Ever Feel Stuck? Dancing Through Grief (Hopefully, a future TEDX speech)

The title of my speech is “Dancing Through Grief” and I have 2 core goals to support this message: 1) to bring others back to ballroom dancing to reconnect human to human and 2) Dance is an antidote for the disconnected society.

I became a widow at the age of 41. I did not have the luxury to just grieve. I had 2 teenagers to raise and therefore had to find a way to deal with the stress of grief, support my children, and rediscover my own identity. Suddenly, I did not fit in with the married couple friends and family. My couples friend support system was gone. As a teacher, I began to question why? All I knew is I felt stuck in my misery and falling deeper into a grief invoked depression. So one day I decided to walk into the dance studio with my teenage daughter to inquire about dance lessons and my life began to change. I could move through my grief and made new social connections on the dancefloor. With a lot of work and practice, I became a dancer because I had found joy while working through the grief.

According the U.S. Census, did you know that the death of a spouse is ranked as the number one stressor? Did you know that 800,000 people are widowed every year? Out of those 800,000,

700,000 widowed are women? On average, 75% of the survivor’s support base is lost leading to isolation in grief, which includes couple friends and family. I became one of those statistics in 2004, when my husband, Dave, at the age of 45, passed away from colon cancer.

How can ballroom dance help those in widowhood stop feeling “stuck” and reconnect to other?

Erin van Vuren, a renown poet, said, “There are four things in this life that can change you. Love, music, art, and loss. The first three will keep you wild and full of passion. May you allow the last to make you brave.”

Foxtrot, east coast swing, and cha cha… I love them all. I did not grow up as a dancer. I became involved in ballroom dancing at the age of 42, a 6-month widow looking for release from grief. Dave’s untimely death reminded me, there were things I still wanted to do. After casually driving by the Arthur Murray dance studio for years, I coaxed up enough courage with my teen-age daughter, Julie, for moral support, to go inside and inquire about dance lessons. I met the exuberant Ahmed Hussein, the owner of the dance studio. He offered me a free lesson and I self-consciously booked it. My daughter also enthusiastically booked a dance lesson.

From a widow’s perspective, the question I asked myself was whether I would ever enjoy life again without my soulmate? Without Dave, our usual social connections were not the same. They were constant reminders of the life we had to live without him. Julie and I needed a place where we could just be known for ourselves. We had found ourselves, stuck in the life following the funeral, and needed to embrace the lives we were meant to live

What we found at the dance studio, surprised us both. We found a studio like “Cheers”, where all the instructors, welcomed us by name and we received hugs for our efforts. Ahmed trained all of us to welcome new dancers to our studio and encouraged us to seek out the widow, widower, and those alone and ask them to dance. Right away, dance taught me how to respect my partner and welcome others to the love of dance.  Grief had caused a disconnection and now through dance, we could begin to connect with others. S. Kelley Harrell wrote in The Gift of the Dreamtime, “We don't heal in isolation, but in community…” Our healing had begun in the dance community.

Dance helps you process your inner feelings. While I was dancing, the hidden grief relaxed for a moment, and I could feel the promise of joy. For the first time in 6 months, I felt I could survive this incredible loss and reclaim joy again.  As anyone who has lost a loved one, grief is processed differently by every individual. For me, the ballroom dances provided safety in its patterns and weight changes. Peter Townsend explained, “Dance enables you to find yourself and lose yourself at the same time.”

During one dance lesson, grief reared its ugly head along with my frustration at not being able to complete a particular pattern, but the unsuspecting instructor was compassionate and allowed time to process what I was feeling and dry my tears. On the dancefloor, I learned how to harness those silent emotions of despair and put them to work. Dance gives you confidence through movement and releases stress.  Thanks to the endorphins and uplifting music!

Martha Graham (1985) explained “Dance is the hidden language of the soul, of the body.”

A month prior to Dave’s first death anniversary, I dedicated a dance to my late husband, Dave. It was a foxtrot and bolero dance with Ahmed.  Celine Deion’s “Because You Loved Me” played in the background. “You gave me faith ‘cause you believed, I’m everything I am because you loved me.”  This song captured the essence of my husband’s support for my family and dreams. He supported me through graduate school and this eventually led to a doctorate degree. After teaching all day, I would go to school in the evening. He would feed the children and help them with their homework. There was not a dry eye in the crowd. The cathartic and healing dance allowed me to thank Dave for our lives together and release him.

Dance lead to adventures. Within 5 months of dance instruction, Juliana and I competed in an international ballroom dance competition in Verona, Italy. There, I discovered that I was truly a social dancer, while my daughter enjoyed the competition. Julie enjoyed the creativity through choreography, competition, and performance. She liked working as a team with her partner. Dance moves beyond barriers (language, age, socio-economics, etc…) as we discovered in Verona’s dance competition.

