Victoria Kleinsman (00:01.366)
Here we are. Well, Alison, welcome to the podcast.

Allison Pagano (00:06.01)
Thank you for having me. I’m so excited to be here.

Victoria Kleinsman (00:09.026)
Would you like to introduce yourself and tell us a bit about who you are, why you do what you do, all the juicy good stuff?

Allison Pagano (00:15.536)
Sure, yeah, so I’m Allison Pagano and I created a body of work called Embodied Dance Accidentally about 25, 26 years ago and it’s become my life’s work. currently I lead online and in-person teacher trainings using Dance as a Healing Art and supporting people to reconnect to their body’s truth, to their expression, to understand what they feel, to know what their power is and to make choices from that place because I feel like we’re living at,

obviously a time on the planet where disembodiment is a problem more than ever. So I feel very in my mission and on purpose around how to support humans staying human and not only that but thriving beyond what we are told we’re capable of.

Victoria Kleinsman (01:04.384)
Hmm. I love that. Let’s dive into how you created this by accident. So I’m sure, in fact, I’m certain your personal story intertwines into all of it, which is why I also became a coach, because I went through it myself, and I was like, have to help people with this. So yeah, share a bit about how you created all of this by accident.

Allison Pagano (01:25.008)
Yeah, well, there goes one of my fingers. So I was actually here. So I’m based on Australia right now. And I was here back in the late 90s doing my undergraduate degree in cultural anthropology from New Jersey originally. So it was a long ways away coming over here. And I was in the middle of a very intense eating disorder.

Allison Pagano (01:48.24)
I just didn’t want to be in a body, didn’t want to feel anything, and was kind of shrinking away from everything in life. I just kind of basically wanted to disappear and not deal with anything. That was brought out about…

losing a boyfriend in a car accident and then I think my grandfather died the same week and I was doing, you know, five, six courses at the university at the time and I was just mentally, emotionally maxed out. I had grief, all these things rising up. And previous to that, I think in my life, I had been in and out with food probably since I was 15, 16. I always had sort of this weird relationship and something about that moment in time kicked off all of those things into a critical mass where it was just like,

I don’t know how to eat. don’t know how to any of this. I just don’t want to do it. So for whatever reason, even though I was going through this horrific thing and I had my friends doing interventions for me and I was going to nutritionists and nobody was really helping me, for some reason I decided to study abroad for a year in Australia. In the middle of all of that, yeah.

Victoria Kleinsman (02:54.702)
Actually, do.

Allison Pagano (03:00.462)
I don’t know, there was just something in me that knew that I had to kind of get out of my own way or I had to kind of find a new perspective on some level. And it kind of got worse before it got better for sure. But the turning point for that was not too far from where I live now is a university called Southern Cross University. And I was studying there. I was studying what they called at the time Aboriginal Studies, they call it something different now. And I had an indigenous woman teacher who was teaching

a class called spiritual well-being, which back in the late 90s it was like, whoa, what’s this? know, it 20 something, 20 maybe.

She taught us about the energy body. taught us transcendental meditation. She taught us all of these different things that I had never been exposed to. But I was always on more the spiritual side. Like I always felt deeply and kind of knew things and didn’t know why. And she started to connect a lot of dots for me. And I deeply respected her, deeply trusted her. And she was someone who you could tell had been through hell and really also knew how to hold a big space for many things. So we had this

Victoria Kleinsman (04:06.286)
Thank you.

Allison Pagano (04:11.09)
assignment in class to bring forward our concept of the divine at 20 years old. So I didn’t want to disappoint her and I definitely knew that there was something in me that was being really activated by what I was learning in class.

started being able to put together kind of the whys of like, oh, this is why I’m hating myself right now. Oh, OK, I can kind of see these patterns playing out. You know, it was giving myself greater context for those things. So our class was held in a dance studio. So I knew that. I needed to show the class something through movement, and it scared the shit out of me. Sorry for cursing. I was terrified. Yeah, OK.

Victoria Kleinsman (04:52.566)
no, you know me, you know me, just like… No, don’t try to be like me, be yourself!

Allison Pagano (04:55.664)
I could drop a lot of f-bombs, so I’ll try to be ladylike. Thank you. I committed to exploring this through movement because I had started dancing, I don’t know, maybe again when I was 15, 16, and I just knew that…

there was something in this for me. had a very strong clarity of like, just do this and figure it out, Allison. Like there’s something in this for you. So I found this amazing piece of music and I would go in the studio every day and I was just committed to being in curiosity and being in my truth. And I didn’t really know what that meant. But ultimately what I found was as I was mapping these different things around what I could see I was experiencing,

and what she was mapping it to in like say chakras for example like okay I could see that like I’m really shut down here and my power center is like completely shut off and just having these little pieces of information to hold on to I started diving into like well where do I think this is and what is going on here and I would just be committed to feeling even though that was the thing I was running away from.

So my task was to try to give a truthful expression to what I could sense.

that was stuck, was unnameable, that was unspoken. And most of the, just didn’t even have pictures or words for, but I would just try and touch the root of it and give it a movement. And I practiced that for probably a couple of months. And then I ended up bringing to the class this half choreographed, half improvised thing.

Allison Pagano (06:47.32)
And I got so involved that at one point I like sprained my ankle like coming out of a turn because I was all in a, know, yeah, was in the passion of it. But there was something about…

sharing and being witnessed in that raw vulnerability, which was something that was very foreign to me. was a deep, deep introvert, didn’t really talk to anyone, very, very quiet. And to be so exposed like that in such a truthful way was like, what did I just do?

And to feel that I was received by the class, was seen, there was reflection coming back at me of what people experienced. Something in me after that started shifting a little bit. And it was just, I started having a different relationship with my body. First of all, I was having a relationship with my body. And I started realizing that I didn’t want to…

Victoria Kleinsman (07:21.036)
me.

