Decoding the Therapeutic Power of Movement with Gabrielle Rivero

This paradox , as I view it , is the trust , interaction and communication gap that exists between fitness professionals and our medical community . This podcast is all about closing off that gap by disseminating the latest , most evidence-based and most engaging information in the health sciences . And to do that , in episode 110 , we're joined by Gabby Rivera .

Gabby's background is in dance and in fact , she took her love and her passion for dance to follow it to a degree in theology , believe it or not , to get a better understanding of how dance is viewed in our society . And then she carried this forward to creating a business that is all around using dance or movement to become aware of and express emotions .

So this is very much a conversation that intersects movement and mental health , which is certainly such a prominent conversation to be having , giving the mental health crisis that our nation is facing .

And Gabby's perspective , I think , is fascinating because it brings in aspects of mindful movement that you see in things like yoga , you may see in other forms of mind-body exercise , but you even see when somebody goes into the gym and is angry and punches a punching bag to express that movement .

I think there's a lot of interesting pearls in this conversation that are somewhat perspective-shifting around the way movement and dance can be used to express emotions , be aware of emotions and , most importantly , improve mental health .

Anything we'd like to share with you from today's episode can be found on the show notes page , that's by going to wellnessparadoxpodcom . Forward slash episode 110 . Please enjoy this conversation with Gabby Rivera Today . I'm delighted to be joined by Gabby Rivera . Gabby , nice to have you on the podcast .

This is going to be a fun one , because it's certainly something that and this is true for anyone that knows me knows that I know nothing about dance , nor do I have the ability to do it , but dance is certainly a big part of kind of the fitness culture in our country .

I think of things like Zumba and other things like that that have really been a way for people to move their body in a way that's fun but also exercise based . But you have an interesting take on it and I'm excited to be able to dive into that .

So , before we actually dive into what you do , why don't you just tell us a little bit more about you and your background and kind of what led you to this point ?

But what I started noticing , especially when I was like a teenager , was how different spaces felt a uncomfortability around movement , where they weren't sure if they wanted to engage with it , where I had friends that would tell me oh no , I don't do that dance stuff , that's only for you guys . Which I'm like Well , why ? I mean you can move .

And they're like , no , no , I don't have rhythm . And I'm like , well , you have a heartbeat . And they're like oh no , but it's not for me . So I was like okay .

So when I started noticing consistently was that there was just constant disconnect , where I understood movement as the way to engage with the world , but others were seeing movement as wrong , as inaccessible . So I started asking the question of why ? What's going on ?

So I went and actually got a master's degree in theology to understand the rejection of dance for early Christian history , because for me . I was like to understand what's happening . We need to understand what our unconscious biases are saying , because I'm like this is not a current issue that just popped up out of nowhere .

This is the issue that has been impacting our culture for decades . So I did all this research to figure out what's going on and why have we rejected dance .

But as I did the research , I started realizing it wasn't that we rejected dance , it was that we rejected the body , and it wasn't that we just were rejecting the body , it was that we were rejecting emotions .

So then the question became how do we reconnect these things back together as one that for our culture to understand and accept dancing as important , as accessible and feasible ? Then we have to figure out how do we reconnect to ourselves and to our bodies .

And in connecting to the body and the self , we have to reconnect to the emotions , connect to the fact that our emotions are okay , can be expressed and , I will argue , sometimes also released .

And then you did what seems to kind of be a bit of a logical next step , as you said hey , I learned all this stuff . I'm going to turn this into a business so I can bring this stuff to other people . So tell us a little bit more about Express Release , therapeutic Dance Obviously it's the kind of the practical culmination of your research .

But tell us more about the organization , what you do , how you do it .

My kiddo was four at the time and he came home and he was full , tantruming , and we were like we came home for preschools on normal day but he was in full like anger , like he was enraged , and in our house we've been very much like it's okay , feel your feelings . We tried to be those parents . So we have crying chairs in our house .

Like we went to that extent where I'm like , hey , kiddo , go to your crying chair , like just close yourself off and just spin . And it did not work and he just kept escalating and I was watching it happen and I knew that there were two paths I could take . I could tell him stop , don't do that .

And if I knew , if I said that , that he was going to internalize that his anger was bad , I didn't want him to think that . I wanted him to figure out a safe way to express it .

