In 2010, my dream as an artist became a reality: I left Toronto for New York City to join the most anticipated Broadway show of its time—Spider‑Man: Turn Off the Dark. From the outside, I looked triumphant: successful, confident, living the life I’d always wanted. The private truth was very different.

As a dancer, I thought I knew my body. It was my instrument, my livelihood, my voice. But beneath the façade of perfection, I was suffering. I lived with debilitating anxiety, PTSD, panic attacks, and depression.

As a highly sensitive child shaped by unhealthy perfectionism and the impact of a relentless childhood dance education, I also found myself working in an industry that often ignores the body’s limits. My Broadway debut brought extraordinary pressure, severe injuries, and near‑fatal accidents. My nervous system finally collapsed. At my lowest, I didn’t want to leave my home—let alone perform on stage. I stepped away from my career, existing in a state of bracing and hypervigilance, feeling profoundly unsafe in my own body.

For over a decade, I searched for relief. I saw numerous therapists—few, I now realize, were trauma‑informed. I tried multiple medications, spiritual workshops, meditation retreats—anything that might quiet the inner chaos. I became a yoga instructor, hoping that teaching others to move and breathe would help me heal too.

When an acupuncturist friend suggested Somatic Experiencing®, I was hesitant—exhausted from trying “one more thing.” After the first few sessions, however, something began to shift.

My practitioner was gentle. She worked slowly and safely, and had healed her own nervous system with the same work. This really mattered to me. She met my body with deep respect and compassion and helped me see it not broken or wrong, but as wise, resilient and brilliantly protective.

She helped me understand that, like all of nature, our nervous systems know how to return to balance— if given the right conditions. When the body is met with great support instead of force, softening becomes possible. Unwinding happens on it’s own. And what was once stuck or incomplete can begin to find it’s way toward completion and rest one step at a time.

Now, looking back, I can honestly say this work gave my nervous system a way home.

I returned to performing—starting small, eventually making my way back on Broadway. I feel like I’m only now discovering who I really am: someone whose body can regulate, whose intuition has room to breathe, whose spontaneous self—long frozen in fear—can finally move.

Somatic Experiencing has changed how I see my art, my teaching, and myself. My background—artist, mover, yoga instructor—gave me tools, yes. But it’s lived experience that has shaped me most as a practitioner. It awakened a lifelong dedication to sharing the work I truly believe in and helping others.

Healing can feel less like “fixing” and more like “holding.” It can feel like remembering who we are beneath the brilliant adaptive patterns our bodies need to learn due to high levels of stress and for protection. If that sounds impossible, I understand. With built‑up stress in the nervous system, self‑trust gets tangled. The body feels foreign, intuition unreliable. That, truly, is a perfect place to begin.

“Your pain, your sorrow, your doubts, your longings, your fearful thoughts; they are not mistakes, and they are not asking to be ‘healed.’ They are asking to be held. Here, now, lightly in the loving, healing arms of present awareness…”

—Jeff Foster (spiritual teacher)