Coping with Dance Injuries and Career Transitions with Chelsea Pierotti, PhD and Guest Cohost, Jennifer Milner

[00:35] Dr. Linda Bluestein: Today, we are so excited to have Dr. Chelsea Pierotti with us. But before I welcome Dr. Pierotti, please let me introduce my friend and yours, Jennifer Milner, former professional ballet and Broadway dancer who trains hypermobile artists to work to their fullest potential. She knows a thing or two about being a bendy body as well as working with them. We are so fortunate to have Jen with us here today co-hosting this episode. Hey, Jen, it's so great to see you.

[01:02] Jennifer Milner: Thank you. It's good to be back as always.

[01:04] Dr. Linda Bluestein: Awesome. Dr. Chelsea Pierotti is a sports psychologist and consultant for dancers and dance educators. As a speaker, workshop teacher, and podcast host, Dr. Chelsea's mission is to help create more successful dancers through positive mental skills. Welcome back, every bendy body. This is the Bendy Bodies Podcast, and I'm your host and founder, Dr. Linda Bluestein, the Hypermobility MD. This is going to be a great episode, so be sure to stick around until the very end so you don't miss any of our special hypermobility hacks. As always, this information is for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for personalized medical advice. Dr. Chelsea, hello and welcome to Bendy Bodies.

[01:51] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: Hello to you both. I'm so happy to be here.

[01:55] Jennifer Milner: We are really happy to have you here. We have got some questions for you that I think a lot of our listeners are going to want to know the answers to. Today I want to talk about injuries and how they can be challenging, not just physically, but psychologically and emotionally as well. So knowing that injuries can be really challenging, how do you see dancers cope with injuries?

[02:17] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: Let's just start with the big question, right? How do we cope with injuries? In psychology, there's this kind of 3-step process to it that changes whether you have a positive outcome to the injury and have an easier time in rehab, or whether injury is really challenging. And it starts with what we call an appraisal. It's like, how do you feel about what happened? What do you think is the cause, or why, or what it means for you?
[02:47] I look at it as either you appraise this injury as a disaster — everything is over, I lose this part, I will never be able to do this again — or this injury is an opportunity to rise up. This is a new challenge. I'm good at challenges, right? Dancers are used to taking on challenges and moving forward. So seeing it that way can shift it. So there's that appraisal: is this everything's-over disaster, or is this a challenge that I'm ready for?
[03:19] And then that appraisal changes your emotional reaction. I think we often feel like we have the emotion first. But really, you can shape your emotional response based on what you think of it. Because if you decide, okay, this is a challenge, this is going to be hard, the emotional response is less like devastation edging into depression and more like, I'm upset, but I've got this, I'm okay, I can handle this. That changes your emotional response. And the emotional response is what changes the behavior — like how you show up in rehab, or if you have to sit out for a while.
[03:57] So it's: what do you think happened, then your emotion, and then that changes how you show up. And I think we jump to coping by, I just have to go back to class, or I just have to get back to work. We want to get right back to the behavior and we skip the — how are you thinking? How are you feeling? Then that'll change how you show up when it's time to either rehab or get back in class.

[04:20] Jennifer Milner: Well, the behavior, like you said, is going to be dictated by the emotion. And the behavior is where we often see dancers have their coping mechanisms, because their appraisal has been this could be the end of the world, this is disaster. So their emotion is, oh no, I either have to ignore it or push through it super fast and get it done. So the coping — there can be unhealthy strategies that they use to cope, there can be ignoring it, there can be forcing it before it's too soon. But the big piece that we often think of is really what you're saying: it's the culmination of going through those other two steps, whether we know it or not.

[04:59] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: Right. And exactly — you usually don't know it. We're not often pausing to be like, how do I feel about this? We just feel, we just go there. But that awareness of how am I really feeling — is this really the end of it, or am I just devastated in this moment, but it's not as big as I think? And sometimes it is as big as you think, and if it is, okay, then let's be real and honest about it. But taking the time with the thoughts and the feelings before — as you said — usually it does go to unhealthy coping if you haven't really processed it, and you start either ignoring, pushing too hard, trying to make up for it in some other way that ends up harming the healing process.