So it was this moment that my research and practicality kind of culminated , it coalesced into a practice where I watched him just screaming and I stopped and said shake the anger with your head . And he literally just stopped and he was like okay , and he starts shaking his head and I'm like , okay , what do I do next ?

Let's say let's take it from the shoulders . So he just starts pulling slowly from the shoulders , just kind of awkwardly pulling . So I keep going and I'm like let's keep going with this from the chest . I think that's sounds good .

So he starts taking it from the chest , just slowly doing it , and I just keep going and I get to the stomach and I get to the feet and at the feet I'm like , okay , with all your anger , let it out with your feet . And he starts stomping and stomping and stomping . And I'm like , all right , now with the whole body , let go of your anger .

And he started dancing and he started turning around the space .

He was throwing himself to the floor , getting back up , and I saw this four-year-old kid no background in dance , no , whenever I went to a dance class never had technique , but he had a beautiful expression of the self , of the body and of the emotions and it was at that moment for me that I said that's what it is . That is what this looks like .

It's creating spaces for people to come together and that it's okay that they're not , okay that we can literally sit together and understand the emotions with movement . So we have a full embodiment of the self around the emotions .

Because he finishes and he's like laughing and he's now joking and I literally five minutes went from anger , rage to smiling and laughing and I say what happened ? What was wrong ? And he was like oh , my head was hurting , okay , got it . Well , I can help you with that .

I was like you know , next time you can just start with the head was hurting , but I get you know , we have to do this again , like we could do it again . And that became the language of our home , that when we had emotions , we danced them out .

That when my kiddo that , the other one , that was three , at the time when he would have a tantrum , I wouldn't stop it , I would mirror it , that he would cross his arms and I would cross back , he would stop and I would stop back and then I would ask him what else do you want to do ? And then he might give a young .

He's like , ah , and I would yell back and it became this dance that we kept doing and then I people started asking what are you doing with your family ? This looks crazy . And I'm like , oh , I made movement practice to help my kids process emotions and I was like I wanted it for adults but I'm not sure if anyone would ever care .

And then adults started saying we care , we want to understand our bodies in this way . How can we express ourselves through movement ?

And that's actually how this whole company started was just from a one six week workshop where we sat together and we process anger as a group and we made a group anger movement , like choreographed it together around anger , where each person was allowed and invited to show to the group how do you express your anger . And there was non judgment .

There was no like this is the wrong way . There was no technique involved . It was . There's no wrong way to move the body . Let's just invite people together to move , to process , to express and release .

So I guess my , my follow on question to all of that is you kind of you have your dance background , as a dancer , you have this theology background . You have this experiment that you ran with your kids that work really well and you turned it into a workshop . That turned into a business .

How my listeners understand , like kind of what this looks like in in practice . Like you know emotions and dancing and expressing anger . You know kind of all abstract . So like , walk us through a little bit of how you do this .

So one of the classes that I create , a movement practice I created is called the safe movement practice , and it's a safe body exploration practice , and what this is is one of the things that I started doing research was that oftentimes , with the body , we are separated , so we're in the mind consistently that the mind is in its own little world and our bodies

in its own separate workspace and we're not connected as one and we spend most of our days in the mind , as we talk , as we sit , as we do work , as we go to therapy , and we keep talking and rarely do we actually engage with the stuff that's happening in the body .

So what I wanted to do is I wanted to basically help people , for my like my adult workshops want to help people figure out how do you reconnect to the self , how do you see what your body is saying , so you can learn how to listen and react to it , because you can't express something that you can't identify Right .

So what I ended up creating was a movement practice that literally starts with the fingers right and we go and I call it safe because when we move the fingers , I ask everyone four questions . I say what do you see as you move the fingers ? What images , what colors , what shapes do you see as you move the fingers ? And then ask what is it associated with ?

Do the fingers connect to the wrist ? Do your fingers connect to the shoulder or to the back ? Where do you feel that pain or sensation when you move your fingers Right ? And then , what do you feel so as you move the fingers ? Do the fingers feel angry ? Do they feel anxiety ? Does it feel tense to move them ? Do they move with ease and flexibility ?

And then , how do your fingers explore the world ? How do your fingers create ? Can your fingers create circles ? Can your fingers create the sun or clouds ?

Right , and I do that specific practice because what you end up noticing is most people , even though the fingers are connected to the wrist or like they're side by side , most people don't feel that they can't identify that their fingers are connected to their whole body .

