Dance Therapy For Trauma Healing

Your body can tell the truth long before your mouth can. We sit down with Erin Wilkins, a dance teacher and dance therapy practitioner with 31 years of experience, to explore why movement therapy can be a lifeline for people carrying trauma, shame, and the feeling of being “stuck” inside themselves.

We talk about dance therapy as a nonverbal healing modality, especially for people who don’t want to retell their story or who can’t find the words yet. Erin explains how he meets each client differently, from someone afraid to move at all to someone who was taught that dancing is “bad.” We also dig into the role of agency: choosing a song that matters, creating choreography, even teaching the dance back can rebuild confidence, voice, and a sense of safety in the body. If you care about somatic healing, nervous system regulation, and holistic health, this conversation connects the dots in a grounded, human way.

We widen the lens to presence and everyday wonder: how slowing down, noticing what’s around you, and staying adaptable can be its own kind of medicine. Erin also shares how he defines dance as any movement, whether you’re standing, seated, or moving only your hands and face, making this practice far more accessible than most people assume.

If this resonates, subscribe to the Healthy Living Podcast, share it with someone who needs a new door into healing, and leave a review so more listeners can find these conversations. What song would you choose for your first two minutes of movement today?

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Welcome And Why Dance Matters

SPEAKER_02 0:12

Well, hello, and welcome to the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, and I'm super excited today. We have back with us Aaron Wilkins. Aaron, welcome back.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Thank you so much. Good to be back.

SPEAKER_02 0:26

It's always a pleasure to talk to you. You got such a great outlook on how things are. I know you see things in a way that not everybody sees. And to me, that's refreshing. I think I hear a lot of repeated, regurgitated thought patterns and actions. And I'm like, doesn't anybody think for themselves anymore? And you always have this way of showing a thing that I'm like, oh wow, you actually put some effort into that. So I I like that about you. Well, thank you for that. So I was thinking about what are we going to talk today? And sometimes we just have a little chat beforehand and something bubbles up. But this is something we talked about a long time ago, and I I always found it fascinating because it's not a real active part of my life. I'm a clumsy white boy, and I don't have a whole lot of that in me. And it's okay. I don't feel called to do that so much. I have my own way of expressing myself in that way. But you do a thing that you call dance therapy. And you're a dancer and you teach dance, and and I know so many people that love dance. I know somebody who who puts

Dance Therapy As Nonverbal Healing

SPEAKER_02 1:50

on like a therapeutic dance session at his place. And I've actually even said in one one time when I was going through the chemo and I was pretty weak, I couldn't do much about it. But I I watched everybody and I love to watch dance, but I like I said, I'm a clumsy white boy, and I'm not really looking to change that. And it's okay. I, you know, but for many, many, many, many people, this is a very powerful modality. I'd like to hear more about it from you.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, when I first started doing dance therapy, I realized that there is so many people who either don't want to talk about what happened to them if they've had some trauma in their lives, or just really don't feel comfortable and but yet can express themselves through movement. And so it's just another modality to be able to express and heal those traumas that get trapped inside through movement. Whether we can see it or not, and some people can, you know, every movement creates a color, creates a frequency. And so through those movements and through those expressions, you know, you are shining out a bunch of your different auras and chakras, and you can really heal because you're creating basically a song through your movements that can heal on a really deep level.

SPEAKER_02 3:13

Yeah, I I'm aware of these things, and I know that working with certain medicines, I've been able to see energetic

Movement Energy Color And Frequency

SPEAKER_02 3:24

expressions, if you will, colors of things that normally I'm not able to see. And I I was talking about this to somebody the other day about the our ability to recognize things. And I said, even look looking out into the garden, looking out into the sunlight, we see the visible spectrum of light, or most of us, anyways, but different animals see different elements of that same spectrum. There's infrared all the way to ultraviolet that you can't see most of what light is.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:08