[06:19] Jennifer Milner: And I think to some people it may sound like the appraisal part is not instinctive or genuine. But if you think about little kids — as a mother, I would watch my children fall and then they would look around to the adults to see how they should feel about that, right? And if the adults are panicked and freaking out, they panic and freak out. But if the adults are like, you're fine, go ahead and get back up — not that we're trying to gaslight our kids, but the children have that moment of weighing how should I react to this. And I think we don't think about that as adults, that we do have that choice, that we do have that moment to sort of filter before we move to the emotion of it.

[06:29] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: Right.

[06:29] Dr. Linda Bluestein: That's a very interesting point, Jen. And Chelsea, I would be curious — do you think that how our experiences are handled as children also affects how we do that cognitive appraisal as adults? Like, if our parents freaked out every time we got any little injury, that's different than if they were like, get up and brush it off.

[06:52] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: Oh, of course it does. Yes. We learn how to process our world, how to process information and how we interpret things. And there's this balance, right? It's not about always saying nothing's ever a big deal, because if you do that too much, you get the other side — you have people who fight through the pain, who work too far. So it's not about always ignoring it, but about teaching a genuine, honest assessment of what's really going on. When the toddler does just flop over and they really are okay, being like, you're okay, keep going, it's going to be fine. If they're genuinely hurt, then having a genuine reaction to that — but a calm one. Again, looking to the parent: the panic doesn't help, but you can take it seriously.
[07:43] And then that leads to teen and adult dancers being able to accurately assess their injury. Is it really bad? Is there real pain? You don't brush that aside, but you can address it and have that honest reaction and processing of what's going on to allow you to cope properly. So it's that in-between of not ignoring, but not overreacting either. Because neither one's helpful.

[08:09] Jennifer Milner: And I think we see the ignoring or undervaluing of injuries a lot, especially in the hypermobile population. We've talked a lot about how the hypermobile population can live with a low level of pain all the time, and we know that hypermobile athletes and artists and just the generalized hypermobile population will take longer to heal from tendon and ligament soft tissue injuries. And so people may be like, oh, you're always injured. Oh, it's fine. And sort of go to that other end of the spectrum a fair amount of the time.
[08:47] So dancers with symptomatic joint hypermobility do often face a lot of challenges as their bodies kind of change and bear the brunt of dancing in a very specific way compared to people without that joint hypermobility. They're learning at a very young age to deal with this pain and these injuries. Is there an age or life stage where you'd suggest starting to develop resiliency and healthy coping strategies? Is there ever a point where it's too young to start?

[09:12] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: I love this question. The short of it is no — start as a toddler, start in infancy. There is research to show the message and the language you use with a 1-year-old shows up in their behaviors in elementary school. So no, there's no too soon; start right away. And it's in the messages and the language and how you handle a challenge, right? Resilience is all built on presenting a challenge with a little bit of support and help to get you through it and being that person who says, I believe in you, you can do this, but you have to do it. I'm not going to fix this challenge for you. I believe in you and I'm your support system, but you have to do this.
[09:50] And that challenge happens in the little stuff in toddlers — learning how to use a spoon — all the way up to an adult dancer who then builds that resilience of, I have a big challenge, but I know I can handle it. I know I can work through that. I have people who care about me to support me, but I have to do the work and I can. So that resilience is in presenting a small challenge, working through it, and starting to believe in yourself: I'm the kind of person that has a challenge in front of me and I don't back down. I know how to handle it and I keep pushing. And that message can start really, really young — and should.

[10:25] Jennifer Milner: And this reminds me, Dr. Bluestein, of the interview we did with Jazz Bynum from Ballet West, which was all about resiliency. One of the things she said was that she was injured from a pretty young age and she learned that that was just part of her life, and she learned how to cope with it and how to move forward. Her theme was kind of resiliency in her life, and her mother really helped shape that for her. Then she moved forward and thought, okay, I have an injury. It's fine.

[11:02] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: This has happened before.

[11:03] Jennifer Milner: And that has a huge impact on who you are as an adult.

