Dovida Goodman

Playing the piano is at the heart of my "perfect storm". My history with piano: Mother was great pianist. Career interrupted by World War II. She survived the concentration camps and eventually when she was living in the US, married my father and got pregnant with me - she dreamed of having a little girl who played the piano. She would play the great classics to her pregnant belly. I started playing the piano when I was 2 and piano lessons at 4. The pressure of my mother trying to live the life that had been stolen from her through me and my own perfectionist tendencies resulted in a lot of inner conflict about playing the piano and a lot of pressure to be great. I developed back pain when playing and at 32 yrs old when I was learning a very challenging piece of Chopin, it crossed a line of what seemed like no return for the next 37 years.

To backtrack - at the age of 27 a poem came through me about being the daughter of a holocaust survivor, the trials and tribulations of our relationship and the connection that was never lost through the medium of music. I got the vision to create a concert with my mother where she could be celebrated for being the incredible powerful and talented woman that she was and finally perform again after 40 yrs alongside her daughter. It was quite the healing for her and also our relationship. We performed for 5 years until back pain brought my life to a halt in 1985.

I already had a mindbody point of view when I had my -perfect storm in 1985 - I immediately went to work to discover the emotional roots, refused all medication, did only natural therapies for the first few years. Lots of Ah-Hahs but nothing helped the symptoms which eventually included severe fatigue and insomnia. My life became the size of a thimble as I tried to eliminate anything that seemed to increase pain until practically all I did was try to find a pain free position all day long so the muscles would relaxed. And this worked a teeny tiny bit compared to everything else that did nothing or made things worse. So I kept it up for years and years.

4 years ago by chance I heard an interview with someone talking about DNRS. I immediately knew this was the missing piece. I put my all into DNRS for a year, including a live seminar in 2019. Not much changed by I knew in my heart I was on the right track, especially as I came to realize I had inherited my mother's trauma while still in the womb and I'd always had a highly sensitive nervous system. I finally recognized that I never felt truly safe.

I tried a few other programs and experienced Cathleen King in September of 2020 at a wonderful online weekend for people doing brain retraining that included many presentations. I was intrigued by the phrase Primal Trust. I wasn't quite sure what it was but still I immediately recognized I didn't have it and I wanted it. I joined her pilot program in Dec 2020 and I've been learning and growing alongside her ever since. My journey from Dec 2020 to where I am today included a new set of debilitating symptoms for almost all of 2021 which turned out to be long haul covid and thrust me into a Dark Night of the Soul. (I can speak about what got me through and what the turning point was.)

2022 turned into a year of tremendous transformation on all levels. I became a happy person, I became happy to be alive for the first time in my life, a gofundme campaign received 176 donations to buy me a piano and I returned to playing in July 2022 after not having touched a note in 37 years. I have a lot to say about this transformation process, what it was that Primal Trust had that lead to my being where I am today. What it is that I have learned. How I've transformed my whole relationship to playing the piano - I had to in order to be able to play again - how I live with an attitude of curiosity and hmmmm, let's see what's possible. How I had to say yes to life and playing again BEFORE my body seemed up to the task. My understanding of why I developed chronic symptoms….

Got enough, Chazmith? XOXO