And so people have this, you know, we got telescopes that that look through spectrums that we we just don't see. And so, and there's all kinds of instruments that can see things that that you know can demonstrate through some kind of a readout what what we're looking at. But when it comes to you know the energy of movement and things, you've got quite a gift being able to see, and like you said, it creates like the the different like light and sound. Light has sound and sound has light. And people don't necessarily see that expression. And I sat with a medicine this weekend and had a really powerful experience, and while I was going through it, I knew I wasn't gonna remember most of it. I was like, wow, this is intense and powerful and and and profound, and I go, I know I'm not gonna remember most of this, but at least I'll know it, you know, like I'll know these things that I'm getting. And a lot of it had to do with the interconnectedness of things and how things affect each other a lot. And that's kind of that's kind of I think a lot of what you're you're you're sharing in a way that I don't think people realize.

SPEAKER_00 5:44

Yeah, no, I think that you know, yeah, we talked a little bit last week about being so closed on, you know, and maybe not close, but just that that inability to just

Presence Childlike Wonder And Flow

SPEAKER_00 5:54

open up and see what's just beyond, like, oh look, there's a tree, there's the blue sky, you know, there's so much going on outside of that. Just, you know, the wind blows the grass, that creates a color, right? You know, which creates, and then that color is attached to a note. And so, you know, you have all of this this music and this sound going on around us all the time. And yet we don't, you know, a lot of times we don't take the time to to tap into that and really live. I think we're uh I kind of focus on, you know, living in the present because when you're when you're so hurried and you're just so focused on I've got to get here, I've got to get there, you're always focused on the future and you lose. You lose so much of what goes on around us, and you're not able to just really sit, you know, with kind of like childlike wonder at what's going on around us because we're so worried about what's gonna happen next.

SPEAKER_02 6:54

You know, it's funny, people sometimes think I'm kind of immature, and I say, Well, that childlike wonder never gonna leave me. I I love it. I I I I go out every morning and take a walk with my dogs, and I always find something new in this little walk I take, and I always find something to be amazed at, you know? And there's something special about that that's healing, you know, to to be in a place where I think people get too comfortable with their world and they get used to too much that they are experiencing, and then they get into ruts and and habits, and they get bored and unstimulated for that as a result, and then you know, stagnant water is generally not too helpful for most things unless you're you know parasite or you know, fungus or something, yeah, and in which case it's great, but it it's moving water is is so important, and I think that that's a lot of where that childlike wonder comes from. You know, you ever just go walk along a stream like you could do it forever, and there's always something around that next bend, or just watching the walk water go across the rocks, or something that's swimming down there or gliding across the top, whatever. It's just it's endless. And then to be able to see the the interplay of you know these elemental forces and movement, and then you know, you've got this gift of being able to see the the color and the sound that's coming out on top of that. That's pretty amazing.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Yeah, and I and I think too, like moving water struck a chord here with like you you have to be willing to up and move and not be, you know, like I'll have things that I want to do every day, but it's almost like you need to look at what are the important things that need to be done, not necessarily the urgent things, because if we're not, if we don't have that adaptability to change and grow and some excitement happens, but we're like, oh nope, I gotta do this at this time, you know, you miss it. And I think being adaptable, and I mean, and not irresponsible. Obviously, you're you're getting the things done, those important things, you know, that need done. But a lot of times I think what's important isn't really all that important, and we need to take a step back and look at that of you know, what really matters, and what are you losing by your focus being on something that you think is so important? You know, will that thing really matter in an hour, in five days, in a year? Um, you know, and and that is kind of yeah.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

