to tell us about how Miry’s List works: the importance of the color of the sheets.

Miry’s List helps families get set up with essential household items, like sheets and towels and backpacks. All of these kinds of things are necessary for getting life started - but Miry reflected with us about the way little details, like getting to choose a familiar color of sheets, can sometimes bring back a breath home. And so Miry’s list partners with each family in a very individualized way to create household wishlists, complete with these kinds of details, that will help families get started with making a new home here in LA.

This resonated with me and I thought about how much sensory kinds of things contribute to my own sense of being at home. Smells and flavors and familiar objects contribute to this sensory-texture of home.

These socks, in particular, I love to wear at home. To me, they represent comfort at all levels - they are cozy and happy and sorta weird. There is a kind of internal rest and safety I step into whenever I pull them on.

This Thanksgiving season, as we fundraise with our new neighbors in mind, I am grateful for the small but mighty contributions of little details, like familiar sheets or socks, to give us a sense of being where we belong.

HERE'S HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN FRIENDSGIVING WITH US:

Give! Visit our Miry’s List campaign page and make a donation. It's that simple and no sum is too small. Truly.

Follow! Be sure to follow us on Instagram and our blog throughout the month of November. We will be reflecting on what it means to be welcomed, received, and known.

Share!  Help us spread the word. You can do this by sharing our social media posts or links to our Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraiser page.

******

A little about Miry’s List:
Refugee families come to the United States seeking a safe haven from violence and persecution in their home countries. They leave behind family and friends, as well as virtually everything they own. Many Americans, seeing these families in their communities, wonder: What can I do to help? Miry's List provides a mechanism for people to directly help new arrival refugee families with the things that they need to get started in their new lives – from diapers to beds to cleaning supplies and toiletries. To learn more, visit miryslist.org.

Allison (Allie) Ramsey is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Therapist. Allie works with individuals on a broad range of issues, including anxiety, depression, relational challenges, faith integration, divorce, and aging. 

Home: A Place to Dwell

Home: A Place to Dwell

This November, MHT is participating in the Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraising Drive. The money goes to programs that support refugee families that have been resettled in the United States. In tandem with these efforts, our clinicians are writing posts reflecting on what home means to them.

Michelle Harwell Therapy

As children, I think we take for granted that a home is gifted to us. It’s made for us through the routines, the four walls that surround and the emotional rhythms that build a sense of familiarity and holding. As we grow, that sense of belonging to a place and a people translates to a more robust internal belonging and holding that allows us to venture further and further out into the world...but this is tricky because the world is not a stable place. It’s ever-changing and so are we. At moments, that is utterly terrifying — and also wild and wonderful, if we can tolerate it. As Heraclitus says, “No (wo)man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and (s)he's not the same (wo)man.”

So in the midst of such constant change, how do we still find a way to be in the world, to build a home under ever-changing conditions? I think the answer is found not in the concept of home per se but what a home provides us, which is a place of dwelling. To dwell is to linger, to safely be. In adult life we have to work at it, with intentionality, to find places, people, and practices that helps us make contact with our beingness. I identify these connections and spaces in the form of an exhale. When I truly breathe out, I know I’ve found a piece of home and a place to dwell.

“...how do we still find a way to be in the world, to build a home under ever-changing conditions? I think the answer is found not in the concept of home per se but what a home provides us, which is a place of dwelling. ”

HERE'S HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN FRIENDSGIVING WITH US:

Give! Visit our Miry’s List campaign page and make a donation. It's that simple and no sum is too small. Truly.

Follow! Be sure to follow us on Instagram and our blog throughout the month of November. We will be reflecting on what it means to be welcomed, received, and known.

Share!  Help us spread the word. You can do this by sharing our social media posts or links to our Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraiser page.

