The Mind-Body Connection in Healing

Hanny Sidis is from Haifa Israel. Hanny is an occupational, dance, and mind and body therapist. She works with people through movement to connect the body and mind in order to work through a variety of issues such as relationships, emotions, trust, and trauma. Hanny guides them to have a better understanding of themselves and to connect their inner self so they can make better choices for themselves. 

Hanny has recently added Acro balance to her treatments as a therapeutic tool bringing a better understanding of parental-child needs such as communication, trust, and an emotional connection to each other. In the future, she would like to open her own studio, guiding groups of families to impact more people.

In this episode, Hanny talks to Michael about how she came to be the professional she is. The second segment focuses on Hanny’s loss of her father and the last segment will feature Hanny’s experience with the Mind-Body Connection in healing.

Transcript

spk_0:   0:00
I earned a father and I'm so lucky.

spk_2:   0:15
Welcome friends to heart to heart with Michael Program For the Braves community, our purpose is to empower our community with three sources. Support and advocacy information. In this season, we're taking a longer view of grief. Can we find peace and healing? Is there a way to move on? Despite our losses, were lucky to have a very interesting guest, Honey Cedars, who will talk with us about being a professional, working with brief people. But she will also share her own grief journey since the recent loss of her father. Today's program is the mind body connection in healing Connie. See, this is from Haifa, Israel, Connie's an occupational dance and mind and body therapist. She works with people through movement to connect the body and mind in order to work through a variety of issues such as relationships, emotions, trust and trauma. Connie guides them to have a better

spk_3:   1:03
understanding of themselves and to connect to their inner self so they could make better choices for themselves. Honey has recently added acro balance to her treatments as a therapeutic tool, bringing a better understanding of parental child needs such as communication trust, an emotional connection to each other in the future. She would like to open her own studio, guiding groups of families for wider effect. Honey, welcome to the program.

spk_0:   1:29
Thank you. I'm really, really happy to be here.

spk_3:   1:32
You have a wide variety of experiences that have brought you to where you are today. So tell us about how you became interested in working with bereaved people.

spk_4:   1:39
Well, as a therapist, I

spk_0:   1:41
believe that, um, everyone lost someone, something that was really important to them doing life. We all dealing with lost when I became a therapist. I understand that in order to get a wider perspective off ourselves, we need to connect, uh, the body and in mind. And it's not just talking or understanding or thinking me to really connect ourselves to the process. And that's how we get a wider understanding about ourselves. So walk in with people, uh, who had lost someone. It's just brought me to them. Why? They're understanding that we need to deal with it the wider perspective. And then we can really choose and be empowered by our inner Selves. I think even Children experience the lost and I'm I'm walking with the foster killed care Children and they lost their parents. It's It's a great trauma and they deal with it every day, and they have to find their way to manage in life and to keep on going and to find, ah, other ways to be strong and empowered. So it's a great thing for me.

spk_3:   3:23
Is it fair to say that foster Children lose their parents many times because they keep moving from place to place every time they maybe begin to connect with somebody that ripped away again?

spk_0:   3:32
Yeah, I think it's really hard for them to connect to, to really be in touch with other people because they so afraid about being abandoned. So the process off walking with their with them is to really make them feel safe and secure that they can be in a relationship, which is really hard for them. It's a long process off trust, but once you do that and they feel trust and they feel that they're connected, they can really understand their story and they can open the trauma and they can really connect all the pieces because I think that the major thing about people Children dealing with grief and lost is that they have holds in their story. It's not connected. The trauma cuts part off the story, so they live in lives without knowing themselves without knowing their story, because it was it was so hard to deal with it. So the soul, the body, the mind they can deal with it. So they cut pieces off the story. But then when they grew up, it's really hard for them because they know that something missing. But it's so hard to to connect to data to deal with it. So in in therapy I helped them to connect the dots, to connect the story, to make it a whole. And when we get closer and connect, they feel safe to do that toe, open the story and start putting the pieces together. You

spk_3:   5:38
and I recently attended a conference on grief in Israel and in your presentation, which we'll talk about later in the program. You spoke about your father, who you recently lost. How is your own personal grief affected you as the therapist working with other people's grief?