Allison Pagano (07:46.98)
hate life, I didn’t want to spend my days just writing down every single piece of food that I ate and exercising for four or five hours. I just got really clear I didn’t want to do that anymore. So it was like, okay, I don’t know what I’m doing, but this is feeling more like I’ve got some capacity to learn how to eat again now.

or I feel like I have some safety and some space to meet life in a different way and to know that there’s a way through. So it just became a pivotal point and I could say more about what happened after that in the years, but that’s just the pinnacle of where it started.

Victoria Kleinsman (08:29.198)
Wow, I mean, I think I am curious if you agree, I the foundation of any kind of healing work, regardless of modality use, is what you’ve shared is being witnessed and held and loved through you being your true, authentic, raw, vulnerable self.

Allison Pagano (08:47.491)
Absolutely.

Victoria Kleinsman (08:49.048)
Yeah, to be witnessed and held through that. And how does it look like for us? So those of us that struggle, and most of my listeners will definitely resonate with this, perfectionism, overachieving, control, all of that, it’s stored in the body, isn’t it? It’s not just a mental construct. It’s in your somatic system. So how do you explain that to someone who is like, how can that be stored in the body then?

Allison Pagano (09:10.512)
Thank you.

Allison Pagano (09:15.62)
Yeah, it’s pretty fascinating because what I’ve learned, again, another thing that I didn’t intend on becoming was working in the healing arts. I ended up doing hands-on healing for about 20 years of my life. know, kind of following that, I went to school and studied with a lot of healers and started bringing through a lot of deep…

what I’ll call now maybe multi-dimensional healing. It sounds woo woo, but it’s really very practical and earthy. Anyway, through those deep healing processes, what I’ve learned over the years is a lot of the stuff that I was carrying was lineage pain.

And mapping things and then having to learn later, like I was carrying this like my own, but it actually happened to my mom. That happened to my grandma. But I came in and I held this and I guess my soul said, OK, I’m going to pick all that up and do something with it. As so many of us, I think right now are that have come here to the planet, I think at this time for this massive transition. That was something I wasn’t expecting because it feels so much, you know, I feel like we can take on so many things in

Victoria Kleinsman (10:12.866)
Yes.

Allison Pagano (10:19.416)
life that we have to feel it to the degree that it is ours to move it through, to transmute it, to transform it. So unlike the spiritual healing level, I’d say that was a big, big piece of it, of finding that my body and my lineage was all connected, was not exposed.

Victoria Kleinsman (10:24.193)
Yeah.

Victoria Kleinsman (10:40.332)
How did you, how was that shown to you? Was it through meditation? Was it through past life?

Allison Pagano (10:47.182)
Yeah, I mean, it through a couple of little different things, but even on a very practical level, like I would share things with my mom, like I’ve gone through this particular thing or I’m having this physical thing in my body and she would tell me, yes, this happened to me too. Or I had to find out later in life, you know, the sexual abuse that went on. She, and also I didn’t find out until later, went through an eating disorder when she was younger.

And there was just intense trauma. mean, they all grew up poor in New York City in the early 1940s and 50s. So it wasn’t something I ever intended on investigating or I wasn’t aware enough to know. It was just like, God, I feel all of these things and having conversations with her after having moved through different experiences with them. Yeah.

Victoria Kleinsman (11:42.008)
That I mean, it makes sense because I believe like you’ve said, we’ve come here, a lot of us to bring all of this to the surface to heal and to end that pattern, then produce offspring or not just to share with others like, and the healing begins for a new earth, like it’s that big. What was I gonna ask you? yeah, in terms of how did that feel? So before you recognized, met it with love, healed it, let it go, how did it show up in your physical body? So if listeners are like,

Allison Pagano (11:57.712)
Absolutely.

Victoria Kleinsman (12:11.766)
Okay, I am a perfectionist, I am a control freak in order to feel safe, because it’s obviously there for a reason. How did you know it was, well we know it’s somatic, but for people who don’t understand your work yet, how do we know, how do we sense that it’s in our physical somatic body other than just a thought and living in our heads as a construct all the time?

Allison Pagano (12:32.366)
Right. Well, this is a great question. And when I work with students and I work with clients, I always bring it back to their own experience. And I always bring it back to what’s present and alive in the moment, because the body never lies. One thing I have studied a lot in healing is body language. And the funny thing about body language is that no matter what a person’s saying, their body is always telling the truth. So.

When you can come to learn to trust what is being moved or expressed, it’s pretty intense and powerful. to go back a few notches with that around how do you know where to meet it in the body? You have to be, I want to say courageous and you have to want and you have to be curious. And I want to say compassionately curious about what is really happening.

Victoria Kleinsman (13:25.271)
Mm.

Allison Pagano (13:28.408)
And I think without courage and without curiosity, it’s kind of hard to get started. You have to also want to kind of figure out that what’s happening right now, you know that pathway forward. You know the control thing. You know the perfection thing. That you know that so well. And you know how it ends. And you know how it goes every time. So there’s something in being curious of, could this be different for me?

Victoria Kleinsman (13:48.365)
Mm-hmm.

Victoria Kleinsman (13:54.914)
Mm.

Allison Pagano (13:55.514)
Is this a life sentence or is there something else? So when I’m working with people in the body, will often be, we will name whatever it is, if it’s the perfectionism, if it’s the control. For me, it was control. I felt out of control about life. People around me are dying. All of this is happening. I better control what I can. And.

So we would dive into that and say, okay, this idea of control and we will kind of bring the mental and the emotional into it. What do you, I’d let somebody dialogue about it. What are the feelings about it? Okay, we’ll kind of get something going. And then once they feel safe and we’re in a connection flow about it, it’s where does that feel activated in your body?

it’s like, yeah, my stomach’s tightening up or like my throat’s getting a little closed and my shoulders blades are tightening up a little bit. And there’s always some form of activation that you can feel. So we follow that like a thread. And we get very curious about, well,

Victoria Kleinsman (14:49.283)
Yeah.

Allison Pagano (14:58.544)
How would you describe it? And a lot of people would map some of this to, guess, there’s a field called somatic experiencing. And I would say that my work has a similar tone, except I bring it through to dance. So we actually express the fullness of the root cause, and we bring a new imprint in. And there’s reasons why we do all those things, because it’s very, yeah. Sure. Yes.