Everything just ends up being disconnected parts , and even to the point that I had one person on my workshops that we do the practice every week and they kept moving the wrist Right . And for years they've been told by doctors that their wrists have carpal tunnel . So they've been treated for carpal tunnel for years , right .

And then in that workshop and at this point they've been working with me for about eight weeks off and on and this workshop they stop and they say wait , it's not that it's in my wrist , I don't have pain in my wrist , I feel it actually all in my chest , but I've only been able to notice it here , but I've never connected it , that it was actually in my

chest the whole time . And that's what you'll start to see is that the body is holding all of these sensations , these memories , these emotions , and just starting to access them , to start seeing what is living in me through that same practice . And then , once you can start seeing it , then the question becomes how do I express those things ?

And then we start doing movements around , anger . What it practically what it ends up being is . I bring a group together and I will set the scene . So our emotions , anger . I will tell them okay , you guys all love chips , think about your favorite flavor of chips that you love .

And everyone starts thinking about it and I'm like , yeah , think about it , imagine about to eat it . You just open that bag , you smell that flavor and they're like oh yeah , and they're getting , they're getting , they're taking back to that moment , right . And then I say now you open the bag , you grab your chip , you're about to eat your chip .

Someone walks up to you and they spit on your chip . How do you feel ? And they're like oh no , oh , I feel angry . And I say what does that look like with your body ? And they're like what do you mean ? How do you express anger ?

And they're like and they try to figure out what the right answer is at first , and they're like oh , I take five deep breaths . No , you don't . What do you actually do ? And someone's like oh , I want to punch someone . Okay , can you show me how do you do that ? So they take their fists and they try to punch the air , right .

So then I say , as a group , can we now all do that movement ? So then the group together takes their fists and punches the air . So the next person , what do you do ? And they're like oh , I'm yelling at them . Okay , what does that look like ? And they're like I go , okay , now as a group , can we all yell together ?

So , in the group thing , yell together . So then we start connecting the movements . So I count us in five , six , seven , eight , start with our punch , then our yell , and then we keep going until everyone that's in the group gets an opportunity to show everybody .

This is how they express the emotion , and then , as they do it , they all feel better at the end . So they do this big . The dance ends up being like 10 to 15 different movements , depending on how many people are in that workshop , and then they finish and they're like I feel so much lighter what is happening . And I then started explaining .

Well , you accepted you had an emotion by embodying it . You then expressed it by giving movements and then you let it go . You actually gave yourself permission to release it just by moving through . And then I would say did you hurt anyone when you did this movement practice ? And they're like no , did you hurt yourself when you did this moving practice ?

Well , no , did you hurt your environment when you did this movement practice ? No , but you were still able to express and release that emotion without hurting anything around you . And then it's the one of the mind blown and they're like , whoa , this is amazing . So , yeah , that's pretty much what I do .

They do the dance , they feel better . It's an aha moment . But I'm curious what you're hearing more longitudinally for people , like as they apply this practice to their life . What are they noticing ? So what's kind of the longer term outcomes you're seeing ?

Because for so many people , they feel things but they don't feel like it's safe to feel it . They try to avoid the feeling . So , for example , so I end up doing this type of workshop for Cisco , the company , and they have a local branch here in Durham , north Carolina , and they want to do on the concept of anxiety .

So they brought me in and said , okay , we're going to do this for our team on anxiety . I'm like , okay , great . So we did some movement , we did our safe and more practice first , and then we finished our safe and more practice and we're like , okay , now let's express anxiety . So we give them the whole scenario for anxiety and anxiety .

Sometimes I'll say , okay , your boss just changed the deadline from this Friday to like 1pm today , and that's a very real scenario that they often feel . And then we start talking about what does it look like to express anxiety ? So then we all created the stands together , and this was back in August .

I just connected with the director of that team about a week ago and she wanted to let me know that they now use that movement practice every time they feel anxiety as a team . Anytime a boss changes something on them last minute , as a group , they say , oh wait , we have a way to process this .

And then , as the group , they then talk through it and move through it . So what it actually the real impact that it has , is it changes like the brain synapses on the emotions .

Because what happens is that when we feel certain things and whenever we felt it maybe we got hurt by it , or someone told us we weren't allowed to and or someone else hurt us with it our brain will say out that's hot , don't go back to that as a way to protect us . So then we don't feel and we disassociate ourselves from emotions .