[11:07] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: Absolutely. When we love and care for our dancers, we want to protect them from going through anything. Like, I don't want you to feel sad. I don't want you to be hurt. Of course. But really it's about being that safe place and supporting them, but not making the challenge go away. You don't remove the roadblock — it's there. Because sometimes we could remove it for them. And other times, if you're hurt, you can't magically fix that. So once they are going to come up against something that you can't just magically make go away, you don't want that to be the first time they've had to face that challenge. So it's supporting them with learning that they can — like you said — it becomes a part of your story. This is who I am, but I can recover from that. I can work past this. I am still a strong dancer, a good person. But letting you work through it, which is hard.

[12:04] Dr. Linda Bluestein: Yeah. And I actually think in my experience of working with many, many patients and clients, in some ways people who have symptomatic joint hypermobility are more resilient because we have had to overcome so many things and had to work through so many things. I've had people say, gosh, I wish that I could just be like a normal person. And it's like, yeah, but first of all, who is actually normal, right? And people who don't start having problems until later on in life oftentimes are not able to cope with it very well. So I think sometimes we're so much more resilient than we realize because we have been dealing with all of these little — and sometimes big — things along the way.
[12:48] The other thing I wanted to point out was what you said about pain. Pain is a very interesting thing because, of course, you can have injury without pain and you can have pain without injury. Pain is a helpful piece of data, but it's not always 100% accurate. If you're in a place where you're coping really well, you're probably not going to feel as much pain. But if you're afraid you're going to lose your role, or you have other stressors going on at home, you may feel more pain. The same injury, under different circumstances, might feel very different.

[13:25] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: Yeah. That makes sense.

[13:25] Dr. Linda Bluestein: So we know that hypermobile dancers face a lot of struggles that maybe are different from other dancers. One example is directors who might not believe that they're actually really hurting — speaking of pain.

[13:25] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: Yes.

[13:40] Dr. Linda Bluestein: Or knowing when to hold back when everyone is telling them to push into their hyperextension to win competitions, et cetera. How do you work with dancers to help them work through those issues? And how can other people — dance teachers or dance medicine professionals — help dancers work through those issues?

[14:05] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: You're right, we still have a culture of the show must go on, right? That's kind of the definition of what we look at as a dancer. And so that gets taught really young, and then it's hard to find the line of, okay, yes, usually the show must go on, but at some point there is a line of my physical ability in this moment.
[14:24] So if I have a dancer who is injured or has that setback — mental or physical — where they can't perform right now, and are being told or pushed to go further than they're really comfortable with, I talk to them about two pieces: their identity and their definition of success. A lot of dancers' definition of success is being on stage and executing. Sure. But that's not the only definition of success, isn't a perfect performance. What else is success? Maybe success right now is getting up and going to rehab and working on this and feeling better about it. Or success is taking care of yourself so that you have a longer career, not just this show. Being able to help them redefine it.
[15:08] A lot of the dancers I see, success is only this external reward — a trophy, a role, a title, the praise from the director. It's all rooted in someone else's beliefs. And so we spend time talking through their definition of success. It has to be something that's in your control. If your success is only rooted in what somebody else thinks, that's a really hard place to stay motivated, to continue to be happy, to continue to thrive. So finding that success and creating goals to work towards that are in your control.
[15:47] And then talking to them about identity. I don't think people say it out loud, but I think there's the underlying tone that injured dancers are worthless — that now you can't do anything. And if your whole identity is being a dancer, and injured dancers are worthless, therefore I am worthless. And so we spend time doing that internal work around identity: you're not worthless, where does your worth as a dancer come from?
[16:27] And then the second part about teachers or medicine professionals — same kind of idea, but talking to them about the whole person, right? You're not just a dancer. Even simple things like asking them something about themselves that isn't just about their injury or their rehab. We think we care and we want to help, so we say, oh, how's your knee? How are you feeling? But if that's the only question anybody ever asks you, then your identity becomes, I am a dancer and I am this injury. We have so many other aspects of our life. So just maintaining connections and conversations and showing that you value them outside of just being a dancer who happens to be injured at the moment.

