Deborah Cohan: The Dancing Doctor

"Deborah Cohan is a lifelong dancer, obstetrician-gynecologist, and teacher of embodied medicine. In 2013, moments before undergoing a double-mastectomy, she and the entire operating room team broke out into dance, filmed by the anesthesiologist for Deborahs friends and family. The video found its way into the public sphere and has since been viewed 8 million times. Deborah oversees births at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital and serves as the medical director of HIVE, caring for pregnant people living with HIV. She teaches embodied medicine through the Foundation for Embodied Medicine. For Cohan, medicine and movement are deeply interwoven. She has served as a doula for those who are giving birth and those who are dying. 

More about her remarkable work and life in this interview.

What follows is the transcript of an Awakin Call with Dr. Deborah Cohan, moderated by Cynthia Li and hosted by Kristin Von Kundra

Cynthia Li: It is my pleasure to introduce to you Dr. Deborah Cohan, a Harvard-trained doctor, healer, public health advocate. She's a mother, a teacher, dancer, a doula of births as well as deaths. She serves the community as an obstetrician at Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital, and as a medical director of Hive, a nonprofit organization of the San Francisco General Hospital Foundation that promotes reproductive and sexual wellness and pregnancy support for those living with HIV. In 2013, she underwent a double mastectomy, and a video of her and her surgical team dancing went viral. She went on to found the Foundation for Embodied Medicine to bring this wisdom to patients, caregivers, and healthcare professionals. She also teaches embodiment to the Bay Area Young Survivors Group of the Cancer Help Program at Commonweal, co-founded by Michael Lerner, who is a longtime friend and elder to the ServiceSpace community.

On a personal note, Deb is a dear friend and a member of Mysteria [laughs], an intimate group of four of us docs who explore intuition and other more expansive realms beyond which science can currently measure. Dr. Deborah Cohan, thank you for being with us today.

Deborah: It is such an honor. Thank you, Cynthia. Thank you, Kristin. Thank you, Preeta. Thank you to all the generous people behind the scenes at Awakin and ServiceSpace. And thank you, to all of you who are here with us today, and all of you who will be listening at a later time. And my wish is that everyone feel included, and a sense of belonging in this community that we're co-creating right now, and maybe all have the opportunity to practice presence together.

Cynthia: Thank you. Please, if you would open up this time for us with a practice, just to drop us directly into the experience of today's theme.

Deborah: Thank you. Well, all of you are welcome -- all of our bodies are welcome. And the purpose of what we're about to do together is for us to listen to our own bodies. So I'll facilitate various embodiment practices, and I invite you to modify, to adapt, maybe even imagine the movements in your mind's eye, or simply allow the invitation to flow past you if it isn't right for you for whatever reason. And I'll do my best to not make any assumptions about your capacity, or how your body is configured, how it's able to move. And I may even name body parts that you don't have, or offer an embodied invitation that your body can't quite do, or don't want to do. So I just invite you to bring in what feels right, and release what doesn't feel right.

The other piece I want to say before we start is that I have many teachers and draw from many lineages, including Kabbalah, which is the spiritual lineage of my ancestors. And I want to name a few of my teachers, Anna Halprin -- her memory is a blessing. She died this year, at the age of 100. She was teaching -- I took classes from her -- up until the age of 99. Valerie Chafograck, of Dance Sanctuary and Movement Liberation, and Tina Stromsted, who taught me authentic movement, and Joseph Aqua. I am a student, and really, I teach what I need to learn.

So let's now go inward. You'll hear some music in the background. [music begins --  "ReTurning" by Jennifer Berezan plays throughout meditation] Allowing this music to enter into our field. This healing magic, Musicians listen to their soul. They create sound vibrations based on what's in their heart and their mind, and it travels through the air and somehow into our bodies, hearts, and soul.

So if it feels accessible to close your eyes or soften your gaze, feeling your body pulled down by gravity -- that force that connects us to the center here. Maybe your feet are on the ground. If not, I invite you to bring your feet to the ground. And sensing into that connection, between your feet and the ground underneath -- whatever building you're in, or if you're outside, feeling that ground right underneath you -- connected to the roots. All of our roots are connected, like an Aspen or Redwood grove. These trees that gift us oxygen, breathing it down into our toes.

Bring attention to your legs. Releasing any extra efforts, allowing your muscles to soften, to get pulled down by gravity.

Bringing attention to your buttocks, perhaps you're seated, sensing into the contact with the chair, the floor, the cushion.

Sensing into your pelvis, bringing your hand or both hands to your belly. Sensing the air, fill your belly on that deep inhalation.

Now bringing a finger into your belly button, and exploring this original connection. Noticing what sensations you feel, perhaps what thoughts and memories come up. Appreciating that when we were fetuses, everything we needed was supplied through this channel -- between our mother and our belly buttons.

Bringing your hands up to your ribs, feeling those ribs expand with the inhalation, contract with the exhalation.

Bringing your hand or both hands to your breastbone, also called the sternum. Maybe humming. You can feel the vibration. (humming)

Sensing into the light radiating from your heart, in all directions -- front, back, side.