******

A little about Miry’s List:
Refugee families come to the United States seeking a safe haven from violence and persecution in their home countries. They leave behind family and friends, as well as virtually everything they own. Many Americans, seeing these families in their communities, wonder: What can I do to help? Miry's List provides a mechanism for people to directly help new arrival refugee families with the things that they need to get started in their new lives – from diapers to beds to cleaning supplies and toiletries. To learn more, visit miryslist.org.

Michelle Harwell, PsyD, LMFT is an expert trainer, respected speaker, and licensed therapist in trauma and attachment. She is noted for her specialization in areas of development, attachment, trauma, and neuroscience, and her ability to communicate complex topics with clarity and humor. 

Home: Where Memories Reside

Home: Where Memories Reside

This November, MHT is participating in the Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraising Drive. The money goes to programs that support refugee families that have been resettled in the United States. In tandem with these efforts, our clinicians are writing posts reflecting on what home means to them.

Marguerite Maguire, MD.jpg

If we’re lucky, most of us can think of a place that we call “home.” Just saying the word aloud immediately conjures mental images – of a beloved apartment, a familiar city, or even a romantic partner. The feeling of comfort and security that accompanies these images is unmistakable.

 It’s difficult, however, to determine when a place has truly become our home. We move to a new house, or a new city, and perhaps we begin to call that place our home shortly after we arrive. How long, though, until the word “home” makes us think of this new place instead of the house where we grew up? Maybe there’s a minimum time required. But sometimes there are instances where that process happens almost immediately. There may be others where that sense of safety and warmth never arrives, even after we’ve lived somewhere for years.

 When we call some place home, it means that part of our memory rests there. A home is a place where we’ve shrieked with joy, where we’ve hurt and been hurt, where we’ve cooked and cleaned and hosted friends and fallen in love. When a place provides enough moments that make an imprint on us, that place has, in some sense, made us into somebody new. Perhaps a house becomes a home when, as a result of living there, we are a different person than we were before.

“When we call some place home, it means that part of our memory rests there. A home is a place where we’ve shrieked with joy, where we’ve hurt and been hurt, where we’ve cooked and cleaned and hosted friends and fallen in love. ”

HERE'S HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN FRIENDSGIVING WITH US:

Give! Visit our Miry’s List campaign page and make a donation. It's that simple and no sum is too small. Truly.

Follow! Be sure to follow us on Instagram and our blog throughout the month of November. We will be reflecting on what it means to be welcomed, received, and known.

Share!  Help us spread the word. You can do this by sharing our social media posts or links to our Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraiser page.

******

A little about Miry’s List:
Refugee families come to the United States seeking a safe haven from violence and persecution in their home countries. They leave behind family and friends, as well as virtually everything they own. Many Americans, seeing these families in their communities, wonder: What can I do to help? Miry's List provides a mechanism for people to directly help new arrival refugee families with the things that they need to get started in their new lives – from diapers to beds to cleaning supplies and toiletries. To learn more, visit miryslist.org.

Marguerite Maguire, MD, is a human-centered, general adult psychiatrist who has a special interest in Women’s Mental Health, particularly in health around pregnancy and hormone changes.

Home: Blue

Home: Blue

This November, MHT is participating in the Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraising Drive. The money goes to programs that support refugee families that have been resettled in the United States. In tandem with these efforts, our clinicians are writing posts reflecting on what home means to them.

“Blue songs are like tattoos

You know I’ve been to sea before

Crown and anchor me

Or let me sail away.”

-       Joni Mitchell, “Blue”

 

Broghan Hedges, MSW.jpg

‘Home’ is a word of layers - a concept whose meaning lives in spatial, literal, metaphorical and feeling realities. Home can be a place, a sensation, a longing, even a relationship; most interestingly, home can coexist in all these planes of understanding without contradiction. In exploring the idea of home this season at MHT, I have chosen a word that, like home, contains multitudes.

