Expressing and Connecting with Johanna Arenaza
Episode 7
Between Body, Mind, Heart & Soul: Expressing and Connecting with Johanna Arenaza
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Johanna Arenaza, Psy.D.
Dr. Arenaza, originally from Spain, is a clinical psychologist and psychoanalyst in private practice in Washington, D.C., She obtained her doctorate degree at George Washington University and she attained a post-doctoral internship at Georgetown University. She completed her psychoanalytic training at the Washington
Baltimore Center for Psychoanalysis and has taught Gender and Sexuality at such institute. Dr. Arenaza believes that countries are enriched by immigrants and
finds meaning in offering pro-bono psychological evaluations for asylum seekers.
Dr. Arenaza has a strong background in ballet and is currently an international competitive Latin and ballroom dancer.
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What does it mean to truly know who you are? How do you represent you to you? As we navigate our lives, we find ourselves constructing an identity through expression; assembling a mosaic of behaviors, interests, and beliefs. These characteristics, Johanna Arenaza refers to as 'body, heart and soul.’
Johanna is a practicing psychoanalyst, an award-winning and internationally competitive dancer. Between her home country of Spain and her adopted home in the US, she has developed her psychoanalytic practice while pursuing her own journey of self-discovery.
In this episode of The Art of Listening, Johanna shares how an early passion for the art of dance led her into a cycle of burnout, questioning her sense of self. After pivoting and training as a Psychoanalyst, Johanna found a new facet of her identity where she could exercise her intelligence and mental resilience. But with each new discovery, Johanna felt unrest in the separateness of all the parts of herself, yearning for a sense of unity.
With Johanna today, we uncover how expression can lead us to believe that we are firmly represented; and that this newfound identity can be as restrictive as it is liberating. Through her lifelong journey, Johanna will show us that a true sense of who we are comes from accepting our shifting nature. Walking us through what it means to connect with others, and with ourselves, she reveals that cultivating self-reflection and awareness will land us to a sense of true harmony.
So join us in discussion with Johanna Arenaza, as we explore what it means to listen in, and speak our inner truths with body, mind, heart, and soul.
Chapters
1 - Dance as an instrument for communication and bodily connection (4:00)
2 - Dance burnout, and exploring intellectual agility through Psychology (7:41)
3 - Silence as a form of communication (13:14)
4 - Introspective listening and reflection through meditation (23:23)
5 - How Johanna found self-fulfillment through mental, physical, and spiritual harmony (29:06)
Links
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Johanna : [00:00:03] I have a mind. I have a body and I have spirit. And I think before when I was dancing, I was mostly expressing. When I was only doing psychotherapy and training, I was mostly thinking. And now I feel like I can use all of my parts in a way, the three aspects of my entire being.
Eileen: [00:00:30] I'm Eileen Dunn, and this is the Art of listening, a podcast that delves into the incomparable power of human connection and the magic of good depth talk therapy. Joining us today is Joanna Arenaza. Expression comes to us in our earliest hours. It finds us in survival, primal and raw. An instinct to cry, to move so we may live long before we can put into words. It tethers us to what we are, who we are, pushing us into action. But expression also changes as we grow. It becomes a reflection of the self, something we sculpt with intention. It may present itself like a statement. Assertive. Here is me, so have it. But most often it is a mere act of exploration, an impulse to investigate the unknown sides of ourselves. It is our inner voice asking, what is this feeling? Foreign and new? Do I recognize myself in the furrowing of this brow, the turn of this accent, the holding of this thought? Joanna Arenaza has long grappled with these questions and building herself on the shifting sands of expression.
Johanna : [00:02:04] She learned my heart, my soul, my mind. They're my own vehicle for self-expression and fulfillment.