[17:15] Jennifer Milner: I'm just thinking back to my experiences. I don't want to say that teachers and directors should give dancers permission to be injured, because they have permission to be injured whether they get it or not. But there's that emotional sense of — if the signaling from the front of the room, from the other side of the table, is we still love you, you're still a valued member of this company, that's very different from directors who don't talk to dancers while they're injured because they have nothing to say, or the dancers are not useful to them, as you were saying. So there is that sense of feeling that you have the support — maybe not permission, but the support — of them for being injured. And that just goes such a long way.

[17:58] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: Oh, yeah. Social support is a huge factor in injury recovery. And I've been talking a lot about that internal dialogue and what you think and what you feel. But the social support is huge — your fellow dancers, your family at home, your directors, your teachers. That social world has a huge influence on how you think and feel about your recovery, and then the actual time it takes to get back is really influenced by that social network, and whether they're there for you and care about you outside of just being their dancer.

[18:26] Dr. Linda Bluestein: And the interesting thing about that — we know that dance companies from a financial standpoint often really struggle. But caring about somebody as a person is basically free. Showing a little bit of compassion towards a person, especially when they're injured, doesn't cost extra money. So I think that's a really, really valuable point.

[18:31] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: Absolutely.

[18:59] Dr. Linda Bluestein: Sometimes dancers also have to give up certain forms of dance — they might have to dance less hours or stop altogether. I see this happen, and I'm sure Jen must see this happen countless times, as dancers are evolving from dancing as a more fun, casual activity to getting more serious about their dance and potential dance career. So what have you observed about those kinds of transitions?

[19:26] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: Those transitions are hard. And there's the difference between the transition that was your choice and the transition that was not your choice. But often, even if it is your choice — even if you're like, okay, I'm going to make this a career, I'm going to start going on auditions, or choosing which company you want to work for — I think ultimately those transitions are easier, back to identity, if being a dancer is an important part of who you are but it's not all of who you are.
[20:00] Because if your whole identity is, I am a dancer, that is where my worth comes from, that is who I am, that is my value, that is what is special about me — that puts a lot of pressure on that transition. And then if the transition is out of being a dancer, that transition at the end of the career can be extremely challenging if dance is your whole identity.
[20:25] I see it a lot with college athletes I work with, because graduation is an end for most of them, and even if it's not their choice, you can see it looming for a long time. Being able to think about — if your whole identity is I'm a college athlete, then as soon as I graduate, that's gone and I don't know what else to do. So those transitions are really challenging, something to take seriously, to spend time working through, and to be intentional about. And ultimately it comes down to considering who you are, where dance is a valuable, big part of that — but not everything.

[21:16] Jennifer Milner: So for people who are going through that transition — okay, this is a two-part question. As you said, lots of dancers have their identity wrapped up in dance: I'm a dancer, period, end of story. So if people are going through that transition stepping out of dance, what are some actionable things you suggest for them? And also, what would you suggest for them to have done if they could go back in time to better prepare themselves? What are some preemptive suggestions for people who are not yet at that point?

[21:49] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: Well, either preemptively or on the way out, the first thing is thinking about your values. Not ability — a value. What matters to you in life? What do you care about? It's something simple: you can find values lists online and just look through all these words and try to narrow it down to the 4 or 5 that are like, these are what truly matter to me. And then that guides future goals and decisions and where you want to be.
[22:22] If you have those values, then when you're transitioning, it's easier to see, okay, I may not be performing now, but maybe I'm going to shift how dance is a part of my life while it still aligns with this value. Or maybe this is not going to be a part of my life anymore, but I have these other aspects of my life that still fill these values. So that sense of self-worth and achievement has other avenues.
[22:51] With dancers on the way out, sometimes it's, how is dance still in your life, but it just looks different? The three of us who dance — it's still in our life, it just looks different.
[22:59] So being able to keep that alive, or asking, is dance no longer going to be a part of your life and you want to use those values to set goals in other areas? That value work helps on the way out, but certainly would be great preemptively.
[23:22] Developmentally, it's really hard to have a true sense of self until well into our 20s. So I think late teens, early 20s — at least starting to consider that — because that's when you're starting to pull away from what other people want for you. It's not about what your parents think you should do, what your dance directors think you should do. If I talk to a high school dancer who's trying to decide, do I want to dance in college or not, that transition is usually clouded by what everybody else wants them to do. And that's where starting at least that value work — what truly matters — and then picking the next step of your path that aligns with that, it helps all of the identity stuff we were talking about. It helps those transitions along the way, whether they're in your control or not.
[24:29] My values now are not what they were in high school or college, and that's okay. That's part of the work. But starting there at least, so you have that foundation.