Spot on right with that. Like we make these things important that to me, I'm like, are you kidding me? Like, like, like what people think about us, or you know, social media, or some some acknowledgement of something by somebody, whatever, all these things that are so so darn important to so many people. And I'm like, wow, like you're totally missing out on most of life. I don't know. I I had a volunteer come out this morning, and she had been and sat in our sweat lodge before and came to a workshop, and she's like, Yeah, I'd like to come out and work in the garden. And you know, so we spent a couple hours together just transplanting plants and talking, and in the conversation, just being present and touching the ground and interacting with these living beings that are plants. We discovered, I don't know how many little profundities that you know the gardens always spit out, and I'm like, Yeah, you know, this is important work, and and you know, it's like, well, what would you be doing otherwise? You know, and you think about the mindless crap that we can find ourselves doing sometimes in the name of it so darn important, it's good. Well, let's get back to the dance part. I I love our conversation, so we always go in all these directions that are good, but I I'm I'm

What A First Session Looks Like

SPEAKER_02 11:33

fascinated with dance because you know, for something that I don't generally do, I mean, I literally took ballroom dancing classes so that I could dance at my wedding and not be a fool. That's how bad I am. And and it's okay, I don't have any issue with it whatsoever. I don't have a deep desire to learn to dance. I just I love to watch it, I love to watch people's fluid movements and grease. You know, I love to watch Grease. I don't possess a lot of it, but I love to watch it, and I can definitely see, like I do yoga sometimes, so that's the closest thing to dance that I'll probably ever find myself doing, or a little tai chi or something like that, where it's you know, movements that are that are fluid-ish. And but tell me, like, somebody comes to you brand new off the street, and maybe it's a crusty old stiff white guy like me and says, I think I need some dance therapy. What do you do?

SPEAKER_00 12:39

I try to figure out, you know, why what's the the basis reason for doing this? And and a lot of times, you know, I'll I'll do a little bit of soul room work, just kind of like tapping into that. I've I've had a couple teenage girls who had had some abuse that went on, and so I did a little bit of soul room work with them just so that I knew exactly how do I approach this? And a lot of it's getting to know the person and then tapping into what is it that they need. So I've gone from, you know, someone that was scared to even, you know, move to the music to people that have been shamed with dance that, you know, they felt like dance was bad, that it was a bad thing to dance. And so we had to get to the root of that shame and deal with that. And so that one was just a lot of encouragement. So it totally is person-specific as to what do I need to do to help you? One girl, she was very insecure, and so I told her that she needed to teach me a dance. And I told her she needed to, she needed to come up with a song that meant something to her, create some choreography and teach me. And that was so powerful for her because she came as this, you know, shy little like closed-up nut. And then she just started, you know, cracking open and really taking ownership of of that. And she needed that because she'd been in a place where she felt like she didn't have a voice, she didn't have a say. And when she was in the studio with me, she had all the say. And so that was like super powerful for her.

SPEAKER_02 14:18

Okay. Well, that makes sense. I mean, I can see, I can see. I was gonna kind of get into that next is all the all the different benefits that you've seen, because I suspect there's a lot of them. You know, it's it's kind of like you know, what I call my therapeutic horticulture, it's really anything can come of it positive because there's so many facets to it, so many elements. But I would and even even, you know, mind, body, and spirit. So, but I wouldn't have thought about that notion of having to come up with, you know, giving yourself agency to create something and have to teach it to somebody as a beneficial element of dance. But sure enough, you've you came up with that one.

SPEAKER_00 15:07

Yeah, yeah. And it's, I mean, we're we're also individualistic, which, you know, I think is why using dance and movement therapy is so powerful because we, you know, we don't all fit into the same thing. You know, you go to a doctor, I've got a headache, here's some pain pills. Well, what if that's not what the issue is, you know? And so it's every every one of us has something that may, you know, some symptom may occur in our bodies or in our minds that are similar to other people, but the root cause is not always the same. And so that's the that's the part that I love is you know, delving into the person and helping the person at that level because every single person's going to be so different. So you can't ever assume you can't ever think, oh, this is what I'll do, and then this will happen, because we're all so individualistic. There's only one of us in this entire universe. So we all react different.

