Fertility Is a Mirror: A Missing Conversation on Birth Control Recovery and Womanhood with Mandy Muenzer

What if healing could be achieved through movement alone? Well, I guess I should say movement, voice, and expression. There is so much healing we see out in nature through animals. We could just watch how they process getting up from a nap. What do they do? They stretch and move their body. They might shake if they have just experienced trauma of trying to escape from a predator, or if a bird hits a window, what's the first thing they do is they shake. So we see how the physicality plays out of release in the wild, but we have the ability to do it too. And our next guest on Everyday Ancestral is Mandy Menzer. Mandy is on a mission to facilitate personal and intergenerational healing for as many people as possible through dance, somatic movement, and spiritual psychology. I met Mandy at a conference where she would help people after long conversations at the conference. She would do these little breaks where we would all have to get up and start doing these movements, and it would change the dynamic, change the energy of the room immediately. So I'm very excited for you to get to witness and experience Mandy here today on Everyday Ancestral. Please enjoy Mandy Munzer. Mandy, thank you so much for joining me. It's been a minute since I last saw you.

I know. I think the last time I saw you, you were in an Austin Powers costume, and we were dancing together.

Which is a great place to start, actually, because something that I'm very aware of is as we become adults, we get very serious. And I think a lot of people associate dance and any movement that's beyond exercise as Too playful. I'm an adult. I don't do this. I don't do that. So, so how can one find more play in movement?

I see this all the time and I love the point you're making. We get into this like adult mode. Okay. I've gotta, I've gotta do all my adult responsibilities. And so I can't have fun while doing that. It's like a paradox for our brains. And it's true to a certain extent, cuz I will admit when I get in like my airy fairy, you know, like, woo, I just wanna dance. I just wanna sing. I just wanna have fun. Brilliant ideas come to me and I'm having a great time, but I will say sometimes then I forget to pay a bill. So this is not a complete oversight by people who feel like, oh no, I need to be serious cuz I need to stay focused and I need to stay on track with everything. But I think it's a balance, you know, and it's a balance of those left brain and right brain functions and, and finding a marriage between the two that can you know, literally and figuratively dance together.

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. I mean, dance is such an ancestral practice. I would assume it's probably one of the oldest ancestral practices, that and eating. Actually, have you ever studied the history? Do you know how dance has kind of shown up historically?

Absolutely. Well, I was actually a world arts and cultures major at UCLA as an undergraduate, and this was an enlightening experience for me. I didn't go into UCLA thinking that that's what I was going to major in, but I started taking a few classes in that department and fell in love. I had been taking dance my whole life and never was taught that it could be sacred.

Interesting. What, what do you mean by that?

You know, it was always fun and fun is sacred, don't get me wrong. But, you know, in, in America, in the United States, a lot of dance studios, it's, You know, it's about being cute, or it's about being entertaining, or it's about wearing like flashy costumes and making people go, wow, you know, look at their kicks, look at their technique. Ballet can be very, very serious, and you're telling a story, but it's, you know, very important that you point your toes and have your arms exactly perfect. And there's a lot of commercialism in the United States with dance. And so, All of a sudden, I'm at UCLA taking these cultural dance classes and learning that so many cultures, dance is the central focus of, like, their religion, a practice that helps bring the community together. And it's more about bringing the community together with these folk dances than it is about, you know, showing off for each other. I wasn't always, like, showing off in my young dance life, but that was a focus, you know? It was like, how entertaining can I be? You know, even things like So You Think You Can Dance or America's Got Talent, they're amazing shows and we love those shows and we, we love watching the dancers and there can be some very sacred performances, but it is mainly geared towards entertainment versus like a religious practice or an everybody dancing together type of a feeling. It's more of like we're watching one or two talented people And not everybody's a part of that. So I've been really interested in seeing how we can bring everybody into the dance, not make it so much like, oh, talented people versus non-talented people, but to really help everyone find the dancer within, within themselves. Because I really do believe that dancing is healing and that dancing connects us with our soul, helps us connect us with our play and sense of, of fun. And that, that is one of the remedies to our current situation where, you know, there's disconnectedness from the body. I think for centuries though, the mind has been valued over the body. And that's not wrong or bad. The mind is an amazing feature of the human existence. But I think that sometimes the body has been undervalued and the wisdom of the body has been undervalued.

I think you're spot on. specifically here in America, but could be elsewhere as well, where we're taught at a very young age to do the show-me dance. Like, I always think of, like, perform like a monkey, you know? Like, here's a quarter, do your act, you know? 'Cause I wanna be entertained.

Yeah.

So I feel like we're taught that from a very young age, of that dancing for attention, which I think, to your point, becomes very ego-based. And we get very concerned about how we look and how we appear to others. So from your experience, how does one leave the ego behind in dance? How do we let go of ego when we do physical movement around dance?