Blue is Joni Mitchell’s fourth studio album, released in 1971. She wrote and sang every song on the record, including the song Blue, quoted above. This Blue-within-Blue was a melancholy swirl of rock-n-roll love, in line with the album’s theme of the excruciating lows and soaring highs of relationships. Joni Mitchell captures in yearning minutes-long fragments that which takes many of us years of devoted labor to bring to consciousness and communication. Blue is, to me, one layer of home; the sound of an aching heart, a woman full of love.

 Blue is my mother’s favorite color; it was the color of my childhood home; it the colloquial term for sadness, which I would prefer to understand as longing. Blue is the color of the wide sky and the shifting oceans. As a therapist, there is great appeal to me of something so small which can contain so much. Home can provide another kind of expansive containment, a sense of familiarity and belonging that can hold us when we need to be held and also let us wander freely without fear of losing our way back. Home is often one of those spaces that we are aware of only as we leave and return to it; home is perhaps more a sensation of change than it is a signal of constancy. I first experienced Joni Mitchell’s Blue after graduating college, alone in an empty apartment in a city far from where I grew up. Listening to her Blue felt like coming home.

“Home is often one of those spaces that we are aware of only as we leave and return to it; home is perhaps more a sensation of change than it is a signal of constancy. ”

HERE'S HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN FRIENDSGIVING WITH US:

Give! Visit our Miry’s List campaign page and make a donation. It's that simple and no sum is too small. Truly.

Follow! Be sure to follow us on Instagram and our blog throughout the month of November. We will be reflecting on what it means to be welcomed, received, and known.

Share!  Help us spread the word. You can do this by sharing our social media posts or links to our Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraiser page.

******

A little about Miry’s List:
Refugee families come to the United States seeking a safe haven from violence and persecution in their home countries. They leave behind family and friends, as well as virtually everything they own. Many Americans, seeing these families in their communities, wonder: What can I do to help? Miry's List provides a mechanism for people to directly help new arrival refugee families with the things that they need to get started in their new lives – from diapers to beds to cleaning supplies and toiletries. To learn more, visit miryslist.org.

Broghan Hedges, MSW, is an Associate Clinical Social Worker ASW #90498, working under the professional supervision of Michelle Harwell, PsyD, LMFT 50732. She is passionate about helping the parent-child relationship flourish and has extensive experience serving families impacted by autism, adoption, and substance abuse.

Home: You are Welcome Here

Home: You are Welcome Here

This November, MHT is participating in the Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraising Drive. The money goes to programs that support refugee families that have been resettled in the United States. In tandem with these efforts, our clinicians are writing posts reflecting on what home means to them.

“To me home is the place where you can be you with all your rough edges. Where you can have all your feelings, in their full and sometimes painful glory. Where people will manage the dance of needs, theirs and yours, with some compassion and grace.”

In her novel, The Mill on the Floss, George Eliot paints a portrait of the kind of attachment we build to the place we call home, especially the first place that holds that sense for us. The main character, Maggie, cannot bring herself to leave her home to make a new start somewhere, even when her reputation becomes unjustly tarnished and she becomes an outcast. Eliot’s portrayal of the strength of Maggie’s connection to the place she knows as home has a visceral resonance for me. I know that feeling. I’ve felt that way about a place, and I’ve had to move on and start over somewhere new. Many of us know what it’s like to leave our home and in some way lose it forever.

Monica Green, Ph.D..jpg

No one knows this better than immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers. When we talk about immigration policy, I feel that we’ve lost touch with the heart of the matter – the reality of human beings who have had to leave the place and the people that were home for them – often due to hardships and traumas that we in this country can scarcely imagine. I think we lose sight of the fact that people do not come seeking to build a new life here because the grass was greener but because there was no grass to be had where they were. I’m thrilled to be part of MHT’s support drive for Miry’s List, where the funds we raise will directly benefit immigrants who are establishing a new life here in LA. Even for those of us with more resources, starting over in a new place is not easy. We need a community to come around us and welcome us in.