We've learned how to be six feet apart from each other this past year and a half. Let's imagine this light emanating from our hearts out in all directions, past this six feet perimeter.

And as it grows, joining up with these other orbs of light emanating from others participating in this call this morning and those who are listening later -- with your neighbors, with your friends, with your families, with strangers. May we share our light with each other.

And sensing in to this light, we touch our face, bringing a gentle caress.

Maybe imagining your face is like a gentle new baby. When we bring that gentle love to ourselves.

Noticing shapes and textures, temperature.

And bringing your hands to your heart, as you imagine a string elevating your head, bringing lightness to your neck, connecting to the remaining of your spine all the way down to your sacrum. Sacrum -- that word comes from sacred. It's like a bowl connecting our lower and upper bodies, holding all of our organs.

Again, feeling your feet and really sensing into your whole body.

Very slowly, if your eyes have been closed, slowly opening them, allowing the visual space to enter into your awareness, looking around, maybe even behind you, sensing where you are, maybe looking out a window. Also acknowledging where you are geographically.

I will end by acknowledging that I'm a settler on the unceded land of the Chochenyo speaking Ohlone people. And I invite you, if you don't already know -- if you're not indigenous to your land, if you're part of a diaspora -- for you to learn where your land is, where you live.

Soaking in this presence together.

Thank you, Cynthia. Thank you, all of you.

Cynthia:  Well, thank you, Deb. I'd just love to take a moment of silence to integrate that experience. Thank you for guiding us and giving us permission to reconnect to that fetal energy, the vitality, the potential of what is to come, what we can become, what we are becoming. And I would love to hear from you just your experience as an obstetrician, I don't know delivering how many babies. I did it, I think, three times when I was in medical school. And if you would like to share with us the wisdom that you've learned from babies in the womb, observing them, moments of grace at their birth, whatever is emerging for you. But that fetal energy feels very sacred right now. And I'd love to nourish that and explore it a little bit.

Deborah:  Yeah. Thank you so much for that. Yeah. Fetuses. I'm reading a book right now called Book of Days by Rabbi Jill Hammer. And she talks about fetuses as being holders of the past, of wisdom of the past, and also seeds of the future. And I have the tremendous honor and privilege of being able to see, visualize fetuses inside pregnant peoples’ uteruses with ultrasound. And there's so many things I could say. I am amazed by how they move. You know that expression, 'dance like no one's watching.' That's what they do. And you know, there's this beautiful flow. They say 'they' -- we...we were there -- have these graceful movements in the amniotic sac. And at times they really 'get down' and there's some jerkier movements and there's also stillness. They go through sleep cycles, about 30 minutes, and it's all necessary, all of that.

The other thing I feel called to share is during the birthing process, fetuses, as they pass through the birth canal, they find the path of least resistance. They go through these different movements and change the directionality of their head and their different body parts to find that path of least resistance. So what I would say is we all have that innate capacity to find the path of least resistance and our body really knows how to do that. And we may, I mean, I say 'we' so much, including myself, effort ourselves to strategize and try to use our mind. What am I supposed to be doing next? And what's the next move? And if we can close our eyes and go into our bodies, our bodies will almost always know the answer, actually. And we learned that, we practiced that for nine months -- maybe some of us were born prematurely, so a little less than nine months -- but we learned that in the uterus.

The other piece I would say is pregnant people have innate wisdom in their own body. A lot of my patients worry that the pregnancies aren't normal and obviously complications can arise, but somehow the body knows how to make another human. And it's this beautiful regenerative system. You know, amniotic fluid is fetal urine. So the fetus urinates. It makes the amniotic fluid. Then the fetus swallows and breathes in that amniotic fluid. It helps bathe the lungs and helps actually stimulate growth of the lung cells. And it helps teach the fetus how to breathe and how to swallow. And it's this incredible regenerative system, all being fed through the placenta, that the pregnant person is intimately connected with. But somehow there's no direct flow. There's no direct mixing of blood.

So the other piece is this placenta is this incredibly wise organ that takes in what's nourishing and blocks out almost everything that is not nourishing and that's toxic. And some things are able to cross in. And there's this wisdom of it gets pushed out or diffuses out, everything that's toxic or no longer needed. The carbon dioxide, it just diffuses across. So may we remember that we have this innate wisdom that we received as fetuses.

And the other thing I want to say is during the birthing process -- and obviously some people end up having cesareans and that's a different scenario -- I'm amazed by birthing people, they often will lose faith in their capacity to do. It's their mind. They've learned, 'I'm not strong enough to do this.' But in fact all objective evidence demonstrates that they are doing it. Their body inherently knows how to birth. And even I see birthing people with epidurals -- so they can't even feel -- and yet somehow their sacrum knows to tuck in just the right way to open up space. The sacrum is a mobile joint. It opens up enough so the fetus slowly, soon to become a baby with birth, is able to find that path of least resistance. I mean there are so many lessons about the body and heart and the mind and trusting this deeper wisdom that we've inherited by watching, witnessing births.