Eileen: [00:02:11] Today, Joanna takes us on her journey of self-discovery. Together, we return to her childhood, where movement became her first language. A former ballet dancer, Joanna Long believed that her art form could contain all that she was when she lost it. She took to depth of thought and the world of words to rebuild, returning to expression once more in a new way. In her practice, she learned to tune in to the subtleties of silence, observation, and deep listening before going further to reconcile with every part of herself, mind, body, and soul. In this episode, we follow this journey of ultimate connection, and as we come together in conversation, let's ponder the following thoughts. Looking back on moments of authentic discovery and expression. What Stone did you step on to get there? Was it a word, a touch, a vision of comfort? By which means were you able to turn instinct into something intelligible? Or, to put it differently, how do you come into knowing your own true self knowledge and find a medium for expressing yourself to yourself? To lead us through these questions with a generous sharing of herself. Let's speak with Joanna. Between her home country of Spain and her adopted home in the US, Joanna is a practicing psychoanalyst, an award winning and internationally competitive dancer, an artist of the soul. And lastly, and I'm grateful to say, a very dear friend of mine. Tell me about growing up as a listener. Was that a skill that felt innate to you? Or.
Johanna : [00:04:01] I think of myself growing up as loving music, and I think music was my first love. And then came dance. But I remember being very, very little. I actually remember crawling is my first memory, and there was music playing in the living room, and I it was classical music, and I just remember feeling just kind of in awe. I just it was quiet, it was peaceful, but it was also beautiful. And I was crawling. I was already moving. That is my first and maybe my favorite memory. I've always listened to music, all sorts of genders, classical, but also otherwise other forms. And uh, it's my companion. And so depending on my mood, I put different music. And I just really I just grew up listening to music. So I guess that's the origin of my of my listening.
Eileen: [00:04:56] I was going to ask you, you know, tell me about growing up as a dancer. That was as natural as that was your first form of communication. If crawling was dancing.
Johanna : [00:05:07] Yes, yes. Another memory I have in the same living room. I was older, I was maybe 4 or 5, and my family, they were all busy in the kitchen, and I was by myself in the living room and there was music playing, and I remember dancing. There was a carpet and a square within the carpet. And so I was dancing within that square as if that was my mistake or my platform. And I just remember dancing within that square to the music that was playing, and I was all alone, and I, I just felt complete in that moment.
Eileen: [00:05:39] Say more about dancing and movement as communication to me.
Johanna : [00:05:44] There is a marriage, a union between my feelings, my expression and the music. And so there is some kind of fusion between representing the music, but at the same time doing it in my own way and my own form of self-expression, my own interpretation of the music. And that may change very much by my mood. I can dance the same song very differently, depending if one day I'm feeling it more tragic or more hopeful. And so it's a communication and that I express my feelings. But I also try to represent the music in in the form of movement. That's the beauty of self-expression that I am going to express what I feel in the moment. And my feelings vary independent of of the song. And so one day that I'm going to feel more hopeless, I'm going to pick up maybe more the sadness within the song or the melody. And another day that I'm going to feel maybe more hopeful, or then I'm going to pick up on other tones. So it's the same one, but I'm going on my own with my own feelings. I'm going to relate to particular tones for for self-expression and for interpretation.
Eileen: [00:06:59] You are your own instrument.
Johanna : [00:07:02] Very much so, very much so. My body in some ways is my instrument. I need to take good care of it, but also my feelings, of course, my heart, my soul, my mind. I put it all together and that's very much my own instrument and my own vehicle for self-expression and fulfillment.
Eileen: [00:07:21] Let's shift. And let me ask you this. How did you decide to pursue psychology, not to mention psychoanalysis?
Speaker3: [00:07:28] Um.
Johanna : [00:07:29] Uh, there's a bit of a tragic story behind it. There's no life without drama. I was on a professional track as a dancer from a very early age, and the professional track is extremely demanding, and at some point I burnt out. Unfortunately, I was 18. I knew myself only as a dancer. I didn't know what to do with my life, and yet I was incredibly unhappy. And so I asked for help. And I found a wonderful therapist, my first therapist of many, and she helped me so much that I became inspired not only to give me permission to and made me feel safe to stop dancing and explore other things, which was, uh, what I needed it at that moment. But also she inspired me to to for others what she did for me, which was helping me out of a crisis, um, existential professional emotional crisis in all the ways financial. And she just said, well, uh, you don't have to stop completely. Just take a break. You might take it back, but just take a break and explore other options. And somehow that distinction between quitting, stopping forever and pausing gave me permission. That's it seemed possible. And that was that. And so I took a break for 20 years and. I went to undergrad and graduate school and psychoanalytic training, and I found another form of expression and a career and a stable income and a way of helping people, which I find extremely fulfilling. And, uh, a few years ago now, I thought I had everything. I had a family, I had a career, I had health, financial stability. And yet again, I was, let's say, miserable. And that's when I reconnected with dance. And I said, ah, this has been missing. It was a break and not an end. And I've been dancing nonstop since I reclaimed my own art. And now I can say that I'm complete.
