There are moments in life when we suddenly realize the soul may understand us long before the world does.
By the time I was two years old, I begged for ballet lessons. I don’t know exactly where that longing came from. Perhaps my grandmother had taken me to a small theater where I saw footage of the legendary ballerina Anna Pavlova. I know I saw it at some point, but whether I was that young, I cannot say for certain. What I do know is this: ballet was the only thing I ever truly asked for.
I didn’t care about dolls.
I didn’t care about clothes.
I only wanted ballet.
Looking back, it surprises me because I was painfully shy. I hid from strangers and clung tightly to my mother. But the truth is, I wasn’t clinging because I felt safe. I was afraid of her. That fear shaped much of my childhood, and perhaps many reading this understand what that feels like — the child who hides behind the parent while carrying silent fear inside.
Still, something deeper in me kept reaching toward movement, beauty, and expression.
At age two and a half, my mother finally enrolled me in a local ballet class. The moment I stepped into that room, I fell in love with movement. Putting on the black leotard and ballet slippers felt magical. It all came naturally to me, as though some forgotten part of myself had awakened.
By age thirteen, I had been accepted into the American Ballet Company. Dance had become part of my identity. But my parents decided ballet was not an appropriate career.
“You need to go to college.”
“You need security.”
“You need something practical.”
And just like that, the dream was over.
To leave home quickly, I entered a two-year nursing program at Brooklyn College, graduating just before my nineteenth birthday. My first nursing position was at Flower Fifth Avenue Hospital in Manhattan in 1963.
Only days before becoming a fully licensed nurse, my life changed forever.
A physician admitted a patient diagnosed with congestive heart failure. I was asked to wheel her into her room. The moment I tried to help her stand, she violently threw me to the floor and landed on top of me. The doctor had lied about her condition. She was in an acute psychotic episode and had nowhere else to place her.
The injuries severely damaged my spine and sciatic nerve.
Over the next two years, I spent eleven months hospitalized, wearing a full-body brace and enduring unimaginable pain. Eventually surgeons discovered that a spinal disc had collapsed and fell onto my sciatic nerve.
Years later, in 1971, Dr. Hubert Rosomoff, chief of neurosurgery at Albert Einstein and a dear friend, invited me to try electroacupuncture. After treatment, I stood up — and collapsed. I had absolutely no sensation in my left leg.
For six weeks I remained in a hospital bed while doctors searched for answers.
Now, despite what happened I kept opening new doors, not wanting fear from the past become the present.
I suddenly remembered ballet.
I began an intense creative visualization unlike anything I had ever attempted. I pictured my pink satin toe shoes in vivid detail. I imagined tying the ribbons, hearing the crunch of resin beneath the shoes, feeling my balance shift. Then I imagined myself climbing onto a tightrope and dancing fearlessly across it.
I understood instinctively that I needed to involve every sense and make the movement greater than anything I thought possible.
For three days, I lived inside that vision over and over again.
Then suddenly, I knew my leg was alive.
I stood up with no pain.
To this day, I believe something profound happens when we reconnect to the deepest part of ourselves. Sometimes the soul remembers who we truly are, even after fear, trauma, or heartbreak bury it beneath survival.
Perhaps the things we loved most deeply as children were never random at all.
I would love to hear your story. Have you ever experienced a moment when something inside you became your lifesaver or changed the course of your life?
Namaste,
Nancy