Yeah, well, it's a process, I think, for a lot of people. I've worked with a lot of people that their first class with me, they're, you know, terrified to let go of that self-consciousness. And they do feel like they're going to be judged. So one of the agreements that I have at the beginning of my classes is, This is a love zone. This is a non-judgment zone. We're all here to experience our dance and express authentically. And it's actually harder, I think, for people not to judge themselves more than it is to judge others. But I think it helps to like voice that in the room so that everyone can kind of agree that, yeah, you know what, this is silly. We are not here to judge each other. We're just here to have fun. And then when everybody kind of hears that that's an agreement in the space, It helps to create safety. It's still, even after doing that, it's not foolproof. I really have to really look around the room and notice what's going on for people and try my best to use different tactics to help them feel more and more safe, whether that's just like a calm, compassionate voice, or maybe it's a moment of self-deprecation where I'm like making fun of myself for a minute. Or I do something really silly to just help people see the range at which they can not care about how it looks. And I'll say things like, don't focus on how it looks, focus on how good it feels to move. That helps people, you know, take the attention off of how it looks. One of the main, um, words like that we can like use here and what we're talking about is presence, not performance.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. So that helps me so much.

I like that presence. I mean, that's something that we're losing a lot of with our current kind of screen habits and our current mode of modern living. We're missing out on, on that presence in the moment. I even think back to my mom. We would have events and she would always be so hell-bent on capturing them on camera. And I'm like, but you're not actually in the event.

Right.

You're capturing the event. And I think it started back then when we had those Insta cameras. And of course now it's extended to these, you know, computers in our pockets, which you now have access to the entire world. Well, let's discuss movement, how it serves as a therapeutic tool. Clearly there's a lot of people, as you mentioned, struggling to be present, but we also have other things going on, traumas, sadness, you know, emotions that are really like stuck in our bodies and they're not getting expressed. Uh, we, we use that term of like burnt toast when they do finally come out, right?

Oh, sure.

So how can someone who's not expressing their feelings, who's had trauma, how can they use movement and dance?

One of the first steps, you know, that you learn in mindfulness techniques as well is the breath. And the breath really is the foundation for all movement as well. And when we connect breath with our movement, there can be some, some powerful things that start to occur. And I think people tend to feel a little less scared if we call it movement versus dance. All of a sudden dance, you know, brings up all of that performance anxiety, whereas movement is like, oh, okay, well, yeah, I just moved while I was talking. Like my shoulders did this. That's movement. So just focusing on the breath and here you could do it with me. So James, go ahead and take a breath and then just let your body move on the exhale, however it feels good to you. Yeah.

Yeah. I could feel my shoulders really like want to move and relax. And of course now my neck feels all like rubbery.

Yeah. So take another deep breath and then just keep following that thread. So yeah, you closed your eyes, your neck kind of waddled to the side. You could exaggerate that by then taking that even further by allowing your body to, you know, continue to move like a ripple effect after whatever happened, you know, very organically with your breath. And just in that, do you feel a little more calm or a little more centered?

Oh yeah, definitely. I feel more in my body. I mean, I think that's a beautiful, like, in, right? Is connecting the breath and letting that depth of breath kind of take you through your body. And if anything too, I think right away I noticed, oh, my shoulders were tight, you know? So I immediately went into my body upon taking the breath.

Yes, that's a very key part too, is that the breath is helping us to become present to what's happening in the body. So a lot of times at the beginning of class, I'm Cueing the breath and helping participants to really notice what they're noticing in their body from head to toe.

Oh yeah.

Okay. I feel a sensation in the back of my neck. I feel a creak over here in like the side of my shoulder at the base of my neck. And then I'm helping cue participants to keep breathing into those places and spaces where they feel constriction, where they feel tightness, where they're feeling tense. And then to eventually coax them into letting that move, you know, roll the shoulder, wiggle the head like a snake.

And you mentioned, like, they're closing their eyes sometimes, so then that way maybe they're not looking at other people, they're not comparing themselves to other people.

Exactly.

But now we're talking about it as though someone went to a class, but really this is something someone could do in their—

Oh, yeah.

The privacy of their own home, right?

Absolutely. It's obviously free. Your breath is free. Your, your body is right there with you. You can take literally 3 seconds just to take not just a deep breath, but allow your body to, to move with the breath. So that's kind of the little extra layer. Um, 'cause everyone always says take a deep breath, but they don't necessarily say take a deep breath and let your body kind of like let go. And shaking is a somatic technique that's very common in the animal kingdom. You see tons of animals get up and shake off really quick, whether it's just after a nap to kind of, all right, I'm up, I'm up. Or if it's actually like a predator, you know, that tried to chase them and then they have a little bit of trauma stored in their body, but let's say they safely escaped the threat. Then you'll see zebras, antelopes, all kinds of different gazelles. do this whole like shake-off pattern in their behavior. Scientists believe that that is them shaking out the fear response, the trauma, the nervous system response.