Dance made us feel alive again. Dance even helped me to become a friend to my 16 year-old daughter. In the midst of our common grief, we found the dance connection in common. Dancing improved our communication. Dance also offered my daughter a career.

Jessica Sittig (2005) in her blog article, “Moving Grief” announced “Coping with grief and loss through movement is as old as humankind” (para.1). She added Psalm 30:11, “Thou hast turned my mourning into dancing.” Two extreme emotions would seem to war with each other. How can you possibly reclaim joy through dancing?

Julie Bergers wrote an article for Salsa in the Suburbs website, “Dance Your Grief Away: How Dance Can Help with Loss”. Music, movement, and connections are often found deficient in those who grieve. Bergers wrote about a widow named Denise, who had begun latin dancing. Denise stated, “While life will never be the same because losing a loved one is traumatic, our loved ones would not ever want us to give up and live lives of sadness, but would much rather see us dance” (para.10). Denise had stated eloquently what many of us felt through loss: disconnected and offered hope of connecting with others and joy.

There were healthy social outcomes gained from a ballroom community of friends. Even after a move from northern Florida to central Indiana, I found a dance community. I found others with a common dance connection and formed extraordinary adult friendships in the midst of a disconnected society. I am going to introduce to 4 of these extraordinary dance friends.

Billie, was our dance instructor extraordinaire. She could go anywhere to dance and have people drawn to approach her with their own personal desire to dance. She was a true dance ambassador because she would “right on the spot” teach a basic dance lesson on the mall sidewalk, at a local dance, or in a studio. Dancing was like walking where there were left and right steps and changes in weight balance. Her dance instructor advice was to keep it simple and fun! She explained there were basically 3 basic patterns to ballroom: 1) walking forward and backward, 2) walking side to side, and 3) rock step. Every dance comes from these basic patterns. She told me of a couple who came to her dance lesson and the husband had great expectations and concern. When she demonstrated these 3 simple steps and the husband was able to lead his wife in a closed position walking front and backward, he smiled. He felt successful and then relaxed for the next instruction. My bond with Billie grew strong because we were both lovers of dance, teachers, and later, widows together.

Dave, a widower, and always the elegant partner in dance explained, “You learn a skill that is a lot of fun and at the same time you get to meet a lot of new people that you would never meet if you did not take a dance lesson.” Dave would always introduce me to other widows and I would share my story with them to encourage that they too could have a joyful life after the loss of a loved one.

Kathy, is our dancing diva. She always strived to learn more and apply these silver and gold level skills on the dancefloor. She competed and performed well. Kathy is a beautiful and graceful dancer with an incredible and open heart. She is a champion of life and forever my dance sister.

Then there was Russ, a true friend in life and gentleman on the dancefloor.  He loved to dance and socialize. He loved his Lord, his family, and his friends. I count myself lucky to be one of Russ’ friends. While dancing the polka, he had a heart attack, He died shortly after. His funeral was well-attended by several dance studios of dancers, but we took comfort in that he was doing what he loved, dancing, when he left this world. I can only imagine he is still dancing in heaven.

I conducted an informal survey of some facebook dance friends:  Why did you start dancing?

Several friends commented it was a fun social activity. Others had learned how to dance young, while others learned as adults. One couple wrote dance was something they had in common when they dated, so they wanted to continue dancing in their marriage, like dating forever. I love the answer about dancing is like dating forever; it improves communication and intimacy in marriage, and it is a fun, social activity to meet others. Each of these is forever friends, first connected through dance, and then our shared lives. “I think the reason dance has held such an ageless magic for the world is that it has been the symbol of the performance of living” Martha Graham. Dance is harmony and rhythm swirled together in movement.

Years later, I dedicated a testimonial nightclub two-step dance to my daughter to the tune of Jamie O’ Neal’s “Brave”. Julie helped choreograph the dance and was the leader and I followed her lead.

I’ve been down just as low as anyone can get, the whole world was closing in and I couldn’t find a friend. No one else could help me, I had to walk through the fire alone … life has brought me to my knees, faith has lead me home.

Let the storm rage around me, I will stand and I will fight! And when the darkness surrounds me I will make my own light! I may not win every battle, but I will get stronger with every fear I face… and I’ll be brave!

Words do not have to be said, as there is self-expression through the dancing. Self-expression combined with meaningful lyrics and personal history encourages us … we will be ok no matter what happens in life. Julie and I had learned to be brave through our loss and found joy in the process. Each of our dance friends, my daughter Julie, and I had found a way to connect through dance in a disconnected society. The dance was our antidote to grief.

As H. Jackson Brown Jr would say, “Opportunity dances with those already on the dancefloor!”   Be brave! I hope to see you on the dancefloor!

References

"Martha Graham Reflects on Her Art and a Life in Dance" (31 March 1985); republished in The New York Times Guide to the Arts of the 20th Century (2002), p. 2734.

Woodbridge, Jerry. (2010). Trading My Sorrows for the Joy of the Lord. Bloomington: iUniverse Publishing.

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