Dancing on the Edge
Have you ever had the sense that something isn’t quite right but can’t yet name it? At such times it becomes even more important to tend to what steadies us.
You may remember Dancing on the Edge, Stephen Poliakoff’s 2013 television drama set in London in 1932, just as radio is emerging as a powerful new medium. Beneath its glittering story of celebrity culture lies something more unsettling: a social class so secure in its assumptions that it fails to recognise gathering danger. Hitler has only just become Chancellor, but mentions of Germany’s new Nazi rulers are treated lightly. Few sense what is coming.
I often wonder if we are living in our own version of “dancing on the edge.” When public rhetoric grows more hostile and polarised, when powerful figures appear to act without regard for consequence, our bodies often register unease long before our minds make sense of it. We feel slightly braced. Slightly watchful. As though scanning for something we cannot quite see.
This February, Chinese communities around the world celebrate the Lunar New Year. In 2026, the 60-year cycle brings the Year of the Fire Horse — associated with intensity, drive, and dramatic change. The last Fire Horse year was 1966, when Chairman Mao launched the Cultural Revolution and the United States intensified its war in Vietnam.
But we don’t need astrology to tell us that we are living through turbulent times. Large-scale change unsettles us. It stirs powerful feelings that are not always easy to process. And for those with a history of trauma, wider social upheaval can land particularly close to home.
Trauma is not simply what happened; it is what happened inside us. It is the overwhelm of an experience that exceeded our capacity to cope at the time. The nervous system adapts for survival — through fighting, fleeing, freezing, or appeasing.
These responses are intelligent. They are protective. But trauma touches trauma. Like dominoes lined up, present-day events can reactivate earlier experiences of powerlessness.
Repeated media stories of exploitation, abuse, or domination can stir implicit memory. The body tightens. Sleep becomes disturbed. A sense of threat rises without a clear source. For some women and girls who have known abuse, hearing of the powerful harming the vulnerable — and the subsequent cover-up — is not just news. It resonates in the body.
Trauma can narrow what psychologists call our window of tolerance — the zone in which we can feel and think at the same time without becoming overwhelmed or shutting down. When we are within this window, we are capable of thoughtful responses. When we are pushed outside it, however, we may swing into anxiety and anger, or drop into numbness and disconnection. We lose our sense of control.
Many of us, then, may find ourselves dancing on the edge.
Living slightly braced.
Slightly vigilant. Numb, frozen.
Waiting.
And yet — the same nervous system that learned survival can also learn safety.
When the external world feels uncertain, it becomes even more important to tend to what steadies us internally: relationships, small rituals, embodied practices that widen the window again.
In my psychotherapy work, I think of my role as offering psychological space — a steady, respectful environment in which overwhelm can gradually settle. Healing is not about forcing disclosure or urging someone to move on. It is about restoring safety, pacing, and agency. When someone is accompanied at their own speed — when their story is heard without shock or judgement — the nervous system can begin to differentiate past from present. The edge softens.
The body and mind learn, sometimes for the first time, that they are no longer alone. This is when powerful and painful feelings can be processed, expressed and understood. The therapeutic space becomes an incubator for change, and a quiet gift.
Maya Angelou often quoted the line, “I am a human being. Nothing human can be alien to me,” words first written by the Roman playwright Terence. They remind us that whatever we experience, and whoever we are, we are not alone. We are humans together on this planet — capable of having each other’s backs.
Many years ago, while living in China, I formed a friendship with a woman my own age. We once sat comparing the colour of our arms resting on the table between us. Despite 8,000 miles of distance in culture and upbringing, I was struck by how similar we were at the level that mattered most. It was a profound sense of connection I have never forgotten.
All human experience lives within us.
Depending on how often we have had to dance on the edge — and how fragile our trust has become — we may need more gentleness, not less.
So if you notice yourself feeling on edge as you read this, perhaps pause for a moment.
Feel your feet on the ground.
Notice the support of the chair beneath you.
Let your eyes rest on something steady in the room.
Take one unforced breath, allowing the exhale to be slightly longer than the inhale.
There is nothing you need to change. Simply notice.
In turbulent times, we need to judge less and reach toward one another more.
We can dance when we must.
And when safety allows, we can rest.
Dancing on the Edge was a great series. Like the current film Nuremberg, it reminds me of the adage, ‘History repeats itself; it has to, no one listens’. Here’s hoping we’re not watching a repeat.