SPEAKER_02 16:09

Well, that's one of the reasons I like talking to you a lot is because you understand that. And a lot of the guests that I work with also share that,

Individual Care And Holistic Thinking

SPEAKER_02 16:19

you know, when we talk about holistic, a lot of times people think that means herbs or natural something or not this or not that. But holistic has more to do with looking at the problem as a whole and seeing each person as being individual, so there isn't necessarily a blanket answer for a thing. Maybe there's blanket groups of things that you might start to look at, but there's so many variables involved in the human experience, and there's so many variables involved in the solutions to it that really you have to kind of like isolate what is it that I'm working with, who is it that I'm working with? What is it that they bring to this, and what is it that they are interacting with? What is it that they need? And most doctors, especially, they don't they don't look at it that way. Like they come in, they identify a problem based on a series of symptoms or variables that they identify, and then they slide right over to the box of this is what you do when you see that, and they do it. And it's really unfortunately, in my opinion, a lot of doctors get trained how to be dancing monkeys, like they they they learn how to do a lot of stuff, and you got to be really smart to be able to learn all that stuff, but they don't necessarily learn how to solve a problem, and that's what the practice is supposed to do. But yeah, if all you practice is doing the same old thing over and over again, I don't know how much growth you really get. And you know, in my experience recently with you know, all these oncologists that were stuck in their box, and when I had to literally give them the answer I wanted and find one that would do it, I was like, whoa, you know, this is medicine. Okay, so just finding people in in all angles. I've had surgeons on that have a holistic approach, which is pretty unique. I've had all sorts of different doctors that again look at a problem as a whole rather than just you know this symptom and what that means and this disease or whatever. You, as a multimodality practitioner, you definitely bring that into it. So I think that's where a lot of the richness of our conversation comes from. And again, with dance, you know, you're talking about this tool that can kind of do anything.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

So it's yeah, I mean, at the worst, you're gonna get some exercise, which you know, you get some endorphins going. That's that's a good thing, you know.

SPEAKER_02 19:20

Yeah, yeah, 100%. So that's the way I see the garden. Like, well, even if you don't like to get your hands dirty, well, you can put some gloves on. Even if you don't like, you know, to move around too much, well, you can just sit and get some fresh air. Like, there's always some basic that you're gonna benefit that you're gonna get just by being present, you know, and doing it. So the dance is kind of like that. If you just move a couple of moves, some good's gonna come of it.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 19:52

So when when people come to you, obviously you're looking at it from establishing kind of a root problem, maybe, if that's a correct term. And then you look at dance as a tool or part of a toolkit, I guess I could say, because you you don't necessarily just do one thing with people. What are some of the most common, if I could characterize it that way, issues that people come to you with searching for dance to be a treatment for?

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Usually it has some sort of trauma base. So either abuse or shaming. I think a lot of times with dance, it's shame. Really? They've been shamed, they've been guilted, they've been told they're not good enough, or that something that they were doing was wrong.

Trauma Shame And Opening The Heart

SPEAKER_00 21:46

And so a lot of times in that guilt and the shame, I mean, I think of like, you know, like a little kid, if you're pointing your finger at him and you're screaming at him for being bad, you know, one common thing that the kids do is they roll up into a little ball and they they rock or they just they protect, they protecting their face, their inner organs, their heart. You immediately just curl inward. And so with dance, you don't have the option to curl inward. Like you have to be out, you have to have that heart area open. You can't protect yourself and dance at the same time. So there's this real openness of healing that has to occur to heal that heart, heal that part of you that was damaged and wounded so that you feel free enough. Because when you're dancing, oh my gosh, your heart's exposed. Somebody could kick you or shoot an arrow right at your heart or hurt you. But you have to be willing to almost take that step, you know, kind of like jumping off a cliff, hoping that the water's, you know, there's not going to be a rock in the water. But yeah, of that knowledge of knowing, you know.