Right. I have heard that before. That's so interesting. Now you just mentioned somatic, and I know that's something you specialize in. Can you talk about what is somatic movement?

Yeah. So soma is the body. That's the root word is soma. And so somatic is just Meaning embodied approach to these therapeutic methodologies. So I'd say it's like the combination of mindfulness practices with the body.

Okay.

Is the simplest way to kind of explore somatics and somatic healing. You'll, you'll see things labeled somatic healing or somatic arts. Even massage therapy can be put in that bucket. But I'm mainly using it with dance movement.

It is technically different from dance, right? In the sense that dance might have a connotation or an association with it, where somatic could be any movement. It doesn't have to be with music. It could be any expression, right?

Exactly. Exactly. Sometimes I'll have clients just, you know, dance with their fingers as a way to just get movement going without it being This whole thing where they feel like they have to have like a skillset. There's all kinds of things that combine guided meditation too with somatics and healing and breathing techniques. So all of that is encompassed with somatics and I play around with, it's almost like a, having like a painter with their palette. I like to call it breathing techniques. I'm trying to train my brain out of saying breathwork because I don't love the word work in there.

Ah.

So just breathing techniques mixed with movement techniques mixed with some of my psychology background. Like one activity that I find so valuable for myself that I love to do with my clients is on shadow work. Getting to dance in the shadow self, meaning like there's plenty of days where Mandy wakes up and I'm just like kind of feeling funky and I'll, I'll do You know, a little bit of movement in it and it helps me to get into a better space within myself. Sometimes I can't quite shake that funk or there's something that has happened that has really disturbed my peace. In psychology, we have this idea of like the authentic true self or the higher self, but then we also have this, all these other parts of us and none of those other parts aren't us, but they're just not necessarily. the expression of us that, you know, is when we're feeling our best self, if you will. So it's like we're trying not to make any of those other parts of ourselves wrong or bad because it's all part of the full range of the human experience. And at the same time, no one really loves to hang out in depression and no one really loves to like hang out in anger all the time. You could argue some people love doing that, but I don't think they really love doing that.

They might be trapped in it.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's their, it's become their comfort zone. I mean, in many ways that's true for people across the board. I mean, I think, I think we have not only an obesity epidemic, we have a kind of couch potato epidemic where people are so used to not using their body for, for movements beyond function that it's almost like they're the Tin, Tin Person from Wizard of Oz. Like they need, they need their joints to be oiled.

Yeah.

'Cause for many people, the last time they danced was probably prom night or even their wedding night. And even then it was like a slow dance, potentially very stilted, right? It sounds like maybe a first step is breath, but where does one go? What are some good first steps that a person can take who's feeling that kind of like rusty body and who's feeling intimidated by, you know, watching Look Who's Dancing or whatever those shows are and just feeling like, well, they have to be a high performer.

Yeah.

You know, cuz maybe they're a high performer in life, so they have to be a high performer in everything. And so they're not even giving themselves the grace to just take a first step.

That's true too. And I love your example of we are, as a species, we're hardwired to, you know, crave fat and sugar and rest as much as we possibly can. I mean, if you really actually look at a lot of the animals, I mean, our domesticated animals aren't as good of an example cuz they're kind of forced to stay at home. But even out, I went on a safari. I was very fortunate to go on a safari and it was amazed how many, you know, animals, they're just, they're grazing, they're lying in the pasture, they're chilling, they're hanging out, they're just taking it all in. And then when they need to hunt, they, they go do that. But the amount of time they actually spend like hunting is a lot less than they spend chilling.

Right.

And I, I've reflected on how It's not necessarily, you know, a bad thing, but we're hardwired to just chill also. And so there is this interesting, I think, relationship where the rubber kind of hits the road a lot with we're telling ourselves we need to do all of these things to either be productive or contribute to society or to keep up with the Joneses or whatever we're telling ourselves, but our to-do lists become quite Lengthy, especially I think in the United States. I know I've fallen prey to this idea that I need to be doing things all of the time. And I question that. I go, well, you know, how much of this is just what we've come up with and what we've decided is how we're supposed to live and how much of this is, you know, counter to what our nervous systems and our bodies really need and want. And so obviously I'm not suggesting we be couch potatoes all the time because clearly there's tons of negative health consequences to that. And at the same time, I think there's, there's 2 pockets of people. There's people that are in overdrive and doing, doing, doing to the point where then they are overcompensating By, you know, not resting enough and then reaching for sugar and, and different caffeine and all of these things to keep going on this hamster wheel. And then there are these, this other pocket of people where they are sitting on the couch for long periods of time and just not moving at all and not doing at all. But in both camps, there's, there are negative health consequences and both are disembodied to a large degree. Both are disconnected from the present, really. So one's avoid, you know, kind of avoid avoiding the present by sitting and the other is avoiding the present by doing. It's still avoidance. And I love that word too. Like sometimes I play with that, like, ooh, what avoidance dance am I in? You know, what am I avoiding right now? Like, how could I express that through dance?