But then we come into space and say I still feel so disconnected from my body or , oh , I don't know why I can't feel anything , and it's like , well , your brain did what it was supposed to do . But now we have to basically reteach the brain to say , hey , it's okay to feel again .

So through doing these movement practices , we're literally retelling the brain hey feel in this safe space , in this safe way , and then it decides okay , I can reattach that synapse again , I can express myself again in this way .

You need to find like-minded individuals that are willing to go on that crusade with you , and that's exactly what I found at the MRF Institute . The team over at the MRF Institute creates educational content for fitness and wellness professionals who are serious about becoming a part of our healthcare continuum .

Getting on the healthcare continuum is all about leveling up our skills to be looked at as that valued resource provider . The wellness paradox is certainly an avenue for you to do that , but we need many different levers to pull if we're going to get there , and the MRF Institute is definitely one of those levers .

You can go to their website , mrfinstituteorg , to find all kinds of great , informative , free , informational content and if you choose to engage with any of their paid content , they've created a coupon code specifically for wellness paradox listeners . You can enter in WP2022 .

That's WP , and then the number 2022 to the website at checkout to receive a 15% discount on your purchase . I highly recommend you go check out MRFInstituteorg . Now back to today's episode . Yeah , what strikes me here is there seems like there's almost a mindfulness element to this .

You know , I mean when I , when I think of mindfulness , I think of you know , observation and acceptance and kind of not getting you know wrapped up in you know what's happening . So I mean I don't know if that is intentional or not , but I mean that's my mind kind of goes down the mindfulness path .

So what we're really doing is we're learning how to listen to the body , because , I mean , a lot of the research now says , you know , the body holds all these trauma , it holds all these sensations , it holds all these emotions and memories , but we can't hear it because we've become numb to it , even though it's holding it .

So it truly is this mindfulness to the body to say body , you're allowed to speak , you're invited to have a voice and I want to listen to that . And maybe that might mean me just moving my fingers to say are you saying anything in my fingers ? Maybe it's moving my wrist , are you saying anything in my wrist ? Are you saying anything ?

When I'm something , my feet . And it truly is this like and I am going to call like this decompression of the self , where we're like examining the body and saying I'm here to listen .

I mean whatever you want to say , and it's okay if you say nothing and giving that flexibility to say my body can do whatever it's going to do and I don't have to change it , I don't have to force it , but maybe it's holding on something that maybe I want to explore .

But you have seen at least I have seen , and I think a lot of our listeners have read in recent years all of the really strong research around movement and improving mental health , reducing depression , reducing anxiety , or now even starting to realize that , wow , exercise and movement may be as effective as psychopharmaceuticals or talk therapy for dealing with mental

health challenges . So I want to , in a little bit of time we have left , I want to reorient our discussion maybe around some principles that our listeners can apply to what they do as exercise and fitness and wellness professionals . Admittedly , I'm sure there's a lot of people that are listening , like me , who I was the person you were talking about originally .

You said I have no rhythm , I can't dance . I don't think that's for me . So I don't necessarily think a lot of our audience is going to be excited about creating dances for people , although I think for a segment of our audience who is into that . I think that this is really enlightening conversation .

But , broadly speaking , the principles that you're learning and your practice how would you suggest that a fitness , wellness or exercise professional incorporates these principles into what they do ?

Dance is just movement and movement is actually everything Movement sitting , sleeping , standing , running , walking , drinking water Movement is how we live through the world and when we say dance , we're actually just connecting movements together .

So when I define dance , I'm defining dance as movement , a movement or a series of movements that's connected to music , silence or the rhythm of your own life .

So when we talk about movement , if we're talking about fitness movements or everything , it's what you tell your clients to do , whether it's you're telling them to do a pull-up or push-up or whatever that is . All of those things are movements .

And when we start identifying that , through any moves that you're doing , you can embody emotion and release emotion through fitness , through walking , through running , to where , for me , I prescribe to using movement in the realm of dancing , but it doesn't have to be dancing , because our bodies are in our bodies and all of these practitioners we're all dealing with

the bodies To do fitness . It's not a mind game , it's somewhat mental , but it's mostly physical . So it's truly just learning . Okay , I have my client and , yes , maybe they want to change their weight , maybe there's something fitness-wise that's their goal . But is it truly just a body change or is it a disconnecting from the self ?