Victoria Kleinsman (15:10.87)
Yes.

Victoria Kleinsman (15:20.846)
Ooh. Yeah, tell me the process. Sorry to interrupt, I was excited about what you just shared. Because obviously awareness is everything. We can’t do anything without awareness. Like you said, compassion, curiosity, courage for sure. If you were working with someone, could you give us like an example of, know everyone’s different and the body might not be ready to express it and all these things, but if the body was ready to see it and express it, could you give us an example?

Allison Pagano (15:49.506)
Absolutely, so I just work with whatever the person can touch. And I realized that the nervous system is a beautiful thing because in this process that I’ve been working with people for over two decades, the body has never brought anyone to a place where they said, that was too much, I’m re-traumatized, I can’t handle it. The body just brings up in the moment.

what you are ready to see, acknowledge, or move through. And it’s because of the way that we do it. It’s like, well, what do you actually feel? OK, I feel this. OK, how is that? Yeah, it’s OK. And you kind of just follow the breadcrumbs with it. It’s uncomfortable, but it doesn’t kill you. So when you get curious about it and you start feeling the activation of it, there’s a whole lot of different tones to what I do inside the embodied dance work. But ultimately, we get to a place of how does that knee

to move to be fully expressed. If you’re going to touch it, we kind of touch into the root. It’s connected to this memory, emotion, time, whatever it was, whatever the person needed, the needs that they didn’t have met, the meaning that they made about what happened. This happened, so it means I’m not worthy. This happened, and it means that I won’t be loved for who I am.

So we kind of touch into the core beliefs as well and how the core beliefs are already operating and how they’re making you feel. And we just get really curious and we hold that core belief and we hold with a lot of compassion for what that person went through. So it’s bringing a lot of witness and care to it.

Victoria Kleinsman (17:07.992)
Yeah.

Allison Pagano (17:29.88)
And it’s giving them the opportunity to say, what about that is now ready to move? What was there that was never expressed? Sometimes there’s anger. Sometimes there’s grief. Sometimes there’s a whole variety of emotional intensities on lesser and greater scales. And it’s just giving the person access to that and saying, OK, there’s something here that you can clear off some dust with.

and let’s do this together. So it’s just holding a little flashlight on what it is and how it can move. And once they do that…

Victoria Kleinsman (18:04.012)
Yeah.

Allison Pagano (18:06.646)
It’s like, okay, there’s some more space now that throat piece or that tummy piece is sort of like settling a little bit. And I really align with that nature of Borza vacuum saying so it’s like, well, now there’s this space. So what are we going to what do you intend? And what do you choose? What would you most like to bring forward from this if you’re going to create a new imprint into what that was? So maybe the intention is I want to take better care of my heart.

Victoria Kleinsman (18:29.934)
Well.

Allison Pagano (18:36.55)
want to have better boundaries around this particular thing. And it’s like, okay, where do you feel that in the body? I feel it here. How does that want to move?

And we start rewiring the body language around things that they never really thought that they could do. So it’s around creating new movement qualities. And in that, there’s a bit of an identity shift. Because I say that body language works in two ways. Body language works from the mental emotional to the physical. But when a physical actually does a different movement, it registers in the mental and the emotional. So it’s a way of re-imprinting

Victoria Kleinsman (19:10.413)
me

Mm.

Allison Pagano (19:15.57)
old paradigm. And this is how, you know, the body of work I studied was the collared method. And they talked about neuroplasticity and being able to rewire the brain through different movements once you’ve addressed the mental and emotional. So it’s really the unified field of the whole person getting on board with the same thing. And that’s what I see has created the most long term healing in the people I’ve worked with.

Victoria Kleinsman (19:43.522)
Yeah, I got so far as a coach for the first year or so with this strong mindset and, you know, thinking I’ve got it all together and I had come very far. And then I realized that, shit, like I can’t mindset my way out of a trauma response that’s somatically in my body. You just can’t do it. So going back to your beautiful process, if someone can’t connect to or isn’t given the experience that happened, the meaning behind it, let’s say this was pre-verbal because a lot of

know, trauma, big T and little t, trauma starts pre-verbally when we’re babies, even the mother’s womb, even. So just to clarify, to support people out there who are thinking, my God, I don’t know where all this emotion’s going. Do we need to know or not?

Allison Pagano (20:17.648)
Absolutely.

Allison Pagano (20:25.036)
Absolutely. Well, the funny thing… Do you need to say again? Do you need to know?

Victoria Kleinsman (20:30.604)
We need to know where it’s come from and what it meant to us and what belief was created in order to shift it and then create a new imprint for ourselves.

Allison Pagano (20:38.384)
It depends on the person and the story and what’s there. And there’s a couple of different processes. I kind of gave you a broad brushstroke of what I do with a person who’s really ready and we’re kind of in there and it’s really palpable. I have taken people back to those times, but it’s come from their body, where we go, okay, where’s that activated in your body? I feel this part of my body. The way that we get there often is to ask your body, what is the earliest memory

emotion of your body feeling that way. And a few people have said, I’m in the crib. I’m in utero.

Victoria Kleinsman (21:16.099)
Yeah.

Allison Pagano (21:16.93)
And it comes from their gnosis and they’re like, holy shit, I had no idea that this was all the way from then. My mom didn’t want a girl or whatever it was, you know? Whatever the story was, they kind of start making their own connections. It’s not coming from me, but I’m just holding the space so that their subconscious can start bringing the puzzle pieces together.

Victoria Kleinsman (21:39.822)
Which is so beautiful, isn’t it? Because the mind might not know, but like when people say, you my mum especially, I can’t remember my childhood. And I say, well, your body and nervous system remember every single thing about your life experience. Doesn’t matter if your brain or mind can’t. So actually that does reiterate the truth in that the body remembers even if you, as in your mind doesn’t, the body always knows. What a gift.