Eileen: [00:09:42] Such a big deal and such a big difference between that's it, it's over and staying open. Yes. And shifting and expanding. Yes. And I appreciate very much your acknowledging, look, you hit the wall. It's something between your body and your brain said okay, stop. And to find someone who you could risk your vulnerability with like we do, and experience something outside of you that assisted the inside so that you could say, this isn't forever. This is now. There's something else I need to pursue. Say more about that. 20 years in between where you didn't leave the dancing, but let yourself take up residence in this whole other world of words. Mm. Tell me more about listening that way. Um.
Johanna : [00:10:40] One of the reasons why I was unfulfilled that led to burn out when I was dancing, and I decided to take a break, is because I knew I wanted to use my intellect. I wanted to use my cognition. I wanted to learn. I wanted to use my brain is the best way to say it. And so that's why I very eagerly took on the books and studied. And I was between philosophy and psychology. I liked the depth that each of them carry, and then then the words of of therapy and the words of of listening and listening to words and interpreting words and all that training, all that beautiful world of verbal expression. I knew about expression. I didn't know as much as I had to learn to really listen to what the person is saying, what the person is not saying. How is she expressing herself that her verbal expression match her body expression or not? Listen to the silence. Different silences speak to you differently. Long, short that became fluent in in verbal expression in a foreign language. But, um, what about.
Eileen: [00:11:52] That being in a foreign language?
Johanna : [00:11:54] Ah, I think I'm crazy. I think I'm crazy to develop a career that is based on verbal expression, a foreign language that I only began to to learn in my 20s. But here I am. Deo meo!
Speaker3: [00:12:14] Um, but.
Johanna : [00:12:16] Uh, I became fluent. Fluent enough, and I. I really just love to connect. And to me, that's where it's at. And so whether it's through words or movement or music or is that connection, um, the then you.
Eileen: [00:12:33] Or even silence, as you said, or.
Johanna : [00:12:35] Even silence, even silence. I mean.
Eileen: [00:12:37] That's really delicate.
Johanna : [00:12:39] Absolutely.
Eileen: [00:12:40] How do you know, how do you know the difference between one silence and another?
Johanna : [00:12:45] You you I think you feel it. A good way to to listen is with your heart, although the cognition is very important. But the silence says that, you know, they're angry, silences, you know, and their silences that are more timid or their silences that are very sad, very, very sad. There are silences where the person is thinking and, you know, you can see the gears are turning and is thinking is more like an active silence. I'm working on something, but I'm not quite ready yet. I think we have, even whether we know it or not. We listen silences in many different ways.
Eileen: [00:13:30] As Joanna deciphers with fluency and detail the fabric of silence, I'm reminded of what lies beneath the quiet. A strange, soft kind of music. A secret beat like a pulse. Exposed our minds and hearts wondering in concert what words will fit. Punctuating our silences to our movements so slight. The flinching of a hand. The shaking of a breath. Shadows of emotions within. In therapy, our work is not simply to attune to this melody, but to practice it with all our might. Joanna knows this to be true. After leaving ballet behind, psychotherapy offered her solace and a new beginning. Yet as she listened to her patients closer and closer, she started to notice the parts of her old self that remained. Her heart played two beats, one note, and then the next, never quite in harmony. And behind them a question resounding. How to do both. So Joanna, coming back then at this point in your life, having gone through the training, have established your private practice and then some for an extended period of time, you found yourself at another turning point, listening to inside of you saying, I have so much, I've done so much, but something's missing. And lo and behold, it took you back to the dancing in a very big and serious way.
Johanna : [00:15:10] Yes. So I always have.
Johanna : [00:15:14] I don't know if you know this.