And the other piece I want to share is -- often as an obstetrician, I'm granted this title as 'the person who delivers the baby.' And I try to challenge that language because it's giving me too much power and it's taking power away from the person who's doing the birthing. We say this all the time. I mean, I say it also. It's really embedded in our language. Like, "How many babies have you delivered?" people will ask me. Well, I've delivered two; I have two children. [Laughs] But I've witnessed, I've had the privilege and honor of witnessing, of holding sacred space, of trying to create or co-create safety for people who are birthing... that I have no idea. That's in the thousands. And everyone is precious and miraculous and brings me to tears, really.

Cynthia:  Wow, thank you. I also just want to express gratitude for that orientation towards the pregnancy process as well as the delivery, the entry into the world. It's not common. And we do tend to think of pregnancy as a special condition and then doctors are trained to really intervene. So we tend to see things that are wrong. So gratitude for bringing that kind of balance back into the natural order of things. So thank you. Now, I know just as well as you do that our own journeys really guide us in terms of where we go with our work with patients. Please share a little bit about your journey, whatever parts you would like.

Deborah:  Well, thank you for that invitation. What I'll say is I've been a dancer my whole life but it began in ballet where it was very prescribed. Someone told me what to do with my body. And I did that for a very long time, about nine years. And then I started doing gymnastics and I remember feeling so liberated running across the mat. And I once went into ballet class at a time when I was doing both ballet and gymnastics and we were doing this exercise. We were supposed to leap gracefully across in a diagonal of the room. And I remember I ran. And my teacher was really horrified. And I remember feeling the air on my skin and feeling so liberated. So that was a really important touchstone, like, oh, liberation is possible in the body! So I really would dance, you know, I'd go to dance classes mostly. And found joy being in movement, in movement in community.

And then one time, this was about 10 years ago, a childhood friend was visiting from out of town and he said, "I'm going to be in Berkeley. Can we go dancing?" And I looked up dancing in Berkeley and there was this dance called Dance Journey. And people were flowing to the music and, you know, hippies with flowing pants. And I was like, “Oh, my friend wants to go dancing in Berkeley. We're going to go dancing in Berkeley.” And we went and it was this room full of people dancing. And I had never seen dancing like that. And I didn't quite understand it. It was a little bit scary, but I knew that they were liberated in their bodies. And it's part of this larger type of dance called Conscious Dance where the goal is to bring intentionality to one's body and one's movements and how one relates to the field and to other dancers. So I really dove into that Conscious Dance community.

And then fast forward several months, maybe nine months or so, and I was diagnosed with breast cancer. And the day of my diagnosis I really went into a fear body. My children were five and eight at the time. I was young. I was 44. And I thought, "Oh, I'm going to leave my children without a mother." And my ego hat was active, like, "They won't remember me." And I thought, "I'm going to die alone." And I knew what I had to do. It was a Monday and that night one of my teachers, Valerie Chafograck, has a Monday night dance class. And so I went to dance and I told her and a few other friends. And I was on the floor crying for most of class, allowing the music to just fill my body. And at one point I heard a song. actually hearing a song isn't quite right. I felt a song. I felt the energy of a song and it entered my body and ignited my cells. And for much of the class, I was really just feeling grief and fear, but something ignited. And I realized I was feeling joy and it didn't make sense that I would be feeling joy on the day I got diagnosed with breast cancer, but there it was. And I allowed it. I allowed it all. And that spark of joy grew. And, like a spark, it ignited other cells. It ignited all of the cells in my body and I felt ecstasy. And I ended up dancing around the room. I had never felt joy like that before. And it was this expansive joy beyond myself. I was imagining death as my dance partner and I danced with her.

And I didn't squash her. I didn't let her overtake me. I danced with her and that was a liberatory experience. And so I danced for almost every day after my diagnosis. And it actually helped me make decisions about who my surgeon was going to be and what surgery I was going to have and all of the different parts of my treatment.

And then people kept asking what they could do to help me, my community. And I had the idea that I want to feel connected to my community while I'm going in for surgery. And so I had this idea for a virtual flash mob where I would dance in the operating room and my people would be dancing at the same time to the same music, but in their home or wherever they would be at work.

And that people would record their dancing and send it to me after. And when I'd be recuperating, not able to dance myself, I would watch these videos and allow the mirror neurons to ignite and really optimize my healing. And so I created a Facebook event and I was really nervous that no one would come, you know, virtually. People signed up and said they would do it.

And then the day before my surgery, I rented a dance studio with my dear friend, Hillary, and we danced over and over again to one of Beyonce’s songs, Get Me Bodied. And as I was there with my friends, I felt safe and I felt connected and I felt joyful. And I consciously tried to imprint that joy in my body connected to that song.

I had asked the anesthesiologist and my surgeon if I could dance before my surgery in the operating room. And they were very gracious and let me do that. And I walked into the operating room and we turned on the music and that joy that I had imprinted from the day before flooded my body. I was not nervous.

