This memoir is about my bumpy
journey toward truth and authenticity with the hope that those of you who read
it can glean some value.
You may believe fame and wealth
bring happiness. That was not my experience.
My mother, sister of George and
Ira Gershwin, and my father who invented color film were the primary models in
my childhood. Growing up with such talent as I did, you learn early on that it
distorts values.
I unwittingly set my brilliant
father up as an authority figure, even though he was terrifying and
unpredictable. And because the family dynamic was unhealthy I didn’t know whom
to trust or even that trust was possible, especially in myself. Later as a
young woman I turned away from my background and looked to teachers and
professionals for the truth. It took some time for me to realize that their
expertise could only take me so far.
After one false start and then
another I found a caring partner, Enrico, whom I initially turned to, believing
he could impart a way for me to find my own direction and answers, as he seemed
to have found for himself. What was so radical to learn was how and where to
look. What I learned was going to sensations in the body rather than the
thinking mind was where the key to change and transformation lay.
We married and moved out to the
wilderness where we faced floods, fire, rattle snakes, mountain lions and
bears. In the years it took to build a house we lived in a teepee. We tried to
create our own paradise where we raised and homeschooled three children.
Our life turned upside down when
the kids became teenagers. Paradise crashed and my relationship with Enrico deteriorated. The
grown children struggled to find a place in the outside world. We faced tragedy
and I, cancer. This was when my hard earned ability to experience the somatic
(inner experience as sensation) helped regulate me and provide me with a chance
to find authenticity and authority, as well as a more mature relationship with
Enrico. I was able to use this inner working as a way to help others, which I call
DanceMedicine, a healing through movement.
We are still living in the
wilderness and offer workshops and retreats to anyone who is interested.
About the Author
Nadia Natali, author of the
memoir, Stairway
to Paradise: Growing Up Gershwin, published by Rare Bird, Los Angeles, 2015,
and The Blue Heron Ranch Cookbook: Recipes and Stories from a Zen Retreat
Center published by North Atlantic Books, Berkeley CA, 2008, is currently
working on a second cookbook titled Zafu Kitchen Cookbook.
Natali, a clinical
psychotherapist and dance therapist, specializes in trauma release through
somatic work. She earned a master’s degree from Hunter College in New York City
in Dance/Movement Therapy and completed another masters degree in clinical
psychology with an emphasis in somatic psychology at the Santa Barbara Graduate
Institute. Nadia is a registered practitioner of Biodynamic Craniosacral
Therapy (RCST) and is also a certified Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP)
who trained with Peter Levine.
DanceMedicine Workshops is
Natali’s creation where participants move through their trauma with dialogue
and dance. She also offers the Ojai community, DanceMedicine Journeys. In
addition to her private practice, Nadia and her husband offer Zen Retreats at
their center.
Born into a famous family that
was riddled with dysfunction, Nadia Natali made the choice to turn her life
inside out and step away from fame and fortune. Against her parents’ consent
she married an artist and moved to the remote wilderness in California. It was
there that she found grounding as she and her husband raised and homeschooled
their three children and opened a retreat center. As she gathered her own
momentum, she enrolled in a doctorate program finally becoming a clinical
psychotherapist specializing in psychosomatic work. She and her husband live in
Ojai California.
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