Johanna : [00:15:16] It's something that I've been realizing about myself. I always have two of something. So I have two cultures. Two languages, two careers. Yeah, two children, two forms of dancing. And I remember I shared two very important moments with you. You had a meeting in your gathering in your home. And as for us, the trainees, we were just getting together, catching up. And I remember one of the questions that I asked is, are you all happy? Are you all like, what are you? Now that we're done with training? Like, what are you going to do? Do you feel complete? And I remember most of you saying, yeah, you know, now I'm going to I'm going to spend more time with my family and I'm going to go on walks and I'm going to and and I was like, I don't I, I can't look forward to walks. I don't know not to trivialize it, but I was like, anyway, it was in that meeting that I was like, hey guys, is there something missing for you all? And I and I knew, I knew I was going through something in that moment where I was just self aware of that. So fast forward after the graduation or, you know, some meal, some dinner, fancy dinner that we had at the institute. And then we all went, uh, we all went out and you all one by one, you all went home. And I was like, I'm staying. I, I'm the last one at the club. Like, maybe this is what's missing for me.
Eileen: [00:16:39] Your soul was waving a flag.
Johanna : [00:16:42] Yes. And I used to say, um, people are like, oh, what's your background? I used to say, oh, you know, in my other life, I used to be a dancer. And actually it was another therapist that, uh, actually, she's a therapist, but I met with her as a colleague who were just having coffee, and she's like, oh, tell me about you. What's your background? And I said two things. You know, in my other life I was a dancer and also and she's like, wow, tell me more about that. And I said, you know, sometimes I feel like dance for me was a child that I gave up for adoption. And I always wonder, what if? And see, being a therapist. She said, do you realize what you're saying? And I was like, yeah, it was my storyline. It was my yeah, you know, I was saying it without affect, but she picked up on the language, so it was a good listener. And she said, do you realize what you're saying? And I said, yeah, I mean, yeah. And she said, maybe you should dance.
Eileen: [00:17:34] As if it were something that you needed to shed or grow out of for a time, until it sounds like these moments within yourself and and with a friend or a colleague, you got back in touch or you took it seriously enough with help of a witness, with help of being noticed, to think further for yourself and say, no, it matters. Something is missing, but you're doing and you're living both now. And I just wonder how movement has informed your way with words. How you're way with words has informed your movement.
Johanna : [00:18:04] I think I have a sense of completeness, not that I'm done growing, nor that I have everything figured out. And I'm not saying that. But having come full circle, I understand the full circle, and I understand all sides of my circle, of my being, and I understand that I have a mind, I have a body, and I have spirit and I have soul. And so I've trained my mind, I've trained my body, and with my spirit I can connect and self-express. And I think before when I was dancing, I was mostly expressing. When I was only doing, um, psychotherapy and training, I was mostly thinking, yeah. And now I feel like I can, I can use all of my parts in a way, all of my, all of the three aspects of my entire being to learn, to grow, to work and to live in this way and to be fulfilled. Now, I can tell you, there's nothing missing, there's nothing missing. And finally, because the 20 years that I didn't dance, although I was very busy and very fulfilled in many ways, cognitively, intellectually, with my training and raising a family, I had that something's missing. I had that feeling, but I didn't think I could go back to try to be a professional ballet dancer. I that's a very that career ends very early and is extremely demanding. I couldn't do that. I found other forms of dance that I can do competitively now. So I have the ballroom, which is more, let's say classy, very, very technical. But then I have the Salsa And the Bachata, which is more like a street dance. There's a little bit more freer and also, of course, has its technique. But I have two of those styles that I combine and I don't combine it. I just do both.
Eileen: [00:19:58] Uh huh. It's striking for me when you've said I'm not missing anymore. I have all of me. And whoever's going to hear this, you know that there is something about getting there we might go on growing forever and ever. All our lives. We hope we do. But. But some things. There's a difference. When you really, you really get there. And it's not just about what you have or what you've done, but it's who you are and who you know yourself to be and how you're living.
Johanna : [00:20:29] That absolutely it's becoming yourself. That's when you feel complete.
Eileen: [00:20:34] Is just really striking because not everybody is a dancer, right? But we all need and want to connect or.
Johanna : [00:20:44] We All have a soul.