Yeah , and maybe they're not dropping those pounds because they feel disconnected from their self and they can't even identify the body . So , truly everything that we were doing , whether we're fitness or wellness , it's going back to this body , that . How does the body engage ?

And how can I look at your body and say , hey , you were doing this push-up , but I see that you're actually look really pissed . How about every push-up ? You push out that anger . Maybe it's a pull-up . You pull up that anger or that anxiety or whatever . That is because you don't have to do dance . You could do any movement .

But if it's true that our bodies are holding these emotions and these sensations , then any movement actually allows us to release them .

So what I'm taking from that and I do appreciate your broadening of the definition of dance because I think that that makes it sound a lot more approachable to many of us that are scared to death of associated our body movement with some sort of music but it is creating awareness around the emotions and using movement , regardless of what that movement is , as a

constructive way to release that emotion . I mean , I go back to the story you told about your four-year-old and that was essentially you came up with movement that was unique to him , that allowed him to release that emotion , and it sounds like that's not dance specific , that's not pull-up specific , that is any movement that you could possibly think of .

But if you come into a workout and you're pissed off and you figure out a way to release that anger , we've all been there , you know . I mean I work out in the middle of my day . I know if I've had a rough morning , I lift some heavy weights , I feel better afterwards .

That's an immediate benefit that you derive from the exercise that you did and I think we can't underestimate how much that helps with adherence and compliance when you have that instant gratification from moving rather than the traditional delayed gratification of reductions in blood pressure or weight loss or all those things .

Because you're like , oh , I felt better after doing something , after lifting the weights , maybe I want to make it heavier so that I can even feel an even bigger release , whatever that is for you .

But we talk about all the time around fitness , right , where you're sad , you're angry , and we have the memes , people that are angry , that are pushing the weights as hard as they can .

But it really is essentially that , and the only difference of the stuff that I'm saying is just doing it with intentionality , that going in and saying you know what I'm feeling very anxious right now .

I'm going to come in here and choose to process my anxiety with these weights , with this regimen , because everything's going to be a long term , but the long term benefits are going to come . But that short term gratification of I just need to process and using fitness to process .

I suspect that our audience is probably going to want to find out a little bit more in detail about the great work you're doing , so where is a good place to point them to if they want to find out more ?

You can find an Instagram on Facebook , on LinkedIn , and , yeah , I love to chat with anyone that's like hey , I want to know more , I want to prescribe to this , or I even want to be trained in it . I want to figure out how can I do this for my clients , because that's a big direction we're trying to go in it as well , because I'm like you know what ?

It's great if I know all these things , but I don't want to be the keeper of all the knowledge . I want to pass that on to other people as well . So if anyone is interested in being trained in it , learning more about it , please let me know .

Before I let you go , I'm going to end the podcast with the question I always end our podcast on and I always love asking this to people that are outside of both the traditional fitness and medical communities because you bring that very different perspective .

So I consider the wellness paradox to be the trust , interaction and communication gap that exists between fitness professionals and the medical community . From your perspective . If there was one thing you could tell fitness professionals to close off that gap , what would it be ?

So doing a workout is just as important and just as beneficial as taking the drug that it can actually like we're now seeing studies that are saying it can heal Parkinson's disease using movement , that we've been looking at movement and fitness all the wrong way , that now conversations like this are having .

We're having where we can say , hey , let's look at this not from a two separate lenses or two separate spaces that we're trying to merge , but rather let's look at it as a coalescing , that there is no separation , that fitness and wellness should be one and the same as medicine and that , as with doctors and practitioners , they have to figure out how do they

make that coalesce , that collision because that is where we're at as a society is not just saying , oh , I'll just add this in later , or oh , which is too much work to throw in some fitness into my regimen , but it becomes like this is the prescription , that sure , you have doctors , but how would it be as a society if doctors , if a patient comes in and

they're like , hey , I'm having all these issues , the doctor writes a prescription and says , hey , I'm prescribed you to go do fitness , and here the providers that we have , like , how would a society change if that became the new language ?

So where I think that is where we need to be going to this point that it's not us in this umbrella but it's us in this intermix .

Forward slash episode 110 . Please be on the lookout for our next episode when it drops in two weeks , and don't forget to subscribe through your favorite podcast platform . Until we chat again next , please be well .