Perhaps in many ways, we are all looking for home, trying to build a place where we feel a sense of belonging and welcome. I think of the home I’m trying to create for my little people. The jar in the photo is actually full of glitter. It’s a homemade sensory tool for helping kids deal with strong emotion. They think they’re getting a bit big for it, but sometimes when I’m really upset I go grab one, shake it up, and enjoy losing myself in swirling glints of color. The blue one is the one I made myself. To me home is the place where you can be you with all your rough edges. Where you can have all your feelings, in their full and sometimes painful glory. Where people will manage the dance of needs, theirs and yours, with some compassion and grace. And a good dose of affectionate humor. Where people will stay when things get hard, no matter what. Where relationship can bend, twist, yank or pull and not break. That’s what the glitter jar means to me. It means, “You are welcome here. We got this.”

 By the way, if you want to make one, here’s a link: https://preschoolinspirations.com/6-ways-to-make-a-calm-down-jar/

HERE'S HOW YOU CAN PARTICIPATE IN FRIENDSGIVING WITH US:

Give! Visit our Miry’s List campaign page and make a donation. It's that simple and no sum is too small. Truly.

Follow! Be sure to follow us on Instagram and our blog throughout the month of November. We will be reflecting on what it means to be welcomed, received, and known.

Share!  Help us spread the word. You can do this by sharing our social media posts or links to our Miry’s List Friendsgiving Fundraiser page.

******

A little about Miry’s List:
Refugee families come to the United States seeking a safe haven from violence and persecution in their home countries. They leave behind family and friends, as well as virtually everything they own. Many Americans, seeing these families in their communities, wonder: What can I do to help? Miry's List provides a mechanism for people to directly help new arrival refugee families with the things that they need to get started in their new lives – from diapers to beds to cleaning supplies and toiletries. To learn more, visit miryslist.org.

Monica Green, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist (PSY 27391) specializing in depression, anxiety, trauma, relationship issues and psychological aspects of chronic health conditions.

Spirituality as Process

Spirituality as Process

Maybe you, like me, sometimes wonder what spirituality really consists of. How can anyone really understand or know this realm of reality that transcends, but is inseparably involved with, the material? My thought is it’s not quite knowable. Or maybe better put, it’s not ‘master-able’ by our methods of knowing. It’s the kind of thing that can’t be all-the-way understood or written about comprehensively in a textbook.

And yet, there is something concrete about spirituality -- that is, it seems that a full-hearted seeking after spiritual life, truth, and goodness does bring about significant change over time. Sometimes in quiet ways inside of individuals and sometimes in powerful and surging ways that had seemed impossible.

My own life has felt rather upended by my spiritual experiences at certain times. To be honest, that is probably what I most want -- and simultaneously am most afraid will happen. There are also times my spiritual life has felt dry, so dry it’s made me think, “What if this is a desert, and all those memories of abundant, vibrant liveliness were only ever mirages?”

“Maybe you, like me, sometimes wonder what spirituality really consists of.
...My thought is: it’s not quite knowable.”

Lately I’ve been considering a new thing, for me, regarding spirituality. And that is the importance of “process over content.” (We talk about this quite a bit in therapy training. It’s a foundational goal of therapists to learn to pay attention to the pattern of things that are playing out, rather than attending only to those things that are explicitly named or spoken about in the moment). 

Applying this to my own Christian spirituality has meant learning to pay attention not only to the words of Jesus on the topic of spirituality, but also to his process -- the overall pattern of life he lived out as an example of cultivating a spiritual life. His times of solitude, service, prayer, fasting, and teaching are all different parts of the important picture of his spiritual process. As I’ve reflected on this, I have been challenged to be honest with myself about my own spiritual “process.”  What are my patterns of action and inaction? What do my actions show my spirituality is really about? To put it to a sciency metaphor that appeals to me: What’s the “center of mass” of my way of living? The answers to these kinds of questions left me feeling discontent and hungry for more in my life. That turned out to be a transformative place to start.

Allison (Allie) Ramsey is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Therapist who works with individuals on a broad range of issues, including anxiety, depression, relational challenges, faith integration, divorce, and aging. 