Eileen: [00:20:45] We all have a soul. Huh? You know, the word soul again is a little big word. It's. I want to say it. It's a tricky. It's a sensitive word that can be loaded. Not everyone can use that word comfortably. But you do say more of what exactly that means to you.
Johanna : [00:21:01] It's, uh, our internal being. It's who we are in our essence. It's, uh. And we all are. Each one of us. And we all are someone. Something. Absolutely unique and we're trying to connect with one another through, through. Hey, this is this is who I am. Who are you and how can we connect and what do we have in common and what are our differences? But it's our being. We all, we all are.
Eileen: [00:21:40] It is immense, relieving and little perplexing to to think that we all are in the same way, together or apart. We all march to the beat of our own drum, heeding the call of the soul. And yet, while we may look outward for comfort, we will only find understanding within. In recent years, Joanna has been looking for a new form of quiet, redefining yet again what it means to listen in. So, you know, then it's a natural move to think about. As I understand it, you've been exploring more with meditation or a whole other angle of connecting within you. Tell me more about that.
Johanna : [00:22:30] Yes. This is kind of new. I'm usually a very active person, so I the kind of person that is usually running or going to the gym or or studying, learning, working. And somehow I started to meditate. Somehow I completely counterintuitive to who I thought I was. It just has been incredibly helpful. It's been like a balm. I think I was a bit, um. I'm looking for the word in English.
Johanna : [00:23:07] the stroy of my life! Um.
Johanna : [00:23:11] I was, let's say, very stressed, confused. I didn't understand everything. I didn't understand my own emotions, and I couldn't quite find the peace. I couldn't quite reset. I was just like, ah, ah, I got to do this. I got to do that. This feels good. This feels bad. But I didn't have the inner peace. And so meditation has been. I mean, it has been I've been doing it for like, you know, 4 or 5 months.
Johanna : [00:23:38] But.
Johanna : [00:23:39] But it's been I can tell it's something I'm going to do for the rest of my life. Also, I'm going to take it as as one of those because, um, I can be with myself in a very quiet way, which is, like I said, very unfamiliar to me. You get to know yourself and you get to like yourself and you get to take care of yourself, hold yourself and stop and be with be with yourself. I just have found a wonderful group to do it with, a wonderful master that I'm learning with and from. Actually, there are some powerful words because there are some mantras that are very helpful, but a lot of it is just through the breath and in silence. Again, just the power of silence. Also in listening to yourself in silence. And boy, there is chaos inside. Inside the silence. But you can discern it and you can make sense of it and assimilate it.
Eileen: [00:24:38] Let it be. No, no strings of performance attached. Just letting. Letting it be. I mean, I'm thinking you and I again worked hard, trained hard to learn how to try to be there listening for our patients that way. I always kind of think of what we try to do as kind of meditation times two in a way. We're not trying to insert something, and we're not trying to get someone to change or to fix them or whatever, but just trying to hear them and be with them all the way, and the truth of where they are in the moment, where maybe they even can't. And that's the reason we're there. It's one thing to do that for someone else, and it's a whole other thing to be with ourselves. So it's very different than learning a dance or learning a complex, you know, profession.
Johanna : [00:25:29] Absolutely. Yeah. And, you know, I'm learning things about myself and in the meditation in that fulfilling my commitment to others is much easier for me. I follow my words. If I say I'm going to do something to someone, I will do it. And I'm learning more about giving myself the same commitment, which is more like along the lines of self-love. Like, you know, if you do it for others, do it for yourself as well. Give yourself that constancy that you offer to others. You know, I don't always want to do it. It's something that I'm finding surprisingly difficult, actually, because I'm like, well, if it's just for me, I only have to do it when I feel like it and actually know if it is for me. I still have to do it every day. And I also want to do things I my own individuality. I want to do things differently. Well, maybe I don't have to sit down. Maybe I can lay down. Well, maybe I can do. I mean, I do things my own way all the time, but I see it even in, in my, you know, meditation and it's like, oh, I get to know myself in a very deep level.
Eileen: [00:26:27] Here I am. What's the difference, though? What's the difference in the experience of the the meditation and the effort to be committed to yourself in that practice versus the experience of listening and being listened to in the, you know, therapy way that we do it.