Well, that's interesting. So you actually sometimes, whereas someone might sit there and try to figure out a problem, you're actually like, you almost frame it as like, oh, I'm in a dance right now. I'm either in a dance with indecision or I'm in a dance with overactivity. So how can I, you know, shift that? Is that kind of how your brain kind of labels it?

I mean, I love, yeah, I love using the dance metaphor as much as possible. And that's kind of what I was actually, I forgot to kind of close out what I was saying about the shadow dancing. For example, there was one time where I was doing this on myself and I allow myself to put on a song that's sort of moody. Or like sad piano music. Sometimes I'll literally type in sad piano to Spotify, and then I let myself like dance in this like kind of moody, constricted, like, uh, I just wanna be in the fetal position kind of way to help that part of me that just wants to like curl up in a ball and not go outside express itself. Because Mandy on, on the whole tends to be someone who is extroverted, who likes to talk to people, who does go outside. But I do have this part of me that sometimes just wants to Roll up in a ball and hide. In psychology, when we allow these different aspects of self to be expressed and to be explored, there's healing that occurs and there's integration that occurs so that all aspects of self at the conference table of you can kind of come to consensus and work together to move forward in your life. In the shadow work that I'll do one time, and you have to get into sort of this meditative state where you're just allowing the movement to lead you. And that is a little more advanced. I, I admit that because I've allowed myself to go there so many times, this is like comfortable for me. But a lot of times I have to like really give people a runway to this and, and baby steps to get them to, to this place. But here, I'll show you really quick. I kept taking 3 steps and then stopping and then taking 3 steps and then stopping. And it's like I was hitting a That was the dance.

That's how it was expressing in your body.

That's the dance that I was doing. It's like I was allowing my body to do the dance. I was really trying to turn off my critical thinking. It's like, no, my body's just doing this thing. And then I'm observing myself doing this dance. And all of a sudden, this metaphor just like poof popped right up into clarity that I was doing that. To show myself that I keep taking 3 steps forward and then backtracking.

Right.

And then 3 steps forward and then backtracking. And it was a reflection for me, and the— this gets into deeper psychology, but it wasn't my job to judge myself for doing that. It was my job to pause, breathe, and go, huh, that's interesting. That's what I'm kind of doing right now in my career. Or, you know, that's what I'm doing right now in my relationship. And to then journal about it and reflect on it and allow myself to kind of put some puzzle pieces together, not from a place of judgment or shame, but from a place of curiosity and a place of just like, hmm, could I choose to do this differently? It's okay if I don't, but what could I do if I were to do something differently? It's called compassionate inquiry. So it's a technique in psychology to really just be with a pattern. So dance can reveal patterns to anybody who wants to do like shadow work or dance therapy work that then can help you put puzzle pieces together in your, in your personal life.

This is so interesting because in many ways the dance is revealing, you know, some data for the person to then contemplate or kind of process, right? But do you ever actually find the feeling in the body and then let it integrate and process right then and there? Because I have to imagine if, let's just say, you're feeling stuck or depressed or something that's weighing you down, and you actually, so in that movement you were just showing us, you were kind of taking a step forward, a couple steps forward, and then you were moving your body back almost like you said, like hitting a wall. What if you then physically, like, imagined yourself busting through that wall or doing all these different things? Do you think that would then take that energy that's feeling so stuck to a whole other level that you can actually tap into the transformation without even going to your head, where you can just transform the energy in your body and thus break through?

Absolutely. I could have chosen in that moment to not go to my journal, and I think that that would actually be Or it would've been a better opportunity for me as a movement, you know, person to say, well, what would it feel like to just walk through that wall and experience what that feels like in my body to go beyond that threshold?

It makes me think, so there was a show back in the day called Six Feet Under. I think it was like the second episode. One of the main characters is talking about how his father has just died and how he feels He feels intensely, but it, but he doesn't know how to express it, so he feels very dead inside. And he's telling this story though about these women. I think it was some Greek island, something like that, where he, I can't remember if he heard the story, if he witnessed it, but either way, what these women were doing is they were on the shores and they were mourning the loss, their lost loved ones who had died at sea. And so they were at the shore and they were crying to the wind and to the ocean, and they were heaving their body back and forth, and they were doing a very much like a, a trauma or like sadness dance of undulating their bodies. He was talking about how he would, he saw them doing this and how he was scared by it. He was scared by their movements. And I think for most people who are closed off, Yeah. I think movement does scare them. And I have to wonder, well, I'd love your thoughts on that, but I have to wonder if it's because it works so well that it is scary. But what are your thoughts on that? Of like, for that person who feels like their trauma is so big and it's so much bigger than them and it's in their body and it's dictating how they walk, how they talk, how they show up in the world, how does that person— even begin to shift.