Allison Pagano (22:07.372)
It is a huge gift and it can get, you know,

Not strange for me because I work in the healing realm, but people can sometimes access memories that are not from this life also. I see myself and I’m in a cave or I see myself and I’m in a beer and I don’t know where I am. And it’s like, okay, what else do you see? they will have sometimes a big story and it’s like, what just happened? But their brain is remembering something that’s still connected inside their cells. And it can sound super weird. It’s not that weird. I think we only use it

a very small portion of our brain at the end of the day, right? So it’s what we can actually remember and connect to, I think is far greater than we were ever taught. And there’s some reasons for that as well, but yeah.

Victoria Kleinsman (22:54.432)
I agree. How would you help someone who is ready for this work, who wants the freedom that comes at the other side of this, but they have so much fear around expressing? So I think of the past version of me, if I were to, I mean, I assume obviously it’s the safe space you create, but if I was to allow myself to be witnessed in moving, I don’t think I would be able to let myself do that because I’d have so much shame around what’s going to come out. I’d be

putting a mask on, trying to perform for you.

Allison Pagano (23:24.304)
Absolutely.

Absolutely. So yeah, this is a great question. it’s very gentle. for I have worked with a lot of people with extensive trauma. So I’ve had experiences with this and it’s really about what they can access. And it’s not about me watching even if I’m working with them live, I’ll go into the next room or if we’re on zoom. They I say, you know, just take your camera off because it’s not about me watching until you’re ready and you want to.

This is about you touching and exploring what’s there for you right now. And just know that I’m right here when you need me. But you don’t need to have a set of eyes to make you more self-conscious. And if people are having a hard time with big body movement, it’s always easier to start with gesture even. It’s like, what hand movements represent that?

because I think people can feel safer seated, moving hands, you know, sometimes as a starting point. And it’s like, you just start with what you can access and what you can touch because maybe they don’t want to do a whole big thing. And that’s, that’s pretty normal, especially if you’re not a person who does a lot of movement. So it’s always starting with what can you touch and what is accessible and using that as a little doorway in.

Victoria Kleinsman (24:24.419)
Yeah.

Victoria Kleinsman (24:28.014)
Yeah.

Victoria Kleinsman (24:39.502)
Yeah.

Victoria Kleinsman (24:48.758)
Yeah, you know, it just reminds me of something that my personal trainer always used to reflect back to me at the gym. I was always stronger at push movements, other than pull movements. And it came to me one time that because of the trauma I’ve had, that get away from me, don’t come near me. I’m saying no, because I’ve never been able to say no in the actual moment. I’m so much stronger in pushing away from me. And it just clicked into place. And I was just like,

Allison Pagano (25:00.515)
Wow.

Allison Pagano (25:12.432)
Yeah.

Victoria Kleinsman (25:18.05)
Wow. And I just had a little moment with little me, you know, he went through that, he couldn’t say no, he felt stuck and froze. And I’ll always be stronger in push movements because it’s like, no, get away from me. It’s really interesting.

Allison Pagano (25:30.192)
What was that like for you? Did it shift anything? Or what did you notice with that kind of like, there was that part of me that’s trying to protect myself by pushing.

Victoria Kleinsman (25:40.438)
I felt very empowered and also very sad for that version of me who didn’t think and feel safe or powerful enough to say no and to push away. So a lot of emotions, grief, sadness, but also empowerment and like you mentioned earlier, that space that was then created. It was almost like I was carrying, this is kind of a cliche saying, but it was very true for me. I was carrying a backpack that was heavy.

Allison Pagano (25:45.392)
you

Victoria Kleinsman (26:09.09)
that I didn’t realise I was carrying though. And then when that happened and I processed that and it was like, it’s like, I don’t know, it’s just space and lightness is how I can describe it.

Allison Pagano (26:20.654)
Yeah, yeah, and that’s the, I think that’s the beauty of becoming aware of our patterns. And I want to say most people do this work because they, or most people don’t do this work because they’re terrified of what they might find.

Victoria Kleinsman (26:34.978)
Yes.

Allison Pagano (26:35.138)
when it’s like on the other side of it is everything you ever wanted is that sense of feeling safe and having peace and these were things I did not know for a good portion of my life and it’s like when you’re when you’re willing and ready and there’s there’s no timeline of of when that needs to happen but if people could know that on the other side you’re okay and it’s better and it gets better

when you have the right tools and when you have the right resources and support to really hold it.

Victoria Kleinsman (27:10.646)
Yeah. And do you mind sharing for you when you, let’s bring some big emotions up. So rage and grief, rage, grief and fear, which I believe are big core emotions. I guess it changes throughout your process and journey with this dance, but how did the original raw primal expressions of grief, rage and fear look like if you don’t mind sharing your experience with expressing them?

Allison Pagano (27:38.318)
back years ago or recently? Well, I can think more recently, I guess, because…

Victoria Kleinsman (27:41.363)
Whatever you want to share, guess when you first…

Allison Pagano (27:46.8)
And it’s funny because I created actually a program called Sacred Rage that moves through the feminine archetypes to help women do that because of how important I’ve seen it be. But I went through something probably about a year ago where I get ahead of, know, feel like when you’re on a journey, you’re just like, there’s just things that come. And I realized a really long standing pattern that I had taken on and I had wells of rage.

that I had never expressed before to the point where my husband was like taking out the punching bag, you know, and I was just like going for it because it was just like, I was so and the funny thing is I had been a person and I still am in my in a lot of ways. I’m a very kind person. I’m someone who always want to make other people feel comfortable. And that’s just kind of who I am. And I don’t regret that. But anger was not my go to. So it was a very like even in my household, my dad would be like, no anger, don’t be angry. You know, that’s his thing. Right. So

it wasn’t an encouraged thing. So for me to touch and own that was really big and I ended up doing a performance. I had a performance actually locally.

a whole bunch of students and then I ended up performing this thing. I hired a flamenco teacher to work with to kind of get that sort of stamping, know, el duende kind of thing happening. And I, you know, I had also taken flamenco before, but I used flamenco dance as a pathway of moving some of that intensity in my body. And yeah, I performed it. I actually called it lineage because it was a big piece of what I want to call like the parentified child.

Victoria Kleinsman (29:01.198)
No.