spk_4:   5:52
I think ever since my father died, I

spk_0:   5:55
understand things that I didn't understand. Before, I didn't know before I knew about Lost and I knew about death. But it's it has nothing to do with what I'm doing now. It's so different. I know things that I haven't uh, no one before. So, um, ever since my father died a few months ago, I can really understand how sometimes I don't know anything. I don't understand anything about the personal lost off someone

spk_3:   6:37
That's amazing. Place to begin is a therapist. Oh,

spk_0:   6:40
yes, I think it has something to do with modesty. So now I understand that I can connect with people through the understanding that I don't really know how it feels to lose someone that was really, really close to them. It's so private, it has something to do with them and the special connection that they had with people that they love. But so when I said it that I don't understand a lot, I can say that I understand that it's really, really hard that it's something that they deal with every day that it's sometimes it comes in the wrong moment. Sometimes it's just ah overwhelmed them. Sometimes they just wanna cry, getting too getting to bed and never wake up. I understand it

spk_3:   7:51
aren't these things that are sort of also very coming. I understand what you're saying. That everybody's grief is private, that even though we've suffered a wrong grief, we can't understand what the other person's feel. That every grief is personal. But there are some things that are common, like many of the people I've spoken to on this program tell me the same thing for the first year or however long they they say that they couldn't get out of bed. People get hit with waves of grief. Suddenly they cry. Suddenly they don't cry. I think that's common to all of us. I'm not sure I understand what you're saying. That you find it harder now to understand that even though you had your own,

spk_4:   8:27
it is really common. And we all dealing with the

spk_0:   8:31
summer, uh, like common ways off dealing with grief. But, uh, and when I say that, I can say to someone, Now tell me about your own lost on and then I can be there with you. Even that sometimes like a like a child, once told me. A child who does lost both his parents He told me You'll never understand what it is. I told him, Um, you're right. But I know something. I know that it's really, really hard, and I know that it cuts you from the inside. And I know that you sometimes don't feel feel emotions that are so strong. Um, we can deal with it together. You could be with that together

spk_1:   9:36
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spk_5:   10:10
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spk_1:   10:42
You are listening to heart to heart with Michael. If you or someone you know would like to be a guest on Michael's program, please email him at Michael at heart to heart with michael dot com. Now back to our program.

spk_3:   10:56
Honey, at the convention we attended in a lot, you read a letter that you wrote to your father after he died. Can you tell us why you wrote that letter?

spk_0:   11:06
So after my father died, a sudden it was a sudden death. I was really shocked and full of, uh, attain on. And just after a few days, um, after Ah, oui. I finished the Shiva the seven days of grieving. Um, I got this email about the convention in alarm dealing with their lost and grief, and I immediately knew that I'm going to do something in that convention. And I'm going to come on and, uh, give a lecture and a workshop, um, in movement. So I figure out to myself, Okay, So I have six month should understand what I'm going to do to know what I'm going to do. I have six months to process this. Um, traumatic. Uh, lost it. I've, uh I've been through. So during this month, I started to write, uh, a diary, and I wrote to my father. I wrote him almost every day and, ah, I told him about myself in my life. And during this process, I understand that I'm doing something. I'm trying to understand what happened to us. What happened to me and my father in our special relationship that we had in that letter, I really understood what happened to us as a family and what happened to both of us as a father and daughter. And it was, um, very important closure for me to really understand our life story s so I just got up to the stage and read it, and it had a great impact on me and and I do is

spk_3:   13:25
I was very moved by it. It was a very personal letter, and you exposed yourself in front of strangers, which I think is difficult for anybody, but I want to turn this around you're usually the symbol of the therapist asking other people to experience to you. What was that like being on the other side of that?

spk_0:   13:45
It was very, really hard. But it was, Ah, a huge part of off healing process. For me, it was a present that I gave to myself. I needed to do it because I needed to find and meaning to all of that. My father was such great men, and we had such a great connection between us. How come he's just He's just gone. So I had to find out what just happened. I think it's It's a very unique and amazing story because, um, I can I can share with you that, um over the 1st 20 years of my life, I had a father. He lived with us. There was a great man, but he was very close person. And hey, he was very close without without the Children, you never expose himself or talked about this feeling and and we didn't have a connection between us. Although he lived with us, we had a huge distance between us.

spk_4:   15:02
I think it has

spk_0:   15:04
something to do with his car accident that he be through when he was three years old. So, uh, his leg, part of his leg as cut cut up. And he told me once that ever since it happens, he decided no to cried and all to show emotions because his mother was crying a lot. So he had to be strong. So I

spk_4:   15:32
think it grew

spk_0:   15:33
up. Has in order to be strong, like I know today about Children who suffer from trial. Now, in order to be strong and to survive, you need to had cut up your emotions, put them aside and all to show emotions. That's how you didn't know how to be a father, how to show love and warm. Although he was a wonderful person. But he couldn't show that tow us the Children.