So many people are walking around holding all of that energy and they haven't had a safe place to express that. And to be honest, that's part of a deeper vision that I have for our world is safer spaces and more of them. So grief spaces, like one of my Visions that just automatically brings a smile to my face is like that it would be just as common as going to the gym. You know, it's like in America, oh, I'm going to the gym, be back in an hour. That it would be just as common to say, I'm going to my grief space. I have this idea for this like wellness center that includes some gym aspects, but then really branches out into all of these other modalities that can help people explore these different ways. of being able to express and being able to feel and also knowing that other people are doing that and it's not like weird. I think right now it's still in siloed spaces or like, oh, the hippie dippy people do that.

There's a lot of judgment around it. And from outsiders, I mean, not from the people in it, of course, but the outsiders.

And then there's the whole, I mean, I don't, that's a whole nother conversation I probably shouldn't open up, but No, that's great. I was really struck by Prince Harry's story in his book Spare, where he talks about feeling grief for the first time, actually feeling for his mother's death. So for 20 years, he went without crying over his mother, and he felt extreme shame and guilt that he couldn't cry for his mother's passing. But there's so much that, you know, goes into that. There's British culture that, you know, is very stoic and they don't feel even more so than the United States. And it was plant medicine. It was an ayahuasca ceremony that helped him like crack that open. I think there's abuse of plant medicine in our culture right now, but I think there's also very like situations where it radically helps somebody like Prince Harry, he, it's like it helped him open that up, crack that open so he could feel. And that set him on a healing journey that he then helped him to really work that out.

You had personal experience with plant medicine?

I have once done ayahuasca and also one called San Pedro, but I had already done so much therapy in my life. That I don't think there was, it wasn't so radical of like, oh, all of a sudden I got to feel because I had, I think, already felt so much. I have been in therapy many, many times since childhood. So—

Did your, what I find fascinating about plant medicine though, and I'm curious for your experience, is that sometimes it shows up physically. You start moving your bodies in ways that you historically haven't, or that seem out of the blue. So did you experience that where your body was kind of moving sort of uncontrollably? Like you just, it's almost like, yes, you were in control of it, but you had to do it. It was almost like you couldn't not move.

There was a little bit of like this. I found myself stretching a lot and like kind of writhing a little bit like snake-like, and I felt An energy literally kind of scanned my whole body. It felt like something was, like a scanner was inside of me and it was like the guide for my experience said, oh, that was the Aya. Aya was literally going through my entire system and kind of like looking and checking things out, but also maybe was healing me while, while it was doing that. 'Cause there's always something more to, you know, heal. I feel like you can always find more healing with different things in your life and, and every day is happening. But all to say, I didn't, I didn't go into, even though I love dance, there wasn't music on, or it was like this like spa-like music where I was. So it was very like ethereal and in the background. But had they started playing like tribal drumming, I mean, who knows what would've happened? You know, I might have. really come alive in that way. I think music has a lot to do with it for me.

That's a really interesting point. Some people would say that the one thing we got right, that we've gotten right as humans, and that is truly universal, is music. That we've really like tapped into a communication expression source with music that would transcend any time and space. And I have to wonder, from your experience working with people and then also just your studies, like, what role has music played in, and are there beats or are there, is there certain types of music that brings out different things in your body in dance?

Oh yeah. You know, speaking of the drumming, I think, you know, that's very ancestral. There's so much history with drumming and so much history with drumming being a part of ceremony.

Sorry to interrupt you, but do you think that drumming or these instruments that are very basic and kind of like, you know, like you said, ancestral, that have been around forever, do you think those tap something different than, let's say, a violin that's kind of more, you know, something that was created much later?

Yeah, I think they're probably—

Do you think it's just frequencies, you know, and it doesn't matter what instrument, it's just about the frequency?

Well, that's a good point. I think it's, it's probably a little bit of, of a both and. I don't know this information, like I haven't studied this, so I'm kind of just tapping into kind of that basic wisdom of it feels like those boom, boom, boom makes me think of the heartbeat. And that's the first organ that forms in our womb or in the womb. And the drum reflects that. And there's like a connection with earth that I feel like happens with the boom, boom that helps like drop us into connection. But to your point, that's a frequency. So if you're playing the violin and it's that, I mean, automatically my hand went up here to express what a violin sounds like.

Right.

Whereas my body went like this to express what a drum feels like. I don't think one's like necessarily more powerful than the other, although I will say I gravitate towards more of that, that drum. I think I would, the violin feels like something I wouldn't wanna spend like a ton of time in it. More would be accents, but it just depends. Like there's that dancer, Lindsay something, that dances around with her violin and it's just extraordinary and she's Incredible.