[24:39] Jennifer Milner: That's such a great concept — looking at your values, like what are the things that are important to you? Not what are the things that you desire, or what are you good at, or any of those other things that people talk about. And I love the idea of being able to say, I'm a dancer and my value is bringing people joy, and this is how I do it. Okay, well, I'm not going to be dancing anymore. I still value bringing people joy. How am I going to do that? You can see how you will be a consistent human regardless of which phase of life you're in. That's such a great tool for people to have. I love that.

[25:13] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: Yeah, similarly — two of my five values are learning and achievement. Those were present in the professional dance world and they're still there. I've just shifted to new things I want to learn and other things I want to achieve, but they're all in my control. And that allows that identity shift. Dance is still here, it just looks different, because I've taken those values and given them a different picture.

[25:38] Dr. Linda Bluestein: I'm curious — I've seen this written out in long sheets: I am blank, I am blank, line after line. So you could say, I am a dancer, and I am a learner, I am—

[25:53] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: Yeah.

[25:53] Dr. Linda Bluestein: Do you think that's an exercise that could potentially be helpful? And if so, is there an age at which it's appropriate for people to do?

[26:03] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: Yeah, it can be. I would introduce the idea in high school. Around those mid-teens is when we have the cognitive ability for that metacognition — thinking about our own thinking. The ability to really reflect on that is a more advanced cognitive skill. So using that around high school encourages that reflection.
[26:29] What tends to happen if you do it with younger dancers and athletes is that the I am statements are either achievements or demographics — who I am in a very external sense, which is a natural place to start. But for a lot of adolescents, who I am is rooted in my achievements, or I'm trying to mimic somebody else. I am because of somebody I admire — which could be a celebrity, a dancer you look up to, or your parent. It's usually an external reference.
[27:04] So starting with that, and then being able to say, okay, my identity isn't about my achievements. That's cool, but that's not who I am at my core. What do I care about and what are my values? So working through those I am statements is a good place to start, and then I shift it to more of the values question of, what is important to you?
[27:38] For a concrete activity for someone who's like, I have no idea what my values are — I'll ask, who is someone you admire, and what do you admire about them? Because that usually shows you a value you care about. I have a best friend, and when I really think about what I admire most about her, it's her ability to maintain relationships, how she cares about other people, how she prioritizes them. And that made me reflect: okay, yeah, relationships are a really important part and a value for me — that sense of community, that sense of belonging. So thinking about who you admire and why will often highlight a value that you may not have been able to articulate before.

[28:34] Dr. Linda Bluestein: Well, I like having concrete things that people can do, so that's really fabulous. And so we've talked about this already a little bit, but is there anything else you want to add to the idea that dancers and athletes often foster the dancer or athlete first and human second mentality? Is that something you think is really common? And besides the things we've already talked about, is there anything else that people can do?

[29:03] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: I definitely see it. It is very common and it kind of goes back to what our industry has always valued — the external success. I think it's one of my personal missions, and I think you guys as well — we're just trying to help shift that to the human first, the whole athlete approach, not just what you can produce on stage.
[29:25] Not necessarily more than what I've already said, but we tend to lose our sense of self when our worth is only what can be done on stage. Instead, being able to think of our worth and our values outside of that. In psychology — and I'm sure medicine is similar — it's the whole dancer approach, the whole athlete, where it's not just what your body can do or what you can execute, but that more holistic view of it.

[29:56] Dr. Linda Bluestein: And how do you help dancers cope with the grief and loss of a career shift?

[30:10] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: That grief and loss — I think first acknowledging that grief over losing a career, which again can be because you graduated college, or because you were released from your contract, or because you were injured. Sometimes it's in your control, sometimes it's not. But that grief is just like the grief of anything else. And I think sometimes we say, oh, I should just be able to get over it. But losing something that you value that much — again, even if you've done the work to say, I am a dancer, but I am also all these other things — even if you had a solid sense of self where dance is only a piece of it, the grief is real.
[30:53] Being able to acknowledge and understand that, and treat it like a grieving process. People have made movies over the famous steps of grief, but they're in psychological research as well. There's this sense of disbelief and denial at first — it can't be over. I hear a lot of dancers say, and this was my experience too, I didn't realize my last time on stage was my last time on stage.