I was in a place very similar to that ecstatic joy that I had felt the day of my diagnosis. And there were a few people in the operating room I knew, but mostly they were strangers – nurses, my surgeon, the scrub tech and everyone started dancing and it was a dance party. And the anesthesiologist who actually had given permission said, “I'll let you dance only if you promise to not make me dance.”

So he wasn't dancing. He borrowed my friend's phone and videotaped the dance. And when I went off to sleep, he gave the phone to my friend who then uploaded it onto YouTube and happened to press the public button option on YouTube. And somehow, while I was undergoing surgery, the video went viral and people -- not only my friends -- started making dances to Get Me Bodied, but random strangers from all over the world started dancing to that song.

And making videos of themselves dancing to that song and sending the videos to me and posting them online. And it became this pop-up social movement that happened while I was asleep. I woke up and, when I was in post-op, my friend Lowell, the one who I brought to dance nine months prior, said “Your video is going viral.”

And I'm like, “What video?” Because it had been on my friend's phone. And so that's how that started. And then people started dancing before their surgeries. And then I started connecting with people from around the world and it was like a cosmic two-by-four that I was meant to not only work in the hospital in a somewhat conventional way -- I try to be a little unconventional about it -- but not only work in the hospital, but also bring this embodiment to others. So that's some of the arc of how we landed here today.

Cynthia: Well, I have a clip of that video. I'd love to just share it with people who haven't seen it. And also for all of us who have seen it, it just ignites something that words can't quite capture. So let me pull that up, right? Can you see that?

[clip from video]

Deborah: Ooh, I get a little tingle. I don't watch it often. I rarely watch it, but it speaks to the power actually of how – you know there's so much talk about the body holding trauma, but the body also holds joy, you know. Thank you for that.

Cynthia: You’re welcome. Thank you. What's the importance of dancing and community? I mean, what really struck me was not just what you were radiating, but the whole surgical team. That doesn't happen in an OR.

Deborah: Well, now it does. (laughter)

Cynthia: It didn’t when I was there. What is the role -- because you spoke also about that first time you experienced or witnessed and participated in conscious dance? And also the night of your diagnosis. If you were dancing alone versus dancing with people, what would that difference be? Or would it not be? Is it purely a state of mind?

Deborah: Thank you for that question. I would say it's very analogous to meditating. Actually. I think there's a very important role for meditating alone and really feeling into solitude and feeling into our connection to the natural surroundings and there's something very potent and important meditating in community, as well. And really remembering how inherently interwoven we are with others. And so with dance, there is a role for dancing alone. I think it can be hard for many of us to do that. For others, it may  actually feel safer, for those of us who may judge how we move or feel like we're supposed to move in a certain way.

Dancing in community there's so much -- there's an electric, energetic field that we all co-create together, and we feed off that energy. We all have these mirror neurons, right? And we see someone moving a certain way and it actually ignites some analogous part of our brain and in our gut and in our bodies and in our hearts within us. And so when we dance with others, we're reminded in this felt sense, in this embodied, experiential way, how inherently connected we are with each other. 

And, bringing it back to the dancing in the operating room, I had two friends who were there, and then there were two residents who happened to be rotating at that hospital.  My surgery was at a hospital where I had done some residency training, but not where I worked.  But everyone else, they were all strangers. And I was just shocked, pleasantly surprised, that they would honor my healing by participating. And it felt like, "Oh, this is not just about my healing."  And in fact, the part of the video, kind of the end where I'm, dancing, there's that table between us and the nurse has her arms out; we communed. That was healing for both of us. I've since been in conversation with her about that.  For the surgeons and the nurses and the anesthesiologist and all the people who do mastectomies day in and day out, it is not typically a joyous occasion.  And, having been in conversation with them since that, -- just like that first day of me going to dance class and I expanded beyond my grief and fear and allowed joy -- it allowed them to also -- it was like, giving permission to have a more expansive experience and that, actually, joy is invited.  In fact, joy and interconnectedness, that is an intimate part of healing.  So it was a collective experience. It was not just my experience.

Cynthia:  You spoke earlier about experiencing liberation in your body, and I'm just wondering what you might say, and perhaps you might guide us in a practice for those of us who might not feel so safe or free within our bodies.

