Listen: Dance helped this nurse heal from trauma. Now she’s bringing it to others

“You can’t pour from an empty cup” is what registered nurse Tara Rynders learned the hard way after two decades of work and one heartbreaking, life-threatening experience of being a critical care patient herself. Before that experience, she’d always found found that dance, play, and other types of movement helped her express and heal from the trauma she encountered and held in her body every day. After recovering from her health emergency as a patient, she brought that healing to several other nurses in a workshop, where they danced to “Eye of the Tiger,” pretended to be FBI agents, and otherwise moved their bodies, bringing them to tears, laughter, and often both at the same time.

The need for these workshops became all the more acute during the pandemic, when Rynders found herself resenting the “health care hero” language that permeated discussion of her work. Rather than seeing it as a tribute, she says, this mindset became a burden, an expectation that somehow nurses and other health care workers were more than human.

Now, what started as an experiment has become an organization called The Clinic that offers healing workshops and performances to health care workers. At Rynders’ workshops, she says, health care workers find somatic healing. I spoke with her about the workshops, how dance has long been a refuge, other ways arts can help address health care worker burnout, and policies that can support nurses.

“I love emergency room nursing so much because I love being with people in some of their most difficult times,” Rynders said. “I find it very sacred to sit with another person who’s suffering and to be able to offer presence.”

Our conversation was based on her recent First Opinion essay, “Health care systems must stop exploiting nurses’ tender hearts and begin supporting them.”

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