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Real Stories Real People
Marcia
Brixey • Paulette
Ensign • Claire
Hegarty • Jennifer
Clare • Joyce
Zee • Michelle
Hill • Frank
Traditi • Robin
Sparks • Cecilia
Saleme • SoccerKidsUSA
• Brigitte
Nadeau • Dinah
Chapman • Gail
Foley • Jim
Goebelbecker • Minna
Vallentine •
Cat
Marrs • Suzanne
Kincaid • Anita
Flegg • Jieranai
T. Maier • Tamah
Nakamura • Bonnie
Vining • Mark
Sincevich • Rosemary-Martino
Rodriguez • Jan
Louthain • Mark
McMahon • Heather
and Murray Rand • Susan
Jennings • Hank
Bochenski • Serena
Williamson• Miriam
Benard• Kevin
McDonald • Dolores
Arste • Faith
Smith • Jennifer
Wright • Joe
Kasper • ArLyne
Diamond • Monica
Lee • Dan
Millman • Dana
Hall • Carl
Battiste • Shawn
Snyder • Roberta
Carasso • Colleen
Read • Cory
Johnson • Kevin
O'Neil • Craig
Barton • Peter
Bowers • Mike
Munter • Glen
Smith • Nancy
Ceridwyn • Deanna
Kim • Anasuya
Krishnaswamy • Hilton
Paoli
Professor turns to Dance!
 Tamah
Nakamura (Japan) was financially secure but institutionalized
- She felt like a puppet being bounced around on a string,
and toward the end she found that her creativity was being
stifled. Tamah felt stifled, shriveled and as if she were
losing her identity by the end.
She resigned from her tenured university position about
6 months ago. She is now writing her doctoral dissertation.
This is a different kind of stress but her schedule is
now her own. Tamah creates her own working hours. She
continues to teach adjunct at two universities and has
chosen to accept these offers because both courses are
connected to Tamah's life PURPOSE and vision: To change
the energy of the whole world through movement from the
marginalized, oppressed which will push the top layer
of folks so the whole world moves in change together.
Tamah teaches a course on Music and Dance; the other on
Contemporary Japan and gender with a performance focus.
She knew change was necessary when she was overeating
and drinking too much - every evening at home - this resulted
in a weight gain.
Her regular exercise routine was interrupted and a negative
pattern of gain/eat/no exercise developed. Her husband
does not drink so he joined in eating 'junk food' and
watching 'dumb TV', and he gained weight, too.
For Tamah, every minute of her life outside the university
was taken up with analyzing and trying to figure out the
politics of the situation. She spent, long hours in like-minded
faculty offices discussing the change in the attitude
of the administration. They were affected too and felt
just as helpless.
Tamah's transition needs were not about 'them' but about
having matured beyond her present situation therefore
she was the one who had changed. It took her some time
to learn that.
Through honoring and caring for her body (exercise, shiatsu,
acupuncture, butoh practice), and, most of all, through
learning a new decision-making process of staying in the
centeredness of her body and staying with her feeling
of what felt right or not right....she began to make body-based
decisions that honored her as a human being, and not decisions
'for the sake of the society' or that she 'should do'.
Tamah describes a feeling of being in amazement that she
is getting paid to teach/do lifework that is her. Tamah
explains that work does not have to be hard, we do not
need to struggle to work. Our work is who we are, that
which comes from the center of our being, that which we
are good at. Share it with others with the enthusiasm
in which embrace it in our own lives and others will benefit
and 'move in joy'.
What can we learn from Tamah?
When you are true to your life's PURPOSE
and vision of what feels right, you follow it. You follow
it for yourself without worry as to what others will think.
This is your life and your right!
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