[31:20] Jennifer Milner: Yeah.

[31:20] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: And you just don't always know. So allowing for that sense of disbelief or denial at first — that is a healthy, normal reaction. And then you tend to proceed through the stages of grief, just like losing a person or an animal or anything else that you love. You're going to have that sense of potential isolation, or anger is really common — just being mad that it's over. Sometimes there's some bargaining, where people start asking, what can I do to fix this? How can I change it? Potentially depression, not necessarily in a clinical sense, but that sadness that this is really over — letting those emotions be and feeling them. And that leads to acceptance.
[32:08] What we know from the stages of grief and loss is that not everybody does every stage in that order. Sometimes you bounce around, you go backwards and forwards. But ultimately, that path to recovery usually involves that process and allowing that grief process to work.
[32:26] Again, dancers are told to stuff it down and keep going. And this is another time where it's — take the time to feel what you really feel. I've talked to some dancers where there's actually a little bit of relief when their career is over, and they don't know how to say that because everybody around them is like, oh, you must be so devastated. And they're like, I'm kind of good. I was tired, or I'm hurt. So sitting with your emotions of how do you actually feel — not what you think you're supposed to feel — and then letting that process take its time to work through.

[33:08] Jennifer Milner: Yeah, because it is grief. You are grieving the loss of something, and it's okay to have those feelings and to process them. These are really important conversations to have because there's so much about being a dancer and being in the dance world where you feel completely helpless, that there's not a lot that's in your control. So everything we've talked about today are things that are within the dancer's control, that help make them more autonomous and give them ownership.
[33:42] Also, if you were going to wave a magic wand and could fix some aspect of the dance world or change it in some way that makes it more supportive of dancers going through these transitions, what would you do or say?

[34:04] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: Oh goodness, that's a huge question. I love that. If I could only pick one thing, my focus has always been on using a positive coaching approach — whether it's coaching in an athletic sense or a dance director, it doesn't matter. It's in how you give feedback, how you treat a challenge, the social support around it, rather than the negative approach, which is a little bit the old school way that is unfortunately still prevalent. That's more of, shut up and do as you're told, fight through it, this is what I expect of you, I don't care what's going on, leave it at the door — that classic conversation.
[34:50] Shifting to what psychologists call the positive coaching approach is about how do I genuinely help you be better? Because you are good and I care about you and I want you to be better. You can still have high standards. You can still challenge and push athletes. But doing it with that positive approach rather than feeling like the only way to challenge a dancer is to yell or belittle or have that kind of negative approach. So if I could make that go away, I'd do it.

[35:17] Jennifer Milner: So many things can be solved with better communication, right?

[35:22] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: Absolutely.

[35:27] Jennifer Milner: It's just the magic bullet for so many things. And I love that. That's really great. Thank you. Did we miss any topics you wanted to cover, or did you have any final thoughts?

[35:38] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: No, I think maybe the only other thing I would add is that when people are trying to learn better mental skills — learn how to be more resilient, or use imagery better in rehab, or any of these mental skills — it starts with awareness first. Just knowing: who am I? What am I actually feeling? Taking the time to just learn that — being more intuitive and in tune with your own thoughts and feelings — is hard. Some people are better at that naturally than others. But knowing that is a really great place to start, just some simple reflections or mindfulness exercises, something that's helping you get to the root of how you really are feeling and what you're really thinking, and not letting the outside dictate that for you. Gaining that autonomy for yourself, and having more awareness, is the gateway to all the other mental skills.

[36:35] Jennifer Milner: Thank you. Yeah.

[36:37] Dr. Linda Bluestein: And I love that mental skills, because whether you're a dancer in the middle of your career or someone who never danced — lots of people listen to episodes we wouldn't necessarily expect — these are mental skills that I feel are really helpful for all of us.

[36:57] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: Oh, they are life skills. 100%.

[36:57] Dr. Linda Bluestein: Life skills. Yes.