Allison Pagano (29:23.248)
And so yeah, and then anyway, there was just a whole bunch of different pieces to it that I just needed to kind of take my power back because it was like long enough that I was playing the nice girl. And it was all of those years of playing the nice girl where I was like, you better fucking believe this is done.

Victoria Kleinsman (29:24.428)
yeah.

Victoria Kleinsman (29:36.642)
Yes.

Allison Pagano (29:44.654)
Like, this is it, no more. Like, you do not do that anymore. And it was just, you know, standing up for that little girl, again, you like you were just saying, who was so shut down, who was so bullied, who was all of these other things, and never had anybody stand up for her. And it was like, I’m fucking standing up for her. So I think anytime we do that, and anytime we own a deep emotion, it’s a power reclamation. Anytime you own a grief and you let it integrate,

It brings to you another sense of being able to connect deeper to people, to have a kind of compassion for them that you couldn’t have for yourself that now you have. And fear is an interesting one.

Fear, think, for people can be also very disconnecting in terms of anxiety, right? In the stories that we tell ourselves about, we’re all alone and everything’s screwed up, which it’s easy to look around in the world and say that. So, you know, what happens when we meet that fear and we see that we’re still safe and we see that we’re still okay? Then what’s possible?

Victoria Kleinsman (30:47.533)
No.

Allison Pagano (30:48.616)
So it’s, yeah, it’s a very beautiful journey. And it’s one again, that doesn’t feel good all the time when you’re in it. But ultimately reclaiming it is reclaiming a part of yourself, your path. And I believe it’s like that, you know, the Khalil Gibran poems who talk about…

What’s the I can’t remember the book I read it like 25 years ago, but he talks about, you know, it’s the same cup that holds your emotions. It’s like if you can only touch a certain amount of joy that you can only touch a certain amount of sadness. Like when you can touch more of one thing, you can touch more of everything else. So when you deepen into the rage or the grief, guess what? You get back 10 times your aliveness, 10 times your joy, 10 times your pleasure. So it’s being able to hold more overall.

that I think is such a great benefit in terms of like fully feeling human.

Victoria Kleinsman (31:43.842)
Yeah, I love that. It’s such a beautiful analogy actually because I’ve always shared that with my clients. Like you’ve got walls up to protect you from perhaps feeling hurt, but you actually also, the same wall, the love and the joy and the freedom that you’re seeking is they’re all behind the same wall. There’s not like, I’m just going to cop and compartmentalize, that’s it. You know, emotions I don’t want to feel, I’m going to be open to the ones I do. It doesn’t work like that.

Allison Pagano (32:06.298)
Right.

Victoria Kleinsman (32:11.68)
And my experience with fear especially, when we really face a fear and allow it to be present, it’s so much easier to process and experience than when we’re running and fighting and resisting it, which is ironic, because it feels so counterintuitive to be like, okay, fear, you’re welcome, let me just feel you. It seems so wrong to do that until you’ve done it and then it feels so right.

Allison Pagano (32:35.92)
Absolutely. And we underestimate how much energy it takes to hold back that fear all the time. It’s exhausting. It’s so exhausting.

Victoria Kleinsman (32:41.538)
Yes. Yeah. You know, something about rage, I think it’s worth sharing that rage and anger can be very empowering, powerful emotion to drive you forward. And actually what I noticed within my healing was, you know, and like you said, it’s an ongoing journey because your body and nervous system will only present to you what you’re capable of meeting. So it’s still in layers coming up. But when I allowed myself to feel anger,

and express it just out my body, I expressed it outwards instead of internalizing it and being angry with myself. So it helped me without even using mindset, it helped me with my self-talk because all the anger wasn’t directed inward and held within. It was released. Even only yesterday, I have a 15-month-old and the way we’re choosing to parent is very full on, like she’s with me 23 hours a day. And my needs often don’t get met.

Allison Pagano (33:27.61)
That’s such an important point.

Victoria Kleinsman (33:39.596)
and we’d agreed on something yesterday and it didn’t happen and I was lying there and I was like, I am so angry. I feel hot. I’m furious. Like, I am so angry and I just wanted and I couldn’t at the moment at the time. I wanted to smash things and shout and cry and I was afraid of my anger. All I could manage was saying to my husband on the phone, just so you know, I am so, so, so, so angry right now. And that helped a little bit. But what can we do?

Like for example, my experience yesterday, because my daughter was on the breast and she was asleep, that I couldn’t get up at that moment and express it and honour myself. I guess I’m asking myself as well as anyone else who resonates, how do we then navigate that, wait for it to come up authentically again?

Allison Pagano (34:14.96)
you

Allison Pagano (34:27.492)
Yeah, well, it’s interesting yet to be physically not able to do something in the moment is an interesting conundrum with it. And I think about one of my mentors, what she would have me do with meeting anger in a certain way. She would have me go into the mind and the body and feel. She’d be like, well, just imagine you’ve got a baseball bat in your hand and you’re breaking glass. And just feel yourself smash the thing. And just feel what it feels like to just grab something and pull it down off the wall. And she’s like, just let yourself feel it.

So I guess that would be, you the imagination is a powerful tool and we can bring those things to life for ourselves. Not that you will want to be, you know, processing all those things with, you know, your little, your little one maybe, but, but yeah, you can move through so much just with your imagination and just by bringing yourself to the allowance of that. Like it’s, it’s okay for me to do that and giving yourself the permission to say it’s okay for me to feel this and actually

Victoria Kleinsman (34:58.659)
Bye.

Allison Pagano (35:27.356)
bring it to a expression even if it’s on an internal plane.

Victoria Kleinsman (35:32.832)
Yeah, that’s a great suggestion actually because like you say, is so powerful and even if I could have imagined me doing what I felt like I physically wanted to do, it would have maybe processed that and released a lot of that. I did share with him, which was helpful for me just to share with a safe person how I felt. It was very valid how I felt because I know it’s always connected to the younger version of me who didn’t get her needs met, who was angry because she didn’t get her needs met. So yeah, thank you for

sharing that because again, so many might be able to resonate with the experience of not being able to have a raging fit in the middle of their work day or something. So if you can do it in the mind and imagine it, even if it’s on the toilet for five minutes, anything to support us in the moment of need.