Eileen: [00:26:47] What is this.
Eileen: [00:26:48] Doing for you? That talking with someone or being the listener doesn't quite do?
Johanna : [00:26:54] You know, I was a patient before I was a psychologist much earlier. And so as a patient, I've been in therapy since I was 18, pretty consistently. And now actually since I started meditation actually ended in my therapy. Now there is a substitute. But a big difference is that I can connect with the spiritual part, with the universe, or with what's beyond our material being. Yeah, our physical body. But really with spirit we are more than our bodies. Even though, you know, our eyes can only see our bodies. There are a lot of energy, a lot of it's a whole other reality that just because we don't see it, it doesn't mean it's not there. And it's through that quietness that I can connect in a way, my being at that level that psychotherapy is, is more it's more material, it's more earthy. It's more down here. Right. What am I feeling? What am I doing? Do I need to do things differently? But a complete being is tapping into the spirituality of the being. And so I am trying to do that with meditation. And that's what provides that, that other forms of psychotherapy as a patient has not.
Eileen: [00:28:08] It's a big world. And I mean, I think to myself, we're living a mystery, I guess is no matter how bright and capable we are or could ever become. I mean, the meaning of being human is that there's a limit to what we know, and that is connecting with that place, that awareness that we are so small in a big universe that we is a whole lot more mystery than not. But but it's as you say, it's something about committing to the practice and the commitment for yourself and showing up and going on, showing up. It's not like something you do and you get it done and then you've got it. It sounds like you're thinking seriously about taking seriously and and continuing.
Johanna : [00:28:54] Yeah.
Johanna : [00:28:55] Something else that I'm working on through my meditation is I want to develop my intuition. We all have intuition, but we don't really know how to use it, how to tap into it. And I'm interested in that for my own curiosity and my own fulfillment, but actually also for my work. I want to be better at intuiting my patients and connect with them in that way. I think my work could improve if ... it's another channel it's another form of data. And so the particular exercise is to to really work on developing and your intuition. So I'm working on that. But also you know, I would say the, the silence and the, the music and the movement and the spirituality and the intuition, everything. Just have a place where everything can be understood and integrated and made sense of in an intellectual but also emotional way. And, uh, that's why I connect with you, and you have such a breadth in your understanding that I can I feel like you understand me from every angle. And so it's wonderful to have space to talk about all the different ways in which we are and which we express and connect and communicate. So it's a tremendous treat.
Eileen: [00:30:15] In conversation with Johanna, I encounter once more what lives in the space between speaker and listener, an exchange both open and intimate. In this space lies an opportunity for contact within and between us. Here we draw with intention and care the shapes of who we are in hopes for recognition. Expression answers this craving for showing, sharing and connecting. It can start without language, as Joanna has taught us, letting our bodies do the speaking, we can find ourselves in one another in the absence of words, in the silence between us opening to the quiet of our inner music from every emotionally meaningful angle. Looking to Joanna for inspiration. We learn to that we gain momentum listening within. As we notice what's missing. We develop ourselves further and engage in a practice that requires commitment to and for ourselves, something so different than the promise to care for others. As Joanna shared with us so richly and so elegantly, we stretch the depth of our listening with the age old practices of self-reflection and meditation. We live in the space between our awareness of ourselves and the mystery we share together in the privacy of our hearts.
Eileen: [00:31:41] Whatever mediates or disturbs that connection is a flag of the soul. Waving the world within us requires enduring agility, patience, and kindness, knowing it's the work of a lifetime because there's always another stone to turn. Until all is said and done. We continue to walk our paths whole yet unfinished. And as we do, our expressions shift to finding new shapes with every curve in the road. So as you tread searching for your truth, remember to listen in before and beyond words, with and without others. And thus you'll determine. Here is my heart speaking. Here is my mind. This is my spirit. And this, this is my soul. This has been the art of listening. Again, my name is Eileen Dunn. Please join us for our next episode as we continue to dive into the space between speaker and listener. You can follow on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts. And if you enjoyed the show, please leave a review and a five star rating. It helps us to grow so that we can keep bringing you new conversations. And we'll see you in the next time.
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