spk_3:   16:10
Do you think that because he was injured, it is a child? That's why you work with Children. Do you think that you're helping him in some way by working with others?

spk_0:   16:19
Definitely. I think I'm Woking with Children in order to heal. Um, my inner child and my father, Definitely. Because the 1st 20 years of my life I didn't really know my father.

spk_3:   16:36
You mentioned that writing this letter was a journey to find meaning? Yeah. Can you explain that to our listeners? How you found meaning through writing? Did you feel like you're strengthening your connection with him by writing?

spk_0:   16:50
Yes, sure. Because by writing, I connected the pieces. I understand something that that I didn't see before. So the 1st 20 years of my life, it was one seeing ahead. I had one father, And when I was 20 my parents got divorced and my father left the house. So after my father moved away, you realize how the distance he waas And, um, how emotionally and physically we are and apart. And we're not connected. So he was determined to put our family together And to find a way two, just to connect with us again and to be a father, it was very hard because I was like, I was 20. And, um but But he did it. He just started to you went to his own therapy. You start to drove and Ah Hee hee Ah, you went to a journey. Bye. Art therapy. And you find a new love. He got married to a wonderful woman and they immediately connected to families together. And she loved us the load. And we're still in Ah, in touch with her. And, um, he just waited for me to come. It said, I'm here. I always be here. You can come whenever you want. It's okay if you're not coming, But I always be here. I'm your father. I want to reconnect with you. So he said that, um, he's very sorry about our childhood. He said that you couldn't find strengthen. It was really not connected to himself into emotions. He was very sorry about that. And he said, I'll do everything to get you back And he did. Slowly, Year after year, he became, ah, the most important important person off my life in my life. Um, I loved him more than anyone, and, um, it was a great journey for me toe understand it that I have a father so right in that really helped me toe understand and to put the story together. And it wasn't like that before. Now I really understand what we've been through and how he did it. And, uh, it took a lot off bag patient and and strength. And but he didn't. He never gave up and, uh, I earned a father, and I'm so lucky.

spk_5:   20:18
I was five hours old when I had my first surgery.

spk_1:   20:21
The only advice I could really give someone like that is to be there for your family.

spk_5:   20:26
This is life and you have to live it or you sit in a corner and cry.

spk_1:   20:30
I am in a Gorski and the host of Heart to Heart with Anna. Join us on Tuesdays at noon, Eastern time on Speaker R Block Talk radio. We'll cover topics of importance for the congenital heart defect community. Remember, my friends, you are not alone.

spk_2:   20:47
If you've enjoyed listening to this program, please visit our website hearts, Unite theglobe dot or GE and make a contribution. This program is a presentation of hearts. Unite the globe and it's part of the Hug Podcast Network Heart. Tonight The Globe is a nonprofit organization devoted to providing resource is to the congenital heart defect community to educate and power and enrich the lives of our community members. If you would like access to free resource is pertaining to the CHD community, please visit our website at congenital heart defects dot com for information about CHD hospitals that treat CHD survivors, summer camps for CHD families and much, much more.

spk_1:   21:29
You are listening to heart to heart with Michael. If you have a question or comment that you would like a dressed on our program, please send an email to Michael even at Michael at heart to heart with michael dot com Now back toe heart to Heart with Michael

spk_3:   21:44
Letter Writing is a mind body connection that it starts in your head and it comes out in your hand and there's that connection there. But I know that professionally, you've done some amazing things with the entire body to help with healing. So let's talk about Acrobat Alan ce and how this might help some of my listeners move on to a bath towards healing.

spk_4:   22:03
About four years ago, I started a practicing Akwa baroness myself and I immediately fell in love with this amazingly beautiful sport because I think it's one of

spk_0:   22:18
the only things that you have to

spk_4:   22:22
do together. Acrobat Honest is a partner acrobatic. You have to find the balance over someone else's body so you can't do that. Iran can do it without someone. Ah ho, be there for you. So, uh, doing my practice? I learned a lot about trust in myself, trusting others really feel free and connect to my body and learn how to use it in order to communicate without words. Ah, just to know where to put my weight how to balance myself. I think one of the most important things that I learned during my practice was to fall to learn how to fall on and then to get up again and doing it again. I mean, the trick again, Um, learn how to trust myself that I can for and stand and do it again. So I became an acrobat in its teacher. And, uh, yeah, and after,

spk_3:   23:47
it's just I have to drive. It's just too bad. This is a podcast of value. Only the pictures are hurt first. Terrifying. If I was your father, I would not let you do this.

