MY STORY
Article about Rise and Thrive and Awaken the Dance HERE
Article in Shout Out Colorado HERE
Article in More Than Lyme HERE
Hi, I’m so glad you made your way here. Here’s why I do and live what I love. I have danced and immersed myself in nature for my entire life. There are times when illness, injury, low self-esteem, body shame and trauma have taken me off the dance floor and landed me in bed. There have been months, even years at a time where I couldn’t bring myself out of my own pain to move and be moved. But I’ve always come back. Because the dance floor is where I have learned to let my body’s wisdom and expression do the work. This — combined with Shambhala Buddhism and Hakomi Therapy — has made me who I am today, someone who suffers from chronic illness and injuries and LOVES her life.
Awaken The Dance comes from my love for movement, awareness practices, community, body wisdom and exploration. I needed a space where I could dance, and teach, no matter how sick I was, or how much my body hurt. A space where the sheer enormity of my joy, love and irreverent wildness could come play. A space where my weight fluctuations weren’t confronted by staring at myself in a mirror and comparing myself to other women as I danced. I needed a space where all of me felt not only welcome, but appreciated, felt and heard. That, my friends, is Awaken The Dance.
This has grown to include Rise and Thrive Coaching because not only have I been sick with a chronic illness, I still suffer from lyme, but I lead a full, rich, community and joy filled life.
When I got diagnosed I watched my world crumble. As I treated lyme I got sicker and sicker. I spent most of the year face down on my living room floor.
My dance classes dwindled in numbers, I vacillated between despair, depression, anxiety and anger. But mostly I felt lost. I couldn’t find myself. I couldn’t feel myself. Where had this woman called "me" gone? I had often been called the most vibrant, cheerful woman anyone had ever met, and now I was a ghost of myself. It was shocking to say the least.
So what changed?
I picked myself up off the floor and decided that I am not my illness, that lyme disease is a part of my challenges and obstacles in this life. But it is not ME. I am not my disease.
I started dancing again. Tiny, small, on my floor, soothing dancing. Sometimes alone, sometimes with friends or dance mentors. Eventually I returned to dance classes and just danced the way I could, slow and steady. This simple act of feeling my body in motion, of feeling the nuances of pleasure and pain, was what I needed (and need) to celebrate and enjoy my body, as it is.
I began Hakomi Therapy, and explored my unconscious beliefs that kept me from loving myself or receiving love from those around me. Doors opened to find the healing in myself and through my community ways I never imagined! And my body opened to the herbs, medicines and other treatments I was receiving, because now I knew I was worth healing! I leaned into nature and regulating practices to keep me embodied, supported, and connected to myself and the natural world.
And I reached out to my community and said "help!" My husband was a saint, and I still needed help with my son, with my home, with meals, and mostly with my heart. I needed to know my community was still there, loving me, even though I felt pretty useless, unable to reciprocate or show up for them. And simply being loved, cared for and held, as I was, was the medicine I needed to surrender, to soften, to stop fighting and start healing.
And this magical combination gave me back my life!
Am I cured? No.
Am I free of symptoms? No.
Because I use dance, tools, nature, Shamanic allies, community and resources, I do have an amazing, active, fulfilling life every single day.
I offer you Awaken The Dance and Rise and Thrive Coaching because I know they work. Because dozens and dozens of people have been transformed through dancing and coaching with me. So welcome to the family. All of you is welcome here.
I believe we can all live an amazing, full life through the wisdom of the body. My holistic coaching practice combines mindfulness-based Hakomi Psychotherapy, embodiment, self-compassion, nervous system regulation, and more. I support clients, dance students, and workshop participants to fall in love in with themselves and life, from the inside out. I teach internationally and leads regular classes online and in Boulder, CO. I holds a degree from Naropa University, the Peacemaker Institute and am a Certified Hakomi Practitioner. I have studied various dance and movement forms for 40 years and has been a student of Buddhism for over 20 years. I have taught movement to developmentally disabled adults. I am a choreographer, I lead teacher trainings, facilitate therapeutic women's groups, and workshops using movement and art. I teach embodied meditation, and Rites of Passage at the Boulder Shambhala Center and Shambhala Mountain Center. I am a third generation health-food and nutrition geek and the daughter of an MCS/Chronic Fatigue/Lyme Disease expert, which means I know way more about diagnosis and treatment than I should.... I'm a mama to a break-dancing boy and an adorable neurotic dog, and I'm married to an incredible composer. That's my story. What's yours?