[37:00] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: I think they're life skills that dance just happens to be the vehicle with which we learn them. But they are life skills. Absolutely.

[37:06] Dr. Linda Bluestein: Yes. And I think they apply so much more so to dance because — I know somebody, I think it was Tiler Peck, just recently posted something about, can I do this? Yes. Can I do this? Yes. We're so used to saying yes, right? Yes, I can do that. Yes, I can do this. So I think learning to turn inwards and pay attention to our thoughts and our emotions is really something that we as dancers probably don't do very well sometimes.

[37:36] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: Yeah. And our industry doesn't naturally encourage it by any means. We're taught to be outward performers — it's the nature of what we do, pleasing an audience and performing. But even to make a more genuine performance, we want to turn inward and be able to do it from that reflection. So even for people who don't perceive these mental skills as being that powerful — it is life skills, and it is going to help you just be an actual better dancer. That awareness and understanding of yourself helps you bring a more genuine performance. So it's definitely in the nature of what we do as dancers.

[38:21] Dr. Linda Bluestein: Yes. Making everything look effortless, even though it's incredibly hard.

[38:25] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: Yes, exactly.

[38:27] Dr. Linda Bluestein: Making it look like we're not suffering at all, it's easy. Okay. So before we wrap up, can you tell us one or more of your favorite hypermobility hacks?

[38:32] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: So of course I'm going to do a mindset one. We kind of started to go there — Jen was talking about autonomy and like, this is all stuff in our control. And that's my mindset hack, my phrase that guides my life, not just my dance world: control the controllables. Whenever things feel incredibly challenging, or you have some big setback, or even when things are good — keeping in mind what is in my control in this moment and being able to focus my energy, my thoughts, my effort on what I control, and letting go of the things that are not in your control.
Because there are a lot of things as a dancer that are not in our control. Jen, you were talking about how communication matters so much, and it does. But if you are working for or with a partner or somebody who is not good at that — what's in your control? How you communicate to them is in your control. How they receive it is not. And if you're in part of your dance life where there are judges or people choosing you at an audition, you can't control them. You can control your effort and your preparation and your own mindset. Same with injuries — if you're a hypermobile dancer, there's going to be some of that that is not in your control. That's how things are in your experience. So letting go of what's not in your control and focusing on what is helps so much with all of the mental skills we've talked about — the resilience, the identity, the positive approach.

[40:15] Dr. Linda Bluestein: I love that. That's great. And where can people find you online?

[40:21] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: The easiest is my website — it's just chelseapierotti.com. I know my last name is a challenge, but it's P-I-E-R-O-T-T-I.

[40:31] Dr. Linda Bluestein: Okay, very good. And we will definitely have that link in the show notes. And I just want to remind everyone that you've been listening to the Bendy Bodies with the Hypermobility MD Podcast. Our guest today was Dr. Chelsea Pierotti — she's a sports psychologist and consultant for dancers and dance educators. And our guest co-host today was Jennifer Milner. It was so great to chat with you, Dr. Pierotti, and of course having you back, Jen. I really appreciate you sharing your wisdom and knowledge with us.

[41:00] Chelsea Pierotti, PhD: Of course. Thank you both. This was really fun.

[41:02] Jennifer Milner: Yes. Thank you so much.

[41:02] Dr. Linda Bluestein: Thank you for listening to this week's episode of the Bendy Bodies with the Hypermobility MD Podcast. Visit our new website at bendybodiespodcast.com where you can now view guest profiles and show notes with links to products and journal articles. Leave me a comment, sign up for updates, leave a review or a voicemail, and access the podcast on your favorite player, all directly from our website. You may hear your voicemail in a future episode where we answer your question or dive into your gracious feedback.
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[41:59] This podcast is for general informational purposes only and does not constitute the practice of medicine or other professional healthcare services, including the giving of medical advice. No doctor-patient relationship is formed. Do not disregard or delay obtaining medical advice for any medical condition you have. Opinions shared are those of the guest and do not necessarily represent the views of the host or any particular organization. Sponsorship of the podcast does not necessarily mean an endorsement. Thank you for being a part of our community, and we'll catch you next time on the Bendy Bodies Podcast.