SPEAKER_02 22:57

I've noticed that trauma is. Behind a lot of problems that come up in my world here, in you know, just having a healing garden and place where people come to try to find health and wellness, and you listen to people's stories, and almost inevitably there's some kind of trauma behind it. And it's like, wow. In fact, I did a series, I I guess I'm still doing it, but we haven't recorded an episode in a while with an inmate from Soledad Prison, and we've titled the series Healthy Living Through Adversity. And through those interviews I've done with this guy one and several other inmates, I've learned that like some huge percentage of inmates are serious trauma survivors. Like a huge, like 90 some percent. And if you get in and learn about you know their childhood, there's generally some very traumatic trauma that's gone on, whether it's sexual or beating or you know, whatever, all the horrible things that happen to kids. And you go, wow, like what the hell is wrong with this? You know, how is it that so many people have to go through so many terrible things? And then you look at that and you say, and and then the ripple effect of all that. So it becomes, I think, more and more important to maybe identify, you know, that trauma is gonna be behind most issues that you see in life like that. And if there's a physical problem, or if there's you know an obvious mental issue, or whatever it is, that you can almost assume, which generally we don't want to have to do, but you could almost assume that yeah, that person went through some trauma and now they're feeling the effect of it and hopefully finding some way to work it out.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

Yeah, no, absolutely. And I mean, I think I think all of us do. I mean, even if you're you know, gosh, even if you're a little bitty baby, it was it's very traumatic being pushed out through someone's pelvis, you know.

SPEAKER_02 25:28

Oh my god, I could I I I say that from the beginning. I'm like, yeah, we start our life in the most violent, traumatic way. You know, I'm like, geez, to get squished through that little spot and then have to breathe air after being in this lovely, warm, wet place and not have to worry about shit. Boom. Hey, welcome to life, kid. Here you go.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

Absolutely. So, you know, all of us have some sort of trauma. I think it's what are you gonna do with it? You know, I mean, right? They look at they look at narcissists, you know, they most likely, most all of them have had some sort of trauma in their life, but they have their way of coping with that is learning how to control others and make themselves look amazing. Your empaths have all gone through trauma, but they've taken that and said, I'm gonna let this trauma heal me so I can heal others. You know, and so it's all it goes down to what are you gonna do with it? You know, you're all handed this plate of trauma. Are you gonna use it for something good or are you gonna use it to hurt others?

SPEAKER_02 26:33

Agreed. Agreed. Well, so when you talk about dance, you're talking about this once again, a gigantic spectrum of movement, right? So number one, how do you define dance? And number two, what types of dance do you specifically

Defining Dance And Styles He Uses

SPEAKER_02 26:52

work with?

SPEAKER_00 26:54

So dance for me is just any kind of movement that is accompanied with music, but that music doesn't necessarily need to be audible, so it would just be movement.

SPEAKER_02 27:07

Okay. Uh so any movement you would consider that could be considered dance.

SPEAKER_00 27:13

Could be considered dance. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

Maybe I can dance.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

Hey, there you go.

SPEAKER_02 27:19

I just have even if it's I just have my own version of what that means.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Yeah, well, and I've taught dance to elderly people that were wheelchair bound. And so if you can't use your legs, what are you dancing with? You're dancing with your hands, you're dancing with your facial expressions. So there's there's different ways. It's not like you know, you're strapping on a pair of ballet shoes and going. Within I teach at the at the local college, I teach line dancing and ballroom dance. But when I do a lot of my therapy, it's usually lyrical because it comes from a place inside where you're just expressing your feelings and everything that you're going through from deep inside yourself.

SPEAKER_02 28:04

Got it, got it. I I know people in wheelchairs that they call it hand dancing, where they just, you know, move their hands and their neck and their head, and they're like, Yeah, this is what I can do.

SPEAKER_00 28:18

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 28:19

I don't have anything from the waist down, but I got plenty from the waist down. Yep. So, yeah, so that's awesome. And line dancing and ballroom dancing, that's that's a good little good little cross-section of things. I like I said, I I took a ballroom dancing course before my wedding, and I learned a couple of basic steps, but it was good enough. It got me through my my wedding dance.