spk_4:   24:00
Hey, I was so happy. Actually, my father he was so proud of you. He was a

spk_2:   24:06
father. And I'm not.

spk_4:   24:08
Yeah. Let me try

spk_3:   24:09
to describe this for people who don't know what actual balances its craziness, it's It's like it's like acrobats in the circus. Okay, But but these are normal people, regular people who just

spk_4:   24:21
do

spk_3:   24:22
these crazy amazing things. The photographs are I hope they're on your Web site. The photographs oh, are are stunning and frightening and scary. And you know what? They exude trust. All right, Okay. If you're on top of somebody's shoulders or if he's holding you up by his hand, If you look up trust in a dictionary, that's

spk_4:   24:45
the picture. Perfectly Exactly. Yeah. And it gave me a lot. My father. I was really proud of me. He said that a lot and used to show my pictures to everyone.

spk_3:   25:00
How do you use that in a family therapy session? You're not. You don't have kids being held up in the air by their parents by one hand. But But how?

spk_4:   25:07
Tonto,

spk_2:   25:09
you d Oh,

spk_4:   25:09
yeah, D Oh, no. One hand. But so I decided to start acro balance is a therapeutic tool in the regular sessions in my clinic with parents and Children. And it was amazing because you wanna be a fly on the wall when you hear about Children and parents hearing for the first time that I'm an acrobat in stature and I want to teach them some acrobatic poses so Children can say all My mother is too weak. She can't hold me and the mother say What? No, of course I'm strong. Oh, a child can say, Ah, my my father will sure drug neo I fall Oh, do you want to kill me or they say, Oh, I can do that with my father, Not with my mother and the parents. They say, too, they say, uh what acrobat? No, never. I never managed to holding. You hold him. Uh, so it's It's a great journey that that we're doing in the clinic. Um, learning how to trust, learning how to walk with our body. Ah, balance ourselves on our currents. The family's always say that ever since they started to do Acrobat un's the relationship and in in the home change dramatically because the Children learn to trust them when they have in a crisis or, ah, hard moment. So and mother told me that once her ah boy, just start crying and she couldn't comfort him. She told him to remember in Honey's Room redid acro balance and you trusted me. Now you can trust me that I can comfort you. I can help you just give me a chance. And she was, She said It was a huge moment for them. It was very dramatic.

spk_3:   27:35
It sounds so simple. It sounds, I'm sure it's not. But it

spk_4:   27:39
is just

spk_3:   27:39
beautiful that the parents learn howto transfer that trust that physical trust into a psychological binding and trust that way is beautiful. I need to ask you one more question because we're approaching the end. Okay. We've learned over the years that after post traumatic stress, which everybody knows about can sometimes come Post tried to growth and has a way of changing us and encourages us to do things that we would not ordinarily. D'oh! Um, my humble example is this podcast I never would have done it had on that lost my daughter. Your father's passing. What is that? What is that? Spurred you on Drew. Where's your post traumatic growth coming?

spk_4:   28:17
I realize that this is my time to open my own studio, which will be big enough and have ah lot of space in order to walk with groups. I knew that this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to open my own studio and I'm going to call that after my father's name. That will be my way to keep him with me, to keep his huge heart, to do something good for others and to spread the way off helping others Children, adults, adolescence and to reach more people. A. This my dream. And I'm sure I'm going to do that.

spk_3:   29:12
Would you agree that by opening up a studio in his name, you are taking his journey of the last 20 years, his journey back to you and continuing it for forward with him, even though he's gone?

spk_4:   29:28
Yes, definitely. That's the whole idea. And I really wanna walk with the families, got their like parents who got divorced and to do Aqua balance with the Children. Although the mother and the father got separated, I'm sure that Ah, with chakra balance and with movement, we can do things that help Children to feel safe and secure with both parents. Although they don't, they don't live together.

spk_3:   30:03
Honey, See this? Thank you so much for joining us today on the program.

spk_4:   30:06
Thank you. It was a great pleasure.

spk_3:   30:08
And that concludes this episode of heart to heart with Michael. I want to thank Honey Cities for sharing her

spk_2:   30:12
thoughts on healing with us. And I hope her story has brought hope to those who are listening. And I wish you much success with their plans for a clinic in her father's memory. Please join us at the beginning of the month for a brand new program. I'll talk with you soon. Until then, remember, moving forward is not moving away. Thank you.

spk_1:   30:31
Thank you again for joining us. We hope you have gained strength from listening to our program. Heart to heart with Michael could be heard every Thursday at noon Eastern time. We'll talk again next time when we'll share more stories.