Deborah: Yeah, thank you for that question. I would say many, many people have had many experiences that have been traumatizing and for good reason we, many of us, and I include myself in this too, have learned to disconnect from our body because it doesn't feel like a safe place.  And I would say the invitation is -- and maybe we can do this now together, and if this feels safe and available, softening your gaze or closing your eyes --. And finding a place in your body that feels good or safe, or at least neutral.  Often the parts that are in pain speak loudest.  What does it look like to ask your body? "Hey, what, where am I feeling safe right now?"  Maybe it's inside your mouth or maybe it's your thumb, the tip of your nose.  Noticing a sensation, maybe sensing into a texture or a color. And if at any point it becomes too much, opening your eyes, feeling your seat, feeling your feet, looking out the window, looking at a tree, looking at an object that you associate with joy or comfort. And then, when it feels safe or comfortable, going back into your body, feeling your feet as they connect to the ground, maybe feeling your back against the chair, inviting yourself to soften a little bit, just use a little less effort, maybe softening the jaw. And if it feels safe and comfortable, maybe finding a place in your body that feels a little bit constricted, or maybe is communicating with you because of a little pain or tingling, and bringing attention and love and light to that area, noticing it without judgment, bringing warmth.  And now an invitation to bring your hands together and starting to rub your hands together and really feeling skin against skin. You could do this with a hand against your leg or your belly or face, but feeling how warmth is generated as we rub our skin, maybe noticing textures.  And if your eyes have been closed, opening your eyes.  For me, I'm rubbing my hands, and this is a dance. It can have music to it, but it doesn't have to. And maybe I'll expand my awareness to my arms and invite my arms to move in different directions, maybe even imagining you're that fetus in that amniotic fluid stretching out your limbs as far as they'll go and then bringing them closer back into your core, closer to your heart.  That's dancing.  And bring our back bodies.  That's what's behind us.  Thank you.

Cynthia.  Lovely.  Lovely.  We're coming to the top of the hour, and I would love to shift gears just a little bit with this question.  You've also been practicing as a doula, which is, for lack of a better term, a coach, right? Someone who's kind of accompanying someone, usually associated with the birthing process.  But you also are a doula for the dying process, for death. And I'm fascinated by -- I often tend to think of birth and death as opposites. And of course, they're a completion of cycles.  What are the similarities? What are the overlaps? Where did they diverge?  Or if there's a story you might want to share or are able to share to take us into what the death doula experience is like.

Deborah:  I would say they're very similar, being at births and being at deaths. Births are much louder, generally speaking. The emotional charge is actually very similar.  The amount of emotion is very similar though they tend to be at, or they can be, at opposite ends of the spectrum. Though for the person who is being born, the fetus, becoming a baby, and for the person dying, it's actually very similar energy in terms of finding that path of least resistance, surrendering into the experience. There is no efforting.

My role feels very similar, like what I sense and feel in my heart is very similar, in my body and in those two experiences. I'm there to witness and to help the passage be as safe and as easy as possible. Ideally, many pregnant people will have wishes or intentions for their experience, and similar for people who are dying, trying to, as much as possible, honoring those wishes and trying to help hold space and create an environment, whether it's music, chanting, saying certain things, sending certain messages. But really, in both cases, it's these transition moments that we inherently know how to do, reminding everyone involved that it's a natural process. Obviously in the birthing process sometimes things do go askew, and we need to intervene, or we recommend an intervention. So they veer off in that way.

Cynthia: Great. Thank you. Before I hand it over to Kristin, we are going to close this portion with a collective dance.

Deborah: Yes. And I want to tell a little story before I put the music on. I want to tell the story of a woman named Janet. She was a woman in her thirties who had been diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer at a young age. She was so graceful! She embraced her impending death and spoke very openly about her experience of facing death as a young person. Six days before she died, Janet was on retreat with us at Commonweal, with a group of other young women with metastatic breast cancer. We were doing an embodiment workshop and near the end of the session together, we were all dancing to Michael Franti's I'm Alive. We then came together in a circle. There were about nine of us and all of our shoulders were touching and Janet was crying joyful tears. She could not believe that she was dancing. She knew she was about to die. And we each felt our own heartbeats. And then collectively, all of us put our hands on Janet's heart, reflecting that the only truth in that moment, even though she was about to die, was that she was actually fully alive. So I invite us all to embrace that, in this moment, we are all fully alive, together. So everyone who’s feeling it. I invite you to rise in body and spirit and let's dance together. [music plays: Life sounds like, I'm alive … Whoa-oh-oh, I'm alive]

Cynthia: I have to catch my breath; I am actually feeling our heartbeats.

Kristin: Now let's soak that in for a second. Thank you. I want to remind listeners that they can submit a question or comment any time on the live stream form or send us an email. There are so many questions and beautiful comments that have come in. I think I'll start with a couple of comments of gratitude. Margie says, "Deborah's video inspires me to dance freely and inhabit my body with joy and freedom, which she radiates.” Tiz says, "Deb, when I saw your flash mob surgery, I started crying joy again. I want more of this again. So many diseases have sidelined me since. I'm ready to dance with joy and with gratitude again. Thank you." I have a comment from Basha, "Hello from Shoreline, Washington. I'm a two-time breast cancer thriver: 1994 and 2007. Also I'm in the double mastectomy sorority. Just keep dancing, connecting, and healing".

So I wanted to start with a question for you, Deborah, of my own, in thinking of the listeners out there, if there are any of those out there who are newly diagnosed with breast cancer or cancer, or at the beginning of treatment, what words of wisdom might you have for them at this stage of their journey?

Deborah: Yes. Well, I will say that I want to acknowledge and name that it can feel incredibly lonely and scary. Even the most connected people who have huge families and friend networks. Still, you're the one with the diagnosis and you're the one getting the treatments. I want to name that, and that is hard.

