Trust Yourself

Trust and Permission: Lessons from a Dance Studio

Last week, I had the opportunity to work at PARTs (Performing Arts Research and Training Studios), a renowned contemporary dance school in Brussels. Known for its connection to the famous Rosas Dance Company, PARTs offers BA and MA programs for high-level dancers.

My role there was focused on injury reduction. I wasn’t tasked with making the dancers better at their craft—that’s their teachers’ domain. Instead, my job was to help them understand their bodies and sensations in a way that would allow them to do what would ultimately make them better dancers: dance more. To achieve this, they need to be strong and resilient enough to withstand 4-6 hours of intense movement every day.

At this point, those of you who aren’t dancers might be wondering how this relates to you. After all, your goal is likely to get through your day with a little more comfort and less pain, not to dance professionally. You’d be right—except that the issues I encountered among these high-level movers are the same issues faced by 90% of the people we work with every day.

One key realization hit me during my time there: the issue of trust and permission.

Trusting Your Body: A Common Dilemma

Throughout my time at PARTs, I kept fielding similar questions. They usually sounded something like this: “Last year, I hurt my [body part], and my physio/osteopath/doctor/trainer/fairy godmother told me I have [injury/issue]. I’m afraid of [movement]. Can you give me a specific exercise to help with this?” 

After the fifth time hearing a variation of this, I had an ‘ah ha’ moment.

These dancers where moving, they were performing, these injuries were old, but they were still laboring under a fear.

It became clear that we’re so conditioned to listening to what others tell us to do with our bodies that we’ve stopped giving ourselves permission to feel or trust what our own bodies are trying to communicate. 

Why Pain Happens

There are countless reasons why we get hurt. Sometimes, it’s a protective action by the nervous system, a pain signal sent out preemptively due to fear or uncertainty about a movement. Other times, it’s the result of an impact trauma, like falling off a curb and spraining your wrist. It could also be a capacity issue—your soft tissues might not be able to handle the demands you place on them, like pulling a muscle while stretching beyond your range, using a weight that’s too heavy, or moving at a speed your body isn’t ready for.

None of these factors are mutually exclusive. Every sensation we experience is a complex tapestry of our own lived history.

How to Deal with Pain

When you experience something obvious and acute—like falling off a curb or pulling a hamstring while sprinting—it’s easier to process in the short term. This is where your physical therapist or fairy godmother can help you through the acute phase, where even light movement might still hurt. But it’s after this acute phase that the real work begins.

This is the point where you must learn to switch from fear to curiosity, to give yourself permission to explore your body’s capabilities, and—most importantly—to trust what your body is telling you. This might seem counterintuitive. After all, rest and avoidance seem like the natural response to an injury. But avoiding certain movements indefinitely isn’t realistic. You can’t expect to avoid all falls for the rest of your life, and if you tore a hamstring sprinting, I hope you’re punctual, because you’ll never catch the bus if you avoid sprinting forever.

Instead of waiting for someone else to tell you when it’s safe to move again or simply accepting that you can’t do certain things anymore, try shifting your mindset.

Be Curious

Develop a sense of curiosity about why the injury happened or what you might be feeling. If you tore your hamstring while sprinting, ask yourself why. Is your hamstring not strong enough? Is it not flexible enough? Maybe a combination of both. Replacing resignment or resentment with this approach gives you more of a sense of connection and ownership to your body. Eventually you will be able to use this information gather to help safeguard against the chances of it happening again.

Be Thankful

This one might sound unconventional, but hear me out. If you curse the injury, you’re likely to develop a “why me” attitude and feel powerless in the process. Instead, try being thankful that your body has pointed out an area that needs more work. This injury has highlighted where you need to become stronger, and ultimately, it will help you understand your body better. Learn to fall in love with injuries.

Of course, this advice comes from someone fortunate enough not to live with a disability. I’m referring to the types of injuries and pain we all experience from daily activities, not severe traumatic incidents or congenital issues. I would never suggest someone be thankful for an injury or condition that feels out of their control.

Be a Mindful Explorer

At some point near the end of the acute phase, certain movements or exercises will have been off-limits. But that doesn’t mean they will always be out of reach. This is where most people struggle. The cycle goes like this: The injury causes pain, the pain leads to avoidance, the avoidance leads to weakness, and the weakness leads to re-injury once we finally feel “safe” to return to the movement.

Instead, try exploring the movement or joint slowly. Move with attention to the sensations you feel, paying close attention to what your body is telling you. The more strength and mobility you build in these areas, the more freedom you’ll have in the future.

Trust and Give Yourself Permission

This is the hard part. Ultimately, you have to develop a level of trust and connection with your body. The feedback you get from mindfully exploring your body’s capabilities is only valuable if you trust yourself enough to understand those sensations. Like building trust in any relationship, this process isn’t instantaneous. It takes time.

Imagine walking on a frozen lake. You wouldn’t just trust that the ice is thick enough and rush into the middle without checking the conditions. You’d look at the weather, assess the thickness of the ice, and gather all the information you could before taking a step. The same applies to your body. Be curious, be mindful and explore your movement it’s sensations. Building this attitude takes a lifetime, but the key is to give yourself permission to accept and learn from what your body is telling you.

Conclusion

So, my advice to the dancers was the same advice I give to everyone, including myself: There’s no magic exercise, no perfect guru, no wizard who can fix everything with a wave of their wand. The best coach is the one you can be for yourself, because no one can feel what you feel. Learn to explore your body, decipher its signals, and use coaches, physios, doctors—and fairy godmothers—as collaborators, not physical dictators.

Trust yourself.