“Not a big deal.”
I know this sentence well.
On the conscious dance floor, I train myself to turn that reflex into curiosity, breath, and presence.
Nothing happens.
It’s not so bad.
You’ll be fine by tomorrow.
We hear these sentences so often as children — not from bad parents, not from bad intentions — but from adults who simply didn’t have the capacity to feel. To hold big emotions.
You broke your hand?
Not a big deal — it’ll be fine by the wedding.
You lost your favourite toy?
Don’t worry, you’ll get a new one for your birthday.
You’re sad, sick, scared?
Not a big deal. Tomorrow you’ll feel better.
And so we grow up with this message: nothing that happens is really a big deal.
But for a child, everything is a big deal.
Not because of the event itself — the broken toy, the scraped knee — but because of the emotion that comes with it.
When we tell a child that it’s not a big deal, what they actually hear is:
“Your feelings don’t matter. They’re too much. They shouldn’t exist.”
So they learn to shrink.
To suppress.
To stop feeling.
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Losing Our Gut Feelings
One of the things that happens to us as children is the loss of our gut feelings.
Just the other day, my son was sick — lying on the sofa, pale and quiet.
And my first thought was, not a big deal, he’ll be fine tomorrow.
But for him, this experience of being ill is huge.
And suddenly, I hear my mother’s voice in my head:
“It’s not too bad.”
Sure — it’s normal to be sick.
But behind this “not too bad” hides the fear of uncomfortable emotions: disappointment, frustration, fear, and sadness.
When we grow up with the message that some feelings are not welcome, we stop feeling. We start numbing. We disconnect.
Out of loyalty to our parents’ perspectives and limitations, we abandon our authenticity — and with it, our gut feeling, our truth, our inner compass.
That’s when we lose the ability to know clearly who we are and what’s good for us — and we begin to live lives of compromise, pleasing others instead of listening to ourselves.
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From “Not a Big Deal” to “A Big Deal”
Most of us didn’t have parents who could hold the full range of emotions. They had jobs to get to, lives to run. They couldn’t stop the world for every tear. But the cost was that we learned to stop the world inside ourselves instead.
We grew up believing that emotions are dangerous, that sensitivity is weakness, and that the safest thing is to toughen up, keep going, and not make a fuss.
We say, “I’m fine,” while our bodies keep the score — holding all the unfelt emotions that never got to move through us.
And here’s the tragedy:
When we stop feeling the bad things, we also stop feeling the good things.
We don’t only numb the pain; we numb the joy.
We wake up in the morning — not a big deal.
We drink water — not a big deal.
We have a family, friends, a home — not a big deal.
Everything becomes… flat.
And life without feeling is just surviving.
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The Practice of Making Things a Big Deal
So here’s my invitation:
Do the opposite.
Make everything a big deal.
Yes — a big fucking deal.
Not in a dramatic, childish way. Not to cry over spilt milk or break plates when something goes wrong. But to feel what’s really happening inside when life touches you.
Someone hurts you?
Pause.
Don’t blame, fight, or run away.
Just feel.
How does it land in your body?
Is it heat, tightness, coldness, tears, heartbeat, or sweat?
How does fear feel today?
How does sadness move in you right now?
Feeling is training. The more you practise, the better you get.
And once you start feeling the uncomfortable emotions — surprise! — you also begin to feel the beautiful ones again.
A dancer writes me an email asking about a book I mentioned in class.
I could just reply: “Here’s the title.”
Or I could stop for a moment and think:
“Wow. She cared. She listened. She was moved. She searched for my contact and reached out.”
That’s a big deal.
That’s the meaning.
When we make small things matter, life becomes vibrant again — full of colour, connection, and wonder.
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Making a Big Deal on the Dance Floor
This is exactly what we do on the dance floor.
We make a big deal out of feeling.
We pixel into our inner landscape —
moving, sensing, and exploring from the inside out.
We go inside for insight.
Instead of trying to “feel better,”
We practise being better at feeling.
We learn to sense the body,
to listen to what’s happening under our skin,
to notice sensations, feelings, and emotions —
and to use the mind as a gentle reminder
to come back again and again
to the only place where life truly happens:
the present moment.
In the dance, presence becomes our teacher.
We let it guide us.
We let it reveal our truth,
our wisdom,
and our integration.
Every movement, every breath, every beat
becomes an opportunity to make a big deal out of life itself.
And when we step out of the dance floor,
We carry that aliveness with us —
the capacity to meet life as it is,
to make every moment matter,
and to remember that feeling is living.
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If you’d like to explore this further, I recommend The Presence Process by Michael Brown—a 10-week journey into presence and feeling.
And if this topic moves something in you, I’d love to hear about it.
What happens when you start making things a big deal?
Have a beautiful, meaningful, big-deal day.
— Idan