Like anyone tackling creative, innovative nonfiction, Toni Bergins is an effective storyteller. She’s able to articulate all of the stats and facts, seamlessly embedded into an emotionally affecting, personalized narrative that holds the reader’s attention. Good communication often proves to be the most difficult aspect for entrepreneurial and innovative figures of a certain practice. Not everyone who innovates is inherently a good salesman. And salesmanship is critical, even with something decidedly wholesome in nature.
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The fact Bergins balances this skill with earnest articulation of her practice makes her feel more reliable. She is in a decidedly right-brain profession, but has her feet on the ground, making one immediately feel she is informed as much by altruism as by fact. The result is anyone skeptical of holistic practices reading the book can put defenses down. There’s a feeling of wholesomeness and wellbeing never requiring even the most hardened of souls to suspend disbelief. Bergins speaks to the widest possible audience, not just the choir. It’s refreshing. These days, books of specific nonfiction subcategories reflect the ideological segregation plaguing the country at large.
Communication has become largely siloed into distinctive channels, where it’s on the listener to adjust their expectations accordingly so as to join a particular group, movement, or practice. The fact Bergins displays such generosity of spirit in making her practice fully palatable again speaks volumes to the legitimacy of her efforts. As someone who identifies as a practical shamanist, it’s nice to see someone from this kind of school speak with that straightforwardness. It’s a bell-clear conciseness I’ve been hungry to hear myself for many years.
“So many people come to JourneyDance knowing that they’re looking for something, but they
don’t know what that something is. Yet once they experience the somatic benefits of being
embodied, or being fully present in their body, they find that they can tap into their deepest
selves, bringing a confidence to allow their emotions to surface, and face the story (or stories)
that holds them back. It’s only then that they are able to address the past, face the present, and
become empowered,” Bergins writes, near the beginning of her book Embody: Feel, Heal, and Transform Your Life Through Movement. “Embodiment is an action as well as a state of being. When we get into our body, when we decide to be present in our own skin, a whole set of experiences opens up. You can gain a new perspective on yourself, your life, and the stories that you are telling yourself.
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You can delight in the world, experiencing a whole range of feelings that have been repressed or suppressed, that need to be felt. Did you know that you can trust your body as a guide? Most of us make decisions using our minds, based on the available facts, ‘thinking through’ our dilemmas, to come up with the right reason. Yet when we live in our minds, we rarely pay attention to our bodily sensations or physical reactions that are also providing useful information. Your body’s wisdom is speaking to you all the time. And if you listen, you can call it self-trust or intuition. What does intuition feel like? Have you ever broken out in a sudden sweat, had the sensation of getting the ‘chills,’ or a gut tightening feeling?
Can you sense the energy of a room? When you can recognize your body’s primal response to a challenge or a new situation, you can learn to feel when you are making the ‘right decision.’ Being embodied means that you can rediscover your true ‘yes’ and ‘no,’ and move more effortlessly in the world.”
Garth Thomas