I hesitate to give advice, though what I will say is what I found helpful for me is to find those people and to invite people who do not judge me, people who would love me, people who love me and, to invite positive energy. In my case particularly, some of my friend groups kind of shifted. Cancer and other such diagnoses can be really scary for other people. Sometimes those people fade away.

The other piece I found useful was to just release those relationships that clearly weren't serving me in that moment and to focus on the ones that were helpful.

The other piece to this is that if you aren't already in a relationship with your body and your heart that feels trusting to engage in activities where you feel like you can find how to be in alignment -- whether it's dance or drawing or listening to music or singing or going to church. In short, whatever it is that, when you're in that environment, makes you feel in alignment, keep doing that. Find those opportunities.

The other piece is on the medical side of things. Whenever possible, get multiple opinions and find a healthcare team that will really respect you and your values. Those who will engage you actually as the person in charge of your healing. They are in service to you, and not the other way around. Our conventional allopathic healthcare system is not quite set up for that. As much as feasible, try to create opportunities for yourself to advocate for actually what you need.

Kristin: That's beautiful. Thank you so much. Connecting with your body and the way through dance that really resonates with a lot of our listeners out there. Mary says, “I am alive in the hills of Southern Indiana; will release my body to dance.” We have listeners all over the country. Someone from Chevy Chase, “I'd love to get up and dance.” I have a question from Preeta, and she wants to know how you might suggest people in a more rural area experience conscious dancing. Considering they're not in an urban space where that's available at this particular studio.

Deborah: Yeah, well, now is the time, right? There are these unintended consequences of COVID that there is a lot more actually that's online now. I'll tell you about two resources. One there's something called Conscious Dancer Magazine, and they actually have a worldwide map where you can type in your zip code and find conscious dance experiences near you.

Secondly, now that so much is happening via Zoom. I want to invite you to my favorite teacher's class that happens on Wednesday mornings. It is on hiatus at the moment. She is away but she'll be coming back. Her name is Valerie Chafograck and you can Google her on Dance Sanctuary. The class takes place Wednesday mornings at 8:45 a.m. Pacific Time. It starts with 10 minutes of meditation and then we dance. If you have a computer or a phone that allows you to Zoom, you can participate. It is a beautiful community dancing together. On behalf of Valerie, I invite you all.

Kristin: Wonderful. There are so many beautiful comments coming in with appreciation for you. Monica says, "what a treat to wake up to, your energy aura is so strong. I love soaking it in." Stephanie says, "I absolutely love that dancing. I have tears of joy feeling the experience of being alive on this day of so much sorrow and in a year of so much death. Thank you abundantly for this."

I wanted to know what kind of music you feel called to right now. Like what are you moving to? What is speaking to you? And that could be books, music, movement. Tell us a little bit about that.

Deborah: Yeah, I am very open. I like almost all kinds of music. If the truth be known, I don't love country music. I'm sorry for anyone who is a fan out there, but I like almost every other kind of music. What I will say is at this moment, I'm feeling very connected to two musicians. One is Taj Mahal, the Blues musician. And I'll tell a little story about that. And the other is Mischa Elman, who was a Russian violinist. He has since died. I found out recently that actually he is one of my ancestors, so I've been listening to his music. That has been really a beautiful way for me to connect with my ancestors.

So Taj Mahal, a few weeks ago, I was in conversation with Cynthia about this. Honestly, I was quite disembodied. At that moment I was talking to her -- I was just like, "I'm so sick of just me being a floating head in a Zoom box, my bottom somewhat hurts from sitting so much [laughs]. I'm working so much in the hospital, my body hurts."

So last Friday, I sat in prayer, and I said, "Universe, can I please just dance in community? I am just really wanting that right now." So then the next afternoon I walked down the street to this guitar store near my house. And there sitting on a bench was Taj Mahal, playing music and not making a big deal of it. I asked, "Can I dance?" He's like, "Absolutely." So for about two hours I danced while Taj Mahal was playing live music at the corner by my house.

So many lessons in that remind us to be in a humble and grateful conversation with the universe.

Kristin: The universe is amazing.

So we have another question and comment here. David says, "What a wonderful eruption in that surgery room. When I celebrate her dance to life, I'm in the present here and now without goal or agenda into the process that's happening, not outcome oriented but spontaneous. And living what I wrote is medicine, medicine being that, which helps us he'll be more whole. I believe that the dance that erupted in the sterile surgery room was medicine. I was wondering if you would talk a little bit about how you see medicine. You've got this incredibly deep training of medicine in this certain way, but I can see how you see medicine as being much more than that."

Deborah: Yes. Yes. And thank you to the person who wrote those comments. Yes, that was healing. Dance is healing. Dance is medicine. Our bodies are medicine. That's not what we conventionally are taught is medicine. Medicine is so outside of us; it's a surgery that takes parts away from us, or it's in a pill in a bottle that sits on a counter.