Allison Pagano (36:19.696)
Absolutely, or you know if you have a little bit of space screaming into a pillow is good, you know taking something non-breakable and just whatever it is, know having a little moment with it and yeah I definitely notice and I don’t know where you’re at

Victoria Kleinsman (36:25.634)
Yeah.

Allison Pagano (36:34.872)
to ask in any regard, but perimenopause is starting to bring up, all those things. get into a certain, you just, you become a little more unhinged, I notice, in terms of some of these deeper things, some of these deeper emotions that maybe didn’t have an expression before. So yeah, it’s interesting.

Victoria Kleinsman (36:52.696)
What I’m hearing you say a lot actually, and I want to just reiterate for myself and our listeners, is you’re giving the emotion, the energy emotion, an expression. You’re naming it and you’re giving it an expression and outlet. If we come to the body and get out of our way in terms of our minds and trying to overthink things, will the body naturally give an authentic expression or do we need to sit and think, how do I want to express this feeling of

anger or sadness or do we just, how does that work? I know it’s quite hard to explain, guess, tangibly because I guess the body just does lead, but how can we stop overthinking and being like, should I express rage like this? Or how do we let go and be with the body expressing how it wants to express?

Allison Pagano (37:38.585)
Yeah, I mean, very simply, you don’t I mean, I have a detailed process that I walk people through so that they can, you know, understand the layers of it so that they get to the root. But in the moment, you don’t have to, you know, necessarily go through a process unless you want to. That can be very helpful in the moment. You just need to be able to connect with what you feel and say, OK, I feel this. it’s like, well, just and then the more that you can really.

Name it. Like, okay, like my stomach feels like it’s on fire. Like, great. That’s all you need. It’s just something like that. Turn it over to the body. And when you turn it over the body, you have to be willing to not go on autopilot. Like if you have a certain way that you always move, you have to be willing to say, like, if I’m going to get a little bit unhinged about this, like, what’s really there? And just giving yourself permission to be with what is, knowing that it’s not going to put you in any bad state.

that you’re going to feel better after, that you’re going to affirm something. Or the thing that happens most of the time that’s fascinating to me is that we can cognitively have a story about something. This happens all the time. It’s fascinating. It happens to all my students too. We cognitively have an idea. This is what’s happening in my body. I’ve got this anger and we go to move it. And once we turn it over to the body and our mind really lets go and we’re in there,

We start.

feeling and sensing different things. And it happens all the time where you’ll actually be brought to tears because your mind will start unraveling a piece of truth where you can see for the first time, you’ll have a flash across your mind. It’s connected to this moment where that validation didn’t happen. It’s connected to this. it brings always up something that you’re not cognitively thinking. So it’s a beautiful process of just turning it over.

Victoria Kleinsman (39:34.157)
Yeah.

Allison Pagano (39:37.026)
saying like body what is it that we can do here and being willing to follow the lead of how the body wants to move by by being in touch with that feeling and following it till its full expression.

Victoria Kleinsman (39:51.278)
It reminds me of when I was doing mirror work in my recovery. I faced the mirror and I felt the usual disgust, hatred and then anger like, why does my body look like that? Why have I gained weight? Disgust, hatred, anger, like in a pattern. And usually in the past I would choose to restrict more, plan another diet, blah, blah. But because I was in recovery, I was like, I’m not doing that shit anymore. So I have to be with this somehow. I had no idea how to be with it.

Allison Pagano (39:55.216)
Mmm.

Victoria Kleinsman (40:18.574)
but I practiced being with whatever was coming up. And then it was so interesting because when I allowed that rage and anger to be there, underneath that was deep sadness and grief. And I naturally sat on the floor and rocked myself. I was crying and sobbing and rocking myself. And an image came up of my grandma locking me outside when I used to cry. And I wasn’t allowed back in until I stopped crying as a baby. And so…

It was actually not linked to how fat I thought my body was. It was linked to me being rejected for being too much.

Allison Pagano (40:53.904)
Thank you so much for that. That was such a beautiful example of exactly what I was just saying. That was it. That’s exactly what it was. you just, that’s such a beautiful share and of a memory of identifying a deeper truth and being able to hold yourself compassionately in the moment with what was there and what the body was really talking about. It was really talking about that. Yeah.

Victoria Kleinsman (41:18.338)
Yeah, we didn’t do anything, that was the thing. So I didn’t really know what I was doing. I just knew I couldn’t do the old pattern because that led to an eating disorder. And so when I kind of got out of the way and just let the anger be there, then the sadness came and the image came, like you said. And so I guess I’m also sharing with our listeners through processing myself in this moment now, what happened to me then as one example, just allow the body to guide you. But I think

If I didn’t have the physical, tangible space to process that, for example, if I had people over or, you know, my husband was always with me, if I needed that space in my bedroom alone without a time scale to process that. So I assume with work, when you’re working with your clients, do you call your people clients? Your students? I mean, life happens, doesn’t it? But how much space do we…

Allison Pagano (42:01.456)
Hmm.

Victoria Kleinsman (42:16.376)
Bit of an awkward question because we can’t control when this happens. We can’t be like, right, on a Monday morning at this time I’m going to process my sadness. No, it doesn’t work like

Allison Pagano (42:23.982)
No, you can’t.

predict a trigger, that is for sure. So I think, I mean, for me, I’m an introvert and an introvert, meaning most of the time I have a hard time being around people as it is and in a social way. So whatever you can do, like, you know, I’m not feeling so great right now, I’m gonna go outside and take a walk, or I’m not, excuse me, I need to go to the bathroom, whatever it is that you can just give yourself five, 15 minutes and just place even your hand on your heart and just, you know, what am I feeling?

Victoria Kleinsman (42:26.807)
Nothing.

Allison Pagano (42:55.154)
What does this remind me of?

