I am sharing the longer story of why I co-created this workshop to dissolve stigma around emotional pain, and to communicate it in an honest and dignified way.

<aside> 🍃 If you are triggered by any of the below stories, or deeply relate to them, feel free to reach out to me if you want to share (+33 6 43 76 41 57), and take some time to ground your self in your present situation.

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During the first confinement in Paris, from March 2020 to May 2020, I experienced strong waves of emotions. Everyday, I would cry a lot, but not understand why exactly I was crying.

I knew part of my sadness was due to the passing of my grandmother. On March 16, 2020, the first day of the confinement in France, my father called me to share that Bea passed away. Due to the confinement, my family and I were separated and the collective ritual (a memorial) to honor and grieve a loved one's life was not able to come together. As a result, I held a lot of the grief in my personal space, and sometimes it overflowed to my other relationships, affecting them negatively.

Due to physical stillness of the confinement, strong emotions I neglected from my past surfaced. These emotions were connected to my personal traumas: that of loss from an abortion, that of childhood sexual abuse, and relational trauma connected to my parents. My emotions consisted of despair, anger, dis-empowerment and at the more intense moments, suicidal ideation.

A few years ago, I read "The Body Keeps the Score" by Bessel van der Kolk, and was introduced to the term "trauma". During the confinement, I started researching trauma to understand its effects on my body and mind, and to create distance from it. It felt good to understand where my behaviors and emotions came from. I learnt about "delayed trauma" - how sometimes it may take years for a traumatic event to be felt by the body and mind, because of numbing - a necessary biological defense mechanism.

Since I felt little by little more empowered by this knowledge, I decided to research trauma further. During the pandemic, I came across the "Embodiment conference", which truly inspired me. The conference focused on healing trauma by connecting to our bodies in various ways: social sharing, meditation, mindful movement, and dance.

Before the confinement, I took a few classes in dance-movement therapy which helped liberate my emotions and created new understandings. The imagery generated from movement gave me language to describe and understand my story. I also did what I called "experimental dancing" since the age of 19: a form of improvised dancing, or "free dance" which is a mixture of styles. I knew there was something about explorative movement that had a relaxing and inspiring effect on how I feel, my sense of agency, and connection to life.

Based on these experiences, I co-created this workshop for my self and for people who have been disconnected to their bodies because of stress, anxiety, depression, or a traumatic event, related or unrelated to the pandemic. To dissolve the stigma of trauma, and to express the stories of "pain" and resilience in an explorative and communal way.

I co-created this workshop because we have lived an unexpected, and chronic event, the COVID-19 pandemic, and I would like to share about it, but also express it in mindful movement & dance, to not only express, but liberate difficult emotions we held on to.

I co-created this workshop to feel safe together, and feel supported by one another.

Mimi