“Many people have asked me how, as a teacher, I get people to trust me so quickly and deeply. Being a movement educator, I often use my hands when I work, and because I do not have much time with a person, knowing how to establish almost immediate trust is essential to my working effectively.
‘As doctors you are often in a similar position. Often, you do not have much time with a patient and you want your patients to trust you.
‘Establishing trust has less to do with what you say to a person, or even what you do. Establishing trust has mostly to do with how you are being within yourself when you are with a person.
‘Once, after a class, I was surprised by how much warmth I felt directed toward me from everyone in the group. Innocently, I asked my friend, “Why do people like me so much?” “Bruce, it is so simple. It’s because you like them.”
‘For me, liking people is natural. There is no technique. I am a person who likes people. I don’t know if you can teach a person how to like people. I really don’t know. But maybe it is possible.
‘Being a person in a position of authority, or being a person with great skill, does not guarantee trust or respect. What makes a person feel close to you is meeting them, as equals, on common ground.
‘One day, after I had taught for 21 days, from morning to night, and I am not Japanese, I finally had one day off. It was a sunny day.
I felt free. I decided to buy some small presents for my wife and kids. Walking down the street, a young man who looks like he’s about 20 comes up to me, smiles, and says, “Don’t I know you?” “I’m sorry. I don’t think so,” I say. “You look so familiar,” he says. I walk for another ten steps and a small, old lady whom I did not know stops me, looks directly into my eyes and says, “I know you, I am sure I know you, but for the life of me I cannot remember from where,” she says. “I just have one of those faces. Maybe it’s because I look like Paul Simon,” I say smiling. She looked at me for a long time. I wished her well and continued my walk when, 30 seconds later, another man, about my age, who actually looked a lot like me, stops me and asks me my name and where I am from. “My name is Bruce, Bruce Fertman. I live in Philadelphia,” I say. “No, I don’t know you. But I feel like I know you.” Without thinking I say, “We do know each other. We’ve just never met before.”’
‘That day it seemed everyone knew me, and I knew everyone. That never happened to me quite like that again, but on that day it happened.’
‘Personally, I do not believe in reincarnation, but I like something His Holiness the Dalai Lama once said. He said we have all been reborn so many times that everyone we meet has already been our mother, our father, our husband, our wife, our daughter, our son, and our best friend. I like to imagine myself not only as a white male but as someone who has already been male and female, Black and Latino, Asian and Aborigine, as someone who has been lesbian and bisexual, gay and transgender, someone who has been a Muslim, Hindu, Christian and Jew, a Buddhist and a Sikh, who has been rich and poor, married and unmarried, physically able and physically challenged.
‘I do my best to see a person in this light when I meet them. I see them as a member of my family. By virtue of being human they are related to me and I am to them.
‘People feel this immediately. And sometimes, in that one moment, a deep trust is established. In that one moment, the student or the stranger on the street knows they are safe with me, that I care about them, that I see them, that I am ready and happy to give them my attention and my time.
‘Teaching is an art, medicine is too. They are social arts.
‘Medical schools turn people into doctors. In our brief but important time together let’s consider how we can turn doctors back into plain people who engender immediate trust from their patients. And let’s have fun doing it,’ I say to a room full of people, all of whom look so familiar to me.”
From Teaching by Hand, Learning by Heart by Bruce Fertman
This is what the Teaching through Touch workshop will be about.
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