My life's journey is navigating through these waters of deep trust in the body's inherent capacity to heal, and also being part of a system that in many ways has a very opposite message. And I'm not the only one. There are many of us insiders who are trying to change how medicine is taught and how medicine is offered to our patients. Sometimes surgery is necessary and sometimes medicine is necessary. What felt most healing to my soul was the dancing, the connecting with community, prayer, meditation. All of those things feel most healing to the innermost core. And yet I did undergo surgery and I also had chemotherapy. I have a foot in each realm. Ideally, they don't separate from each other. But in fact, there are many of us, Cynthia included, who are trying to bring these worlds closer together. So it's all the more integrated.

Kristin: Yeah, that is a beautiful way of seeing it as a part of your body and it's not spreading it out, but it's all whole. Related to that I'd like to know if you could talk about when you're working with patients and their families, especially those that you see that might be disconnected to their bodies, how do you help guide them? And this could be maybe helpful to the listeners who are maybe also feeling a similar disconnection.

Deborah: Yes. Well, I'm remembering a situation. This may be a dramatic case. But as Cynthia mentioned earlier, I care for pregnant people who are living with HIV and I had done the prenatal care for this one woman. When it was time for her delivery, she was undergoing a Caesarean delivery because she had prior Caesarean deliveries. She had a history of trauma, which many people do, and I would say most of my patients do. When she got the epidural, it was very scary for her to not be able to feel her body. Obviously, she didn't want to feel the pain during surgery, but it was scary for her to not even be able to feel any sensation. There was the blue drape that we have. So she was really disconnected from her body in a way that was out of her control. I was doing her Caesarean delivery and she started having a panic attack.

So as I was delivering her baby, I was also putting my head over the drape and speaking with her about finding places in her body that did feel safe, that did feel accessible. So what she ended up doing was taking her tongue and feeling the inside of her mouth and really focusing her attention on those sensations and that she had volitional control over that experience. And that did help her get through that experience.

Also, I think what really helped her was that, and it wasn't just me, but she had a friend there and the anesthesiologist and the nurses -- we stayed in communication with her. So that's a dramatic example, but how can we extract some lessons that are relevant for when you're not in an operating room, but maybe feel disconnected to your body. Finding places that do feel safe, do feel accessible. Connecting with others who help you feel safe and connected.

The other piece I would say is bringing tremendous compassion. Oftentimes people don't want to dance because they judge how they move. Oftentimes people will shut off their body either because of things that have happened to their body without their control and/or because they have judgment about that. So I would say the first practice is compassion.

Kristin: Beautiful. Well, we have listeners from all over the world. Penelope says, "Dancing with you today recently rediscovered my childhood joy of dancing solo through these strange COVID times has made all the difference. Yes, it's medicine and healing. Indigenous people know that. Blessings to all in this call from the tiny island of Tobago in the Caribbean. Try dancing to soca and steelpan."

Deborah: Beautiful. May I say one thing I want to name, because it's come up a few times and I intended to actually name it at the beginning for those of you who are listening right now in real time -- that it's September 11th. For those of us, at least in the United States, it was a day of collective trauma. I actually was working on labor and delivery that day, witnessing births. I remember I took a shuttle to the hospital that day and the shuttle was full and it was silent. No one was saying a word. We were all in our collective shock – flight, fight, freeze. We were all in a collective freeze.

And we're now as a global community in multiple overlapping interwoven crises of climate change and COVID, and then oppression in many forms. Dance is an antidote to that. It doesn't cure it. The intent is to not pretend that hardship isn't there. Really, the invitation is to expand and broaden and to not only focus on grief and trauma and violence. Really to hold all of those with compassion and care and love. And to remember that we're all connected, we're all connected to this earth. We're all connected to each other. When we connect with each other, something bigger is possible and that's where joy and calm and resilience and alignment is invited. When we expand beyond the contraction and the freeze.

Kristin: That's beautiful and that even relates to a question that came up that was kind of taking that on the more individual level. If you could comment on the feeling during disease that the body has betrayed us? Going back to kind of what you were feeling in that very moment after diagnosis. We're having this on a global scale, but, how is it on the individual level?

Deborah: Yes, I relate to that very much. Certainly the day of my diagnosis I felt so betrayed by this body. The irony is that I actually felt like I was in such good shape. I was really strong and I'd been dancing a lot. And then I had cancer, but how is this possible? I'm already eating so much kale and organic foods of all sorts and I dance.

That feeling of betrayal is real and I still get it. It relates to what I was just saying before. What does it look like? What would it feel like? If it feels accessible, maybe even soften your gaze or close your eyes and like sensing into the disappointment, grief, anger, betrayal about the body and sprinkling some compassion. Our bodies hold this incredible paradox. Our bodies hold newborn energy. It is constantly in a cycle of rebirth, regrowth, regeneration. It also holds the energy of a wise elder. We are all getting older. The moment we are born with our first breath we are ever closer to dying. Every moment we are regenerating. Every moment we are in that still point of non-movement. Every moment we are moving closer to our death. All of those things are true at the same time. So yes, that betrayal, that disappointment -- of our body not functioning and reminding us that we are mortal, that we are dying, we are in the process of dying. And yet also holding that still point, that emptiness, also holding that possibility of regenerating in every moment. It is all true.