Greeting Change in Your Life: Lessons Learned from Ayurvedic Specialist Rita Burgos

Greeting Change in Your Life: Lessons Learned from Ayurvedic Specialist Rita Burgos

Summer’s twilight is upon us.  And this is your friendly (near end of summer) reminder that change behooves us to be extra gentle, tender, and compassionate with ourselves.

The new season may bring small and/or large scale changes into your life.  You will gladly welcome some of these changes — ones that you will find to be necessary, refreshing, healing, even.  As a result, you may become more connected to your authentic self.  And other changes will be thrust upon you unexpectedly – in ways you could not have imagined. They may cause you to wrestle begrudgingly with yourself, with others, or both.  It can take some time before moving from a place of resistance to a place of acceptance. 

“Often times, you cannot determine WHEN change happens, HOW it happens, WHO it happens to, or IF it even happens at all. But nevertheless, change is the movement that gets us in touch with our aliveness.”
Rita Burgos

Rita Burgos

When the growing tribe of clinicians here at Michelle Harwell Therapy gathered for our weekly professional training in late June, we were treated to a talk on “Routines & Rhythms” by Rita Burgos.  Rita is a local Clinical Ayurvedic Specialist and Classical Yoga Nidra who is deeply passionate about wellness and holistic healing.  Her calm, centered presence in the group meeting room quickly signaled to me that she had wisdom to offer. 

One thing Rita said that struck me on a personal level went something like this, “The things you can control, or count on, give you much more strength and grounding to handle the things you cannot control in life.”

Oh, how I knew this statement to be so true ! She was totally speaking my language!  And what a timely reminder it was for me, and I’m sure many others, in that moment. 

Rita spoke in further detail about the daily routines that align us with nature’s rhythm each day, each week, each month, each year.  I walked away with a sense of wanting to – no, needing to – live more attuned with my body’s natural cues and needs, more in sync with the natural order of the world. 

My ongoing personal takeaway from Rita was that healthy habits can give us a grounding framework for living and thriving, especially when experiencing overwhelming or destabilizing change.

Often times, you cannot determine WHEN change happens, HOW it happens, WHO it happens to, or IF it even happens at all. But nevertheless, change is the movement that gets us in touch with our aliveness. It is a necessary ingredient for growth.

What feels grounding to me, particularly in the face of change? Good sleep hygiene, healthy food intake, practicing the “pause” (mindfulness), physical exercise, a creative outlet, a good soak in nature, plenty of unstructured down-time, solitude, and connecting in meaningful ways with like-minded humans.

What feels grounding to you? The following questions may be helpful for checking-in with yourself.

IMG_2976 2.JPG

Tracy Lee, LMFT, offers holistic, culturally-sensitive therapy. She is especially passionate about serving Asian-Americans facing unique cultural challenges, identity issues, and intergenerational conflict.

The Freedom of Movement

The Freedom of Movement

I fancy myself an amateur athlete. I love to move, to challenge myself, to constantly find facility over a physical skill. But there are modes of movement that I’ve shied away from because of a self-defeating belief that I cannot (or I am not made to) move that way.

“‘You’re in over your head. You could leave right now. Nobody would know,’ I heard my inner critic say.”

These beliefs have influenced specific movement patterns in my body – they are often linear and (sometimes) rigid. I run, lift weights, and move through yoga classes where poses are performed within the confines of a 2x6 foot mat. Over time I have noticed that my propensity towards these kinds movements parallels how I tend to orient within the world: I can be rigid in my thinking; I often follow rules with little question; if not attentive, I can slide into being dogmatic– focusing on the expectation or goal, forgoing my intuition, and lead myself into danger, injury, or overload.

Knowing that I have a tendency toward being overly controlled (in mind and body), I began to wonder about ways I could still enjoy the endorphins released by exercise while moving outside my proverbial fitness box. This wondering led me back to my self-effacing beliefs, to all the ways I’ve thought I was not made move: flowing, fluid, emotionally evocative, somatically dynamic.