And if you’re willing and honest about meeting it, you’ll hear it pretty quickly. Like, yeah, this is the way my brother used to make me feel, or this is the thing that, and it’s like, okay, and makes me feel actually really sad, and I’m gonna just have compassion for myself around that sadness. And when you get accustomed to being in relationship with the body and knowing that the body is on your side, it’s not something that we wanna, you know,

harm, but it’s a pathway and it’s a wisdom keeper. And it holds all our tender secrets. And it’s our greatest guide. We just, whenever we how to access these things.

Victoria Kleinsman (43:47.032)
Yeah. How can someone do all this beautiful work if they’re so disconnected and disassociated and they literally live in their heads? And then when I say, how do you feel right now? They can’t actually connect and feel an emotion because they’re so, I guess, and disconnected. How do we bring ourselves back bit by bit into the body being a safe space for us?

Allison Pagano (44:14.212)
This is a great question. I think, it comes down to if you’re doing body-based somatic work, even understanding.

you know, doing a little bit of a scan for, you know, where they’re feeling, what they can feel in the body. And it’s like, if you can imagine what safety feels like, can you notice anywhere in your body that feels even like a little bit safe right now? And it’s like, well, maybe behind my left knee feels okay. Or, you know, I’m just making something up. But it’s like, where can you feel right now that there is safety? And if they say, you know, nowhere, nothing, and it’s like, well,

How is this conversation for you? Is this okay? And normally the conversation is happening is okay. Can you notice in this room that everything right now, is happening in this room, that right now we’re contained and gravity’s got you, the earth has got you, I’m here. Can you sense that even? And it’s just being able to name whatever it is that they can just connect to like, well, maybe that’s okay.

And once they have the capacity for that’s okay, it gives the nervous system a place to go just expand a little bit.

Victoria Kleinsman (45:35.35)
And does it help even to, for example, if you just get your hand on your arm and just gradually slowly pat your arms, they can actually start with the basic physical sensations. I know it sounds a bit silly perhaps to some of having a body and like putting your foot on the floor and actually being present with what that feels like having your foot on the floor. Come to the physical body first.

Allison Pagano (45:58.447)
Absolutely. That’s a great. Yeah, that’s an absolute great thing. And I totally agree with you. And I think I was just also saying like, yeah, if they if they don’t want to do the body, if they can’t, they go completely out and they’re like, I can’t even do the foot on the floor, you know, I would bring them to the other periphery. But we would definitely start with the body first. And yeah, hand on the arm, foot on the floor, anything that felt accessible and starting with that. Yeah.

Victoria Kleinsman (46:14.542)
Hmm.

Victoria Kleinsman (46:29.024)
I’m sure the body, I’ve noticed it in my work and I’m curious on what your thoughts are. When the body has that little experience of safety, even if it’s literally, I now notice and I’m aware of the foot on the floor. It then opens up bit by bit and then things that they need to work on are accessible.

Allison Pagano (46:48.816)
Absolutely.

Victoria Kleinsman (46:51.414)
The body is always working for you, not against you, even though we treat our bodies cruelly in the eating disorder and we abuse our bodies. Actually all our body is trying to ever do is just love us, support us, protect us.

Allison Pagano (47:04.856)
Absolutely true. Yeah, it’s so beautiful the way you just said that. It’s funny, I never thought so much of an eating disorder in that way, but there was a revolt against the body happening for me at that time. It was very much like me against whatever this is, like I’m gonna measure this and make it smaller every day, I’m gonna win, know? Whatever, you know, there was some determination around, yeah.

Victoria Kleinsman (47:25.432)
Yeah.

Victoria Kleinsman (47:30.306)
Yeah, I remember being very at war with my body and almost being like, why can’t you just look this way? Why can’t you just do what I want you to do? And that’s why I had such a poor relationship with my body because I was at war against it. And when I realized that all it’s ever been trying to do was protect me, heal me, be there for me, I started to cultivate a better relationship with it. And then it just kind of built from there. And I might have a preference, a different preference of how it might look.

but it doesn’t mean I don’t love it unconditionally and care for it and I’m so grateful for being. In fact, I started to say recently, this works for me. So I will say something like, I’m going to the shop and my body’s coming with me. That helps to completely disidentify with the body because I’m going to be intimate with my partner now and my body’s coming with me.

Allison Pagano (48:10.352)
Mm-hmm.

Victoria Kleinsman (48:25.996)
because I used to identify so much as the body, like my body and how it looked was equaled my happiness and my worth and how I was perceived in the world. So to even use language like that, because I am not my body, to really get it, to saying things like that throughout the day, like I’m going to have a shower and my body’s gonna come with me. Does that kind of make sense to you as if like why I would…

Allison Pagano (48:50.512)
I’ve never heard that before and yeah, I think it’s it’s it’s really brilliant to Like you you’ve investigated enough to go that really works for me and like I can really you know Get how that makes sense So yeah, I think the key I guess for fine for any person is just you know, what is What can they allow? What is the the image? You know, it’s like my body is coming with me if it’s feeling this disconnection Yeah, it’s such an it’s an interesting way of

of naming it.

Victoria Kleinsman (49:21.666)
Yeah, it’s that question of who is the I when we’re talking, when we’re saying, you know, my brain’s running away with me or my thoughts are running away with me. Well, who’s the my? Like, it’s that those deeper questions that, we don’t often in our work, we’re asking ourselves this. Well, who is the I behind, you know, your body?

Allison Pagano (49:41.743)
Well, yeah, I mean, for most of us, for you know, in terms of the body language work and the what I’ve done, it’s the subconscious mind. It’s the part of you trying to keep you safe. It’s the part of you that’s gathered evidence your whole life around why this particular part of you is not safe and what you have to do to protect it, right? So, you know, we can’t get rid of it. So we have to befriend it just like you did.

And that’s exactly what the pathway is. And it looks a little different for everyone, depending on what makes sense to you. But for some people, it’s also just like, thank you, body, for trying to keep me safe. Like, can see that you’re responding a certain way right now, because I’m about to go do something that’s uncomfortable. Like, thank you, body, for trying to keep me safe. I’m going to do that. We’re doing this together. And I appreciate it.

Victoria Kleinsman (50:32.118)
as a team.