Have you ever heard Terrence Howard, the actor? He talks about that there's this kind of Earth's natural rhythms, and he talks about the 432 hertz that is just a fundamental aspect of the universe. And that when you actually have that frequency, when it's part of your life regularly, that you actually can— basically, he says you can shift on a cellular level. through that frequency. Have you ever experienced that in your, you know, when you're working with groups in dance of like that you can actually manipulate how free or kind of how they move based on what music you choose to play? And then I guess a follow-up.

Definitely.

You, so you do notice that. So then I guess—

Music is hugely, hugely important in my opinion. And I spend a ton of time scouring Spotify and Apple Music for the right songs and putting them in a certain order that will create a journey and that will evoke a certain response. And I'm pretty intentional about like, ah, this song is going to really help them get wild, or this song is going to help them tap into such deep levels of self-compassion that they will, you know, release something or potentially experience crying.

I love that. So in a sense, then going with this idea of the things that someone can do at home to kind of help start freeing themselves, get in their body. One of the, obviously we mentioned breath. We didn't talk about voice much, but I want to cover that after, just as soon as I make this point. So breath, but then obviously music and using the music that, let's just say if you want to, you know, if you're feeling very small and very dark and, or like you said earlier, you're in your shadow that maybe you choose music that is more shadow-like to allow you to express. So you can use that music to manipulate either in kind of honoring the feeling you have or projecting the feeling you want.

Yes.

So that's, those are 2 ways that they can do it. But then how can we utilize voice?

By just allowing yourself to make noise. When I stretch, I, not only for myself, but for my clients, I, you know, I really encourage them to just go, Ah, ooh. Yeah. You know, like literally do whatever feels good. But again, there is a little bit of an on-ramp for that, and a lot of people are like not ready for that. And I have to really kind of go, it's okay. Like, just try it out once, see how it feels. Because a lot of people have been told to sit down and be quiet. So many times that they're very conditioned to never make a sound. But I think also when we're sensual, like we make sound. So whether it's with food, like, mm, this feels, this tastes so good. Ah, you know, we, we tend to express that. Now, some people don't because of that taboo thing. And then also, you know, like, let's go to the bedroom.

Mm-hmm.

When people allow themselves to make sounds, or, you know, a lot of people make sound even if they don't even want to make sound. They just end up making a sound when they climax because that's just all that can happen at that moment. It's a very natural expression, you know, of being human. And when we put a lid on that, it represses. That and gets trapped in the body. So the issues are in the tissues is probably a phrase you've heard, you know, in some of these somatic conversations. So the issues live in the tissues. And I really feel like when we, you know, when we feel like crying and we stop, or we feel like making a sound and we stop, it can continue to repress things. And then that gets, that gets held in the body.

What's the difference between like transcendental dance or ecstatic dance? Let me also kind of— 'cause you mentioned, like, the release, and something I sometimes see from people that do ecstatic dance is they'll talk about how they have orgasms on the floor. And sometimes it just— it's like, I guess maybe 'cause I haven't experienced that, so I kind of sometimes feel like, well, is that just the show-me gene? Like, is that just the kind of—

Could be.

Look at me, look at me gene? Or can someone literally have the orgasmic effect that they would have having sex, but have it through dance?

I think it's possible, but I think to your point, like some of that could be the show me or look at me, I guess, or trying to impress. Yeah. Or, I mean, there's so much psychology, right? Like, you know, sex as performance. There could be a lot going on there. However, I think genuinely, like let's say somebody's alone in a room with themselves and just music. Breathing alone and certain breathing patterns can stimulate ourselves to a point of some sort of version of a climax. Repetitive movement can create that. And it, and with breathing and the diaphragm and movement in a repetitive way, and if someone's mind is also in the, in a space where they can allow that. I do think it's possible. I can't say that I've experienced that myself. I think I've experienced what you would say a different kind of like dance orgasm, if you will, where it's like I'm just so in this space of pure elation. All time and space suspends itself. You know, it's not me actually having a physical orgasm, but it's, it's me just feeling one with the universe and in a way that's very like transcendental.

So what is the difference between transcendental and ecstatic dance?

Ecstatic dance? Well, they could be used interchangeably, but my understanding is that ecstatic dance started in Hawaii. It was a label that was given to having music play or even live drumming or live music and people just getting to move however you want. It's just like, go for it, let the music do its thing, and And then sometimes people start doing, um, like contact improv while they're ecstatic dancing. It's freeform dance, but it's just a label that got put on it specifically out of Hawaii and a group of people that wanted to start this like movement. But then prior to that, there's been all kinds of different movements that have come out of what you'd call like conscious dance or transcendental dance. I'm not sure specifically with that label because like I teach a modality called Transcend Dance, which is definitely trying to capture the transcendentalism aspect of meditation of like going to this place of oneness, but it isn't called Transcendental Dance. Anyway, there's, there's literally thousands. Like when I first started dabbling in this, I thought like, oh, there's probably, you know, 2 or 3 modalities. And then I was like, oh, just kidding. There's like thousands and thousands of different modalities that people have created. There's conferences where you can just do freeform conscious dance type stuff all week long by hundreds of practitioners. So it's, it's more popular than we realize. It's just, you have to kind of go down that rabbit hole.