Kristin: That goes back to the dichotomy of birth and death that have been in this call earlier. Thank you. We have time for, I think, two more questions before we have to wrap up. I wanted to know if you could comment on dancing and intuition. What are the connections? How do we develop intuition through dance? And do you have other regular practices besides conscious dance?

Deborah: Thank you for that question. I'm feeling called to answer the second part of the question first. I do have other practices. Every morning I meditate. I have done different kinds of meditation over the decades, and the one that I've been doing for the past few years is called Integral Kabbalah Meditation. And I do that every morning. And if I happen to not, because something comes up, I can't go to bed unless I've done it. The other piece is that I don't dance every day, but I do try to be in my body; at least a few times I try to bring awareness and consciousness. It may even be ... this is maybe a voluntary homework assignment: when I'm doing dishes, or washing my hands, just taking a moment to feel the water on my hands, or the soap, feeling my feet on the ground, just even taking a moment. So then the first part of the question was about ....I'm forgetting now. (That's the risk of answering the second part first.) What was the first part again? I remember it was an awesome question.

Kristin: It spoke to dance and intuition and the connection and developing [that].

Deborah: Thank you. Well, I am really a novice. I've been at it for several decades, and I'm really still a novice learning about intuition. And I think it really comes down to listening, deep listening — not listening to what we're told, not listening to what we read that someone else says we're supposed to think; though, of course, welcoming the learnings and the teachings.  Instead, cultivating a really deep listening, and noticing when something feels true, coming from a place of alignment; versus true, because, "Oh, someone told me this and I'm feeling insecure and uncertain about myself," or "I'm afraid, but oh, this other person told me this thing, or there's this teaching: it's that." Or, in the case of medicine, "Oh, this is what it says in the textbook." I think intuition is much more about this deep listening.

I find it easier when I close my eyes. I find intuition in my body. And I find the answers in my body when I'm quiet. Sometimes it's in movement; sometimes it's in stillness. And the connection is when I'm in movement and I bring an intentionality to it. It's not just, "I'm going to throw on music and I feel like exercising," but it's, "I invite the lessons right now." I may even go with a specific question. There's a practice called authentic movement, and I will often enter the space with a very specific question. You know: "How am I meant to approach this relationship that's causing some friction in my heart?" Or, I asked my body as I was going through this cancer journey, "Like, am I supposed to have a mastectomy? Am I supposed to have a double mastectomy? Am I supposed to have a lumpectomy?" And I asked my body and did authentic movement. And it came to me in the form of a story and some archetypical images. And there was my answer, and I knew it was true. So I think there are many ways for people to tap into that deep listening. For some people it's drawing, for some people it's in meditation, for some people it's really tapping into the energy of the stars and the cosmos. I think what it's not is listening to the chatter stories in the mind. The mind may be involved, but I think probably [for] people who are tapping in, the difference [is] between the chatter and the wisdom.

Kristin: So it all goes back to the body.

Deborah: Well, the body is a portal. For some people, it feels more accessible than others. For others, kind of that first point of entry is the heart.

Kristin: There's so many more questions that have popped up, and I'm sorry that we can't get to them. But I wanted to read a comment from a triple negative breast cancer survivor. "I love music and dancing, and I'm full of joy and in peace at this very moment. Thank you all very much." She put that in caps. "May you all have a wonderful journey." And the final question that we have is a question that we ask all our speakers here at Awakin Calls. And that is, How can we, as the larger ServiceSpace community — a global ecosystem committed to voluntary service, compassion, and creating changes in the world by changing ourselves — support your vision in your work in the world?

Deborah: I would say: Be kind to yourself, be kind to your body, be kind to each other. (I think I'm probably singing and dancing with the choir.) And any opportunity to step closer to love, to embrace the light, for you to be in your own light, and that kind of light that welcomes in others, that allows and invites and welcomes others to shine as well. And bringing compassion to not only your own trauma, but the trauma that others hold as well. We're all imperfect. And what would it look like for us all to forgive ourselves and each other?

Kristin: Wow. Thank you. I wanted to quickly check in with Cynthia if she had any final thoughts before we bid farewell.

Cynthia: I'd love to close this time with a beautiful sentiment from one of your primary teachers, Deborah, Anna Halprin. And I thought I would read this twice; it's very short. And then we'll just close in silence the same way we opened.

Kristin: Can I first jump in before you do to that, go to that — just that there were a couple people asking about the two resources, and I wanted to say that when we post the recording of the call we'll have that information for the two resources that Deborah mentioned. Thank you so much, and I'll pass it over. Thank you, Cynthia.

Cynthia: So, okay, great. So these are the words of the legendary Anna Halprin: "The body is living art. Your movement through time and space is art. A painter has brushes. You have your body.” (repeat) “The body is living art. Your movement through time and space is art. A painter has brushes. You have your body."