I have always envied dancers. These artists (using their bodies as an instrument) tell stories in ways that are nothing short of miraculous. The control and skill needed to move so freely is a paradox that intrigues me. And my awe of them has always kept me an observer. My inner critic has scared me from engaging with such freedom in my own movement.

As I mused on this month’s theme of freedom here at MHT, I thought about how my inner-critic keeps me a prisoner of my own false beliefs. I know my critic functions (albeit misguidedly) to keep me safe. By assuming I am terrible at something, I don’t try. And if I don’t try, there’s no chance of failure. The critic helps me stay “good” and safe within my pre-conceived/contrived limits. 

Lauren Ziel, MSW.jpg

But what if being good isn’t the point? I know that many of my athletic pursuits are motivated by wanting to gain speed, power, strength – some measurable unit of improvement. But there I go again thinking linearly. What if mastering movement isn’t the point? What if simply being movement is the point?

This reframe in intention brought me to The Sweat Spot - an unassuming dance studio tucked between a hip vintage clothing store and vinyl record shop (it’s in Silver Lake… so go figure). My heart was pounding. I hadn’t been in a dance studio since the screeching failure that was pre-k ballet lessons. I didn’t feel like I belonged here.

I’d paid and pre-registered for a class called Gaga People. If it was a Lady Gaga themed drag queen party, I actually might have been more comfortable.

Gaga People, developed by renowned dancer and choreographer Ohad Naharin, is described as a ‘movement language’. The class facilitates space for people to tune into a deep awareness with their present physical sensations and invites exploration and interpretation of those sensations with expressive movement (i.e.- movement language). The point of the class is to be the movement, to embody the sensations that are experienced.

I had no idea what to expect. I filled out a waiver and proceeded to a small staging area with benches, cubbies, and an in-wall window into the studio space. The preceding class was finishing up. I watched in awe as dozens of dancers performed some kind of primal modern choreography. The staging area began to fill with other Gaga attendees; they seemed un-phased by the talent on display. 

“You’re in over your head. You could leave right now. Nobody would know”, I heard my inner critic say.

“But what if being good isn’t the point? ”

Before I knew it, flushed and exuberant faces began cascading from the studio into the staging area. I pressed myself up against the closest wall and waited for my turn to walk into the studio – feeling like a cow being corralled toward the slaughterhouse.

There were more than two dozen of us - various ages, genders, ethnicities, & bodies all taking up a small portion of dance floor real estate. The instructor came to the center of the room and invited us to look at our hands and begin to move our fingers. 

“Imagine that each of your knuckles could move in all directions…” she said, “…like a ball & socket joint. Imagine and try to find as much movement in the joints of your fingers as you can find in your hips or shoulders.”

I knew (thanks to high school biology) that it was physically impossible but I was intrigued by what it felt like to try anyway. My mind was fully present in the sensations and efforts of my fingers, palms, and forearms. I had a fleeting feeling of expansiveness. I was trying to move in a way that I logically knew was impossible… and yet I acted into it anyway and felt more alive due to my effort. In that moment, I understood and embodied freedom.

Faulkner once wrote:  “We must be free not because we claim freedom, but because we practice it.” That Gaga class let me practice freedom. It helped me experience how I imprison myself, restrict my own freedoms, and how I can decide to let them go whenever I choose. 

For anyone interested in finding some embodied freedom, The Sweat Spot offers their Gaga People class Thursdays at 1pm. They’re located at 3327 Sunset Blvd. Los Angeles, CA 90026.

Lauren Ziel, MSW is a Registered Associate Clinical Social Worker, ASW #76483, working under the supervision of Saralyn Masselink, LCSW . Through the use of movement and mindfulness, Lauren develops specialized treatment for anxiety, depression, eating disorders, challenges in life-stage transitions, relational difficulties, and identity/intrapersonal development.