Now you're a mom. How are you teaching your kids about their body and movement?

I am not a mom, but I am a very devoted aunt. So you might have—

Okay.

So those are—

okay. Yes. I saw those kids. I thought they were yours. Sorry about that. Those are your niece and nephew then?

Yeah. My niece and nephew. I'm very close with them. From a very young age, I would turn on music and just help show them both how important it was just to let your body move and get free and have fun. I think a lot of people do that. And to your point, it's like, oh, it's okay. We're doing it with kids, but then, you know, we grow up and we have to grow up. But I also buy books about like, what is my body feeling right now to try to help them put those connectors together? I think that's also important with eating. You know, we, there's a lot of bridges that we can cross with movement and dance, and it helps you to be in touch with your body. Therefore, it's going to automatically help you in other areas of your life when it comes to You know, to anything with the body. So with eating, dance can even be helpful with that because you're helping to actually tune in and be present with, you know, your food and understand what it feels like to be full or what it feels like to be hungry. Just different sensations in the body and, and training our kids, but ourselves to understand what those sensations mean and what signals the body is giving us. I think is huge and can help with so many aspects of health. When I feel like, you know, it's actually a very common feeling. It's like a lump in your throat. It's like, oh, I need to cry. I don't know when I'm going to cry. I don't know how that's going to happen. And even for me, with as much allowance of crying, and because I also trained as an actor, like I've really run the gamut as far as allowing myself to feel all of my emotions. And it still can be difficult for me to allow, because it's like, it's not easy to just be like, oh, I feel like crying, cry. I'll never forget one time I was, I was really frustrated and my grandma was sick and I was trying to help her. And then I went out to the car to get something and I hit myself in my head on a tree, but it helped me cry. And I was like, oh, you know what? Thank you, universe, for helping me smack my head into a tree because I really needed to get that cry out. Ridiculous.

Well, I'm wondering about going back to that formal training. Okay. You said you had some formal training. I have a dilemma and I'm hoping before we are done here that you can kind of support me with. So my dilemma is, that my wife is formally trained as a dancer. She, she learned ballet, and then she also used to do country dance and then West Coast swing. So we rarely dance together because whenever we dance together, I feel like I'm being judged.

Aw.

Because I am not a trained dancer and I just freeform it and I just have fun. And so I could be out of sync. I could be, you know, whatever it is. This is not me trying to throw her under the bus because I'm not saying she is judging me. It's just how I feel.

Right.

Right. And so I'm just wondering, what are your tips as someone who works with people through movement of how I can kind of shift my mindset and/or approach her differently so that I don't limit us dancing together by my mindset of feeling judged?

Yeah, I really hear you just wanting to connect with your wife in that way, and that's so beautiful. And that could be even a starter of even just speaking that intention to her.

Oh, I have.

Yeah. Yeah, I've just, you know, I, I just wanna connect. I just wanna connect and I'm gonna let my self-consciousness go right now. Would you be willing to connect with me? I will also say, as much as it's very responsible of you to take ownership of your part, you know, there could be barriers with that you both can work on as far as she might have some, some room to loosen up on her, like, the technique. Because I know that's, uh, that's kind of what we were talking about, like presence over performance. When we're so trained of like, these are the steps and this is the choreography. I can't tell you how many friends I have from different dance experiences throughout my life that, I mean, they're just terrified to improvise. They're terrified to just freeform dance. And I'm a weird hybrid where I can do both, and I enjoy both. But so many people I recognize are like, I thought for sure the star dancer of this one dance group I was in would be fabulous at improv, you know, and just letting it loose and going for it. And little did I know, like one day in a dressing room, she was like, oh God, no, I have to have my choreography. Like, I, I don't do that. And I was like, but you're so freaking good. What do you mean? And she's like, yeah, no, I just, I won't. So it could also be a meeting halfway, you know, of, of finding, and maybe it's something that needs to be private first before it's public.

It's interesting what you're saying, cuz that was one of my original questions was like, when does movement kind of become a limitation? And my thought was that when it's overly formal, when you're too heady about it, right? When you're so trained that you can't actually not do it outside of that. But one of the things that we were kind of problem solving it around was like, well, why don't we go take a dance together that neither of us know?

Yeah.

You know, and then kind of approach something from the same level. But then there's the whole other issue of finding time.

But, but, well, yeah, like even like bachata is coming to mind because—

What's that?

So bachata is, it's like a 1, 2, 3 tap, 1, 2, 3 tap. And you're, you know, it's just your, your hips are mainly swaying.

