Take Back Your Life: Theresa “Tree” Walsh

Theresa “Tree” Walsh is a Community Engaged Arts Facilitator and Teacher who uses dance, education and other arts based practices, to help create a space for people to explore themselves through questions and issues that are meaningful for them. Her big picture plan is to build an arts based personal growth and development centre called myTREEHOUSEvision which would help youth learn lead and mentor each other, create collaborative compositions together, and learn a variety of other arts based practice skills.

She has worked in many contexts such as summer camps, schools, community centres, community events, etc across North America in order to try to make the world a better place in whatever way she can.

The world isn’t flat, the sun doesn’t revolve around the Earth and there are many things we believe now that are like those beliefs were to people who believed them in the past – Tree is out to help the world, herself included, to discover and evolve these limiting beliefs so we can save ourselves from self-destruction! 

I was living in my home city of Toronto, and only living my dream in the summers at a camp in New Hampshire US as the Dance and Fitness Program Director. Life was great in the summers, where I felt like for the first time ever I got to be my true self, and finally felt ok to be me. I got to dance with kids, work with my staff to help them learn and grow as teachers and leaders, and be the kind of person I really wanted to be… then I would go out into the rest of the year, struggling to enjoy life and to really feel fulfilled or living my passion.

There I was, unhappy again in a job that I was trying to make a good fit, when it wasn’t. I felt like I needed to go back to camp that summer to escape my displeasing non-camp circumstances, and a mentor of mine challenged me to think twice. She shared that she thought I was going back to camp as a safe place out of comfort, but not necessarily for the best reasons. She suggested that I consider not going back intentionally to create what I loved about camp in the rest of my whole life. In that moment I felt incredibly defensive and reactive to that thought. The idea of not going back scared me more than anything, but I knew because of the strength of my reaction, she was probably onto something. Through my re-evaluation process, I decided to forge my own path outside of camp, and take what I loved about camp and build it in my whole life – and so I did.

Camp was the first to know that I would not be going back that summer, which was one of the hardest things I have ever done. Then I worked on figuring out exactly what it was I loved about camp so much so I could identify the key characteristics of how to create those things all the time and began searching for co-collaborators.

I learned that I had a knack for getting people dancing and allowing them to let go of inhibitions which has set me on a whole other dance teaching/leading career of team building through dance, dance walks, theGROOVE dance facilitation and so much more! Now I lead literally hundreds of people in fun dance parties in a number of venues: camps, events, 5k races and marathons, schools, community centres, dance protests etc. I am now able to be an example for others as to how they can also follow their dreams and live their passions AND get paid to do what I love which feels SO great!

I have also learned that often, or rather more like always, in order to take next steps and to grow, you have to let go of one thing to make room for another and experience the pain of loss and growth that comes along with that. I learned this lesson so well that more recently when I decided to make a big change to pursue another passion of mine, that I was able to call myself out on it instead of someone else needing to do it and made the change myself following my mentors example.

Question everything! If you feel attached to something in the outside world in order to be ok (i.e. a job, a partner, a circumstance etc) you probably are! If you don’t figure that out, and re-evaluate what you really want outside of that attachment, there is only so far that the comfort of the external attachment can take you, until it stops working and you will have to face yourself anyway. Also read the Alchemist repeatedly and journal! Work with people into goal setting and talk openly about your dreams and big picture visions so they can call you on your BS when you’re selling yourself out of your dreams!

To be experiencing the magnificence of life. To constantly pursue more joy, more vulnerability, more humility and gratefulness. To aspire to be as ruthlessly honest with yourself and others as you can be. To feel deeply and to become a gracefully ‘in-rapport’ dance partner with yourself so you can work together with your emotions to create the things you want in your life, rather than destroy them. To jump in and sing and laugh and cry – To love unconditionally and open your radiant heart to the world expecting nothing in return.

“The primary goal of real education is not to deliver facts but to guide students to the truths that will allow them to take responsibility for their lives.” John Taylor Gatto