SPEAKER_00 28:46

Good.

SPEAKER_02 28:47

They didn't throw tomatoes at me or anything, so that was okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:51

Yeah, and I I teach a little bit differently. And you know, I mean, you can go to these super technical ballroom dances where, you know, do steps XYZ and then A B C. And I try to tap into the people that are in my class. There's a reason they're taking the class. And if I can tap into who they are, make make them feel comfortable in their own skin and see where they are struggling, I will gear the class individualistically to each person once I start kind of learning who they are and what they need. Sometimes people just need encouragement. Sometimes people need exact steps. But I I teach a lot of the rhythm method, which is learning to feel the dance, to feel it inside, and then let that expression go and not be hung up on, oh my gosh, I didn't do the steps correctly. Because, you know, I'm teaching them the basic steps, but I want them to feel free to add their own flair to add it, because I don't want them to feel boxed in of, oh my gosh, you're not doing it correctly. Because this isn't, it's not a technical class. These guys aren't going on to competition, you know, they just want to know how to dance.

SPEAKER_02 30:03

Right, right. Well, that's good. That takes the pressure out of it, that's for sure. I know. With something like dance, there's a lot of technical details that are either correct or not, like ballet and certain types of, you know, certain types of dance. It's like you're either doing it right or you're not. And but that kind of takes the fun out of it, you know. Yeah, unless you're really good, then I guess it puts the fun into it. But yeah, I I suspect you've been doing this for a while. How long have you been teaching this?

SPEAKER_00 30:36

Oh my gosh, I've been teaching for 31 years.

SPEAKER_02 30:42

That's a long time to be teaching a thing. I s I I suspect you've probably got a lot of anecdotes that you could share about some profound experiences, but I always like to hear at least one or maybe a couple really powerful experiences that you've seen when somebody came to you for dance.

SPEAKER_00 31:04

Yeah, I mean, I saw, I think the the one instance I mentioned where I had the girl that was teaching me dance, that was amazing to watch her come in just closed up, no smile. You know, obviously like her hurting

Real Client Breakthroughs And Results

SPEAKER_00 31:21

was palpable when she showed up. And I think it took about three sessions once a week until when her mom dropped her off, she was bouncing out of the car with a huge smile, saying, I can't wait to show you the next steps in the dance. And for me, that was super powerful because I could see her on her journey starting to heal. And then we only had about five or six sessions together, but then she's like, I don't need to go anymore. You know, I felt like I showed her who she was and the tools that she had already inside herself to be able to continue to grow and to continue to heal.

SPEAKER_02 31:59

Wow, that's awesome. That's uh that's that's definitely a moving experience. Who's the youngest and who's the oldest of your clients that you've had?

SPEAKER_00 32:12

I want to say my youngest was nine. Okay, and my oldest would have been about 65, 68, somewhere in there.

SPEAKER_02 32:23

That's a pretty good spectrum of people. Well, if somebody's interested in going and experiencing your version of dance therapy, how do they get a hold of you?

SPEAKER_00 32:37

Yeah, send me a message on my website, or probably the best way is just send me a text. Tell me who you are and what you need. If you're local, fine. If you want to come to see me, yeah, we'll make a day of it.

SPEAKER_02 32:50

And you are in southern Idaho, right?

SPEAKER_00 32:52

I am, yep.

SPEAKER_02 32:53

Awesome.

How To Reach Aaron And Closing

SPEAKER_02 32:54

Well, Aaron, it's always a treat to speak with you. And like I said, you've got a wealth of information and perspective. And I just so glad to be able to spend time with you. I know you help so many people, and it's good to watch you starting to thrive as well. So it's been a joy.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

Thank you so much. Been a joy as well for me.

SPEAKER_02 33:16

Awesome. Well, this has been another episode of the Healthy Living Podcast. I'm your host, Joe Grumbine, and I want to thank all of our listeners for making this show what it is, and we will see you next time.