That's different than a cha-cha. It almost looks a little bit like—

It's different than a cha-cha. And why bachata and not cha-cha is because cha-cha's got like more of the technique, and bachata can just be like your hips are connected, so it's very sensual, and you're getting in this rhythm, da-da-da, you know, and it's romantic and it's simple. So then I think it's easier to get into it quicker than to have to like learn this whole Dance technique.

I like it. I've never heard of that one. Porchata?

Bachata. B-A-C-H-A-T-A. It's often with salsa clubs, so they'll have like salsa and bachata night.

Is it a Latin dance?

It is a Latin dance, yeah. Oh, nice.

Thank you so much for joining me. I feel like this is such a hot topic to talk about here on Everyday Ancestral Because it is, I mean, historically, ancestrally, this is one of the earliest forms of expression. And sadly, in our modern world, for many people, it's getting lost. So I really appreciate your wisdom and you sharing some tips that people can do at home or in groups that will help to kind of loosen up and oil their bodies so that they can be more mindfully in them.

Yes. And You know, for any of your guests, please feel free to reach out. Or I have, you know, little 5-minute movement breaks that I'll do for conferences or energize— they call them energizers. So conferences hire me to get up there and get everybody moving for 5 minutes because they've been sitting for, you know, an hour or 2 listening to talks and different things. And I also have a lot of those like in my Dance of You program where people get to engage with some of these just quick 5-minute ways to reconnect with their bodies, reconnect with themselves. Because like you said, there are a lot of people out there dancing, but there are also probably way more not dancing and not moving. And truly, I think the, the biggest thing that makes my heart ache about that is that People are missing the, just the opportunity and the simple opportunity of, yeah, like just turn on a song. Like you're only one song away from a better day or helping drop them into their heart more. I think so much of what we're experiencing, we're in our heads a lot, even myself. And that's why I love doing what I do because it helps me to get out of my head. When I drop into my body, And then subsequently dropped more into my heart. I'm a much more present person. I'm a much more present, like, auntie to my niece and nephew. I tend to just feel more at home in my body. So then I'm not as agitated or I don't know what the other word is that I'm trying to think of, but you saw it. See, I don't, sometimes I don't express in words. I'm just like—

This is the most visual. Episode we've had.

Oh, good. I'm honored. Because I think part of the barrier is that fear of feeling, but it's also that fear of being seen. It's all wrapped up into one. But if you were just to take that all off the table and just say, okay, I don't need to be seen. I don't need to be, we don't need to worry about that right now, but just let me be present with my body just for the sake of my own health and connectedness, I think that's where people are maybe more likely to start is where it's like benefiting them right away versus trying to tackle those, those fears that can be very overwhelming.

I'm so grateful. I see you, Mandy, and I'm really grateful for your time today. We'll put the links to how people can reach you in the show notes and I remember when I met you, you shone very brightly in the room. And I, and I feel very clear that that was because of how you were showing up in your body and inspiring everyone around them to do the same. So thank you for, thank you for showing up in the world like that. Please continue.

Thank you. We need more.

We need more of that.

Right back at you. I, I was very just honored to have you ask me to be on this podcast and dancing out there with you when you were Austin Powers was amazing and hilarious. And I, that was like the best moment of the whole conference for me. And I think you're a delightful human being doing a lot of amazing work. I use my Pluck seasoning all the time. I'm just really grateful too for these opportunities because funny enough, even though obviously I'm all about being embodied and moving, Talking about this in particular and you asking me these questions really helps me to remember why I'm doing what I'm doing. And, and sometimes I can get lost in like, oh, people have heard this, or, oh, there's so much dance out there. And I will, I will sometimes dismiss what I'm doing internally. And conversations like this help really add fire to my— Fireplace of like, oh yeah, wait, no, Mandy, people absolutely need this. And I've been given this opportunity and this heart for it. So it's like, I just gotta keep finding the people that could really benefit from working with me or, or, you know, getting in their bodies a little more to help them in their lives. And so thank you for helping me, you know, remember. that there are a lot of people out there that, you know, need more of this.

Thank you. And, and thank you all for participating in today's episode. You know, there's something I just started noticing is there's comments. I, I know that sounds funny, but I didn't realize you can comment on all the episodes, whether you're on Spotify or on YouTube, that you can just make comments. And it really does help when I see comments and I do see them. To know that you're listening, to know how you are connecting with the topic, and to also get a sense of, are you enjoying what you're hearing? So please leave comments, participate, show up, because we're so grateful for all of you that are, that are showing up, are watching or listening. But I don't want you to be invisible. I'd like to, I'd like to know who you are. So please make a comment below on any platform that you are Experiencing the Everyday Ancestral. And thank you again for tuning in. Stay curious. Thank you so much for joining me on Everyday Ancestral. If you enjoyed this episode, hit subscribe so you don't miss the next one. You can find the show notes, links, and resources mentioned at eatpluck.com. That's E-A-T-P-L-U-C-K.com. And hey, if you know someone who'd get something out of this, share it with them too. Stay curious, live well, and keep it ancestral.