Allison Pagano (50:33.038)
Yeah, exactly. Like taking it with you, just exactly like you mentioned. So you have a really beautiful way of describing how to navigate these.

Victoria Kleinsman (50:34.924)
Yeah. Yeah.

Victoria Kleinsman (50:43.426)
Yeah, it just reminds me of, it’s in a spiritual perspective, how, I mean, yeah, this is going into a bit of a different way. So I’ll bring it back in a moment, but in terms of who are we, if we’re not our body, if we’re not our minds, if we’ve had all these past lives in different bodies, we’re not the current body we have. So it just reminds me of such a bigger picture of what we are and why we’re here. And I guess it helps align me with my values and,

Allison Pagano (51:11.778)
Absolutely.

Victoria Kleinsman (51:12.748)
keeps me away from falling back into perhaps old patterns and all.

Allison Pagano (51:16.29)
Absolutely. I completely resonate with that and I want to share again, you know, my work is deeply spiritual as well. So I’m sure, you know, you and I probably align and maybe we have some differences in some ways, I’m sure,

What I’ve come to realize, especially over the last six years in doing body work and healing and especially the embodied dance work and taking it to new levels because I feel like I’m just the channel for embodied dance. It’s not coming from my mind. It’s coming from a bigger part of whatever it is that I’m connected to. And.

Victoria Kleinsman (51:45.72)
now.

Allison Pagano (51:47.887)
What you just said is really driving things home and it is bringing things very full circle because in healing what changed for me back in the late 90s and what has always brought me through a full healing process was bringing it to something bigger than Alison is saying, what am I really truly connected to? That’s with me, that’s never left me. And if I actually come into that place in my body, mind, heart and soul that knows that I am connected to source energy

Victoria Kleinsman (52:04.855)
Yes.

Allison Pagano (52:17.83)
to God, whatever word you use, holy mother, father, doesn’t matter. But when you realize that you are part of something that is inherently loved and made worthy by its existence, that piece clicking in is the sealing out of, I want to say, the ego noise.

is bringing it back to source, bringing it back to something, again, as we were talking earlier, divine witness. Bringing that into your heart. Yeah.

Victoria Kleinsman (52:41.484)
Yes.

Victoria Kleinsman (52:49.55)
And it’s.

And it’s not my pain, it’s the pain.

Allison Pagano (52:59.406)
A lot of times I’ll just place my hand on my heart and I’ll just be like, you know, God’s source, like, feel this with me. Like this, you know, if I’m going through a big thing or I get some news and I can’t handle it, I’m just like, feel this with me. I really believe that wherever we come from or the creator, creatress, whatever words you have is completely sentient and connected. And having that witness is, yeah, being witnessed is being healed for sure.

Victoria Kleinsman (53:05.122)
Hmm, that’s bigger.

Victoria Kleinsman (53:25.196)
Yes. I just checked the time and I was like, right, okay. Because I could have asked about 10 other questions. So is there anything, Alison, that I haven’t asked you that you would like to share? And then of course, please share how, I mean, you briefly mentioned at the beginning, but how can people work with you? Why do they find you?

Allison Pagano (53:33.306)
Thanks

Allison Pagano (53:44.475)
Yeah, sure. So thank you. It’s been so lovely to connect and learn more about everything that you’ve shared as well. So I’ve really enjoyed this. so the main offer that I have is the embodied dance teacher training. And this is for leaders, more or less, who don’t know that they’re leaders yet, or they have a big body of work to share. And they need the support to really own what it is that they’re here to do. They need the support to build the somatic library of

tools that can help serve them and also to know how to go out in the world and make a life and a living from it. So that’s the main thing that I work with people on. I also work with a few people one-on-one when I have space for that in deep body, deep embodied dance processes. So people who are going through transitions or big, big periods of life that really want some somatic holding. And then other than that, I have a couple of different smaller programs that I offer, but I’m on Instagram embodied.com.

My website is embodied-dance.com and you can learn more about kind of who I am, what I do through those channels.

Victoria Kleinsman (54:53.538)
Beautiful. And I guess I’m going to ask a question that the old me would have asked, which the answers obviously no, but your words of wisdom to people who might be asking the same question within their own minds. Do I have to know how to dance or be a quote good dancer in order to experience and heal through embodied dance?

Allison Pagano (54:57.456)
Sure.

Allison Pagano (55:12.336)
Not even slightly. However, I also believe that to dance is inherently human. And while some people may not love it or like it, it’s in everybody’s wheelhouse, in a human body. So there absolutely is no, you need no training. You need never have to been to a dance class of any kind to have an amazing experience with your body in that facet. So yeah.

It’s a teacher, it’s going to teach you, you’re going to go on a journey with it and you’re going to come out the other side feeling in your power, in your skin, in your confidence. And that’s, you know, I feel like that’s claiming our true birthright of why we’re here.

Victoria Kleinsman (55:56.802)
Alison, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed myself. This time has flew by. So thank you for your energy and your time. Is there any last words to our listeners before we say goodbye?

Allison Pagano (56:04.666)
Thank you, yeah, also.

Allison Pagano (56:10.832)
yeah. I mean, you know, if you’re listening and you’re feeling hopeless and you’re feeling sort of pinned down by something that has a stronger hold on you, I just want to let people know that there are other pathways and you don’t have to follow someone else’s path to a T. It’s really just around how can you find a path that makes sense to you, that honors your journey and finding the support and things that you resonate with?

that makes sense to you because there is a way out. It’s not a life sentence to have an eating disorder. And on the other side of it is a really wonderful way of being in the world, being in your body. And it doesn’t happen overnight. But when you trust and you stay present, it ultimately gets better over time to the point where it’s just not there anymore.

Victoria Kleinsman (57:09.134)
full recovery, full healing. It’s an ongoing journey when more layers are ready to come up, but it’s so possible to be completely free from the eating disorder and to love who you are and to embrace the journey of life.

Allison Pagano (57:20.976)
Absolutely. Thank you so much. Yeah.

Victoria Kleinsman (57:22.68)
Thank you, Alison, and thank you to our lovely listeners. And I’ll see you next week. Much love. Bye.