My Story

In 2010, my dream as an artist became a reality. I left Toronto for New York City to join one of Broadway's most anticipated productions, Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark.

From the outside, I looked successful, confident, and like I was 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, and my voice. But beneath the façade of perfection, I was struggling. I lived with debilitating anxiety, PTSD, panic attacks, and depression.

As a highly sensitive child shaped by perfectionism and the demands of an intense dance education, I entered an industry that often ignored the body's limits. My Broadway debut brought extraordinary pressure, severe injuries, and near-fatal accidents. Eventually, my nervous system could no longer carry what it had been holding for so long.

At my lowest, I didn't want to leave my home—let alone perform on stage. I lived in a constant state of bracing and hypervigilance, feeling profoundly unsafe in my own body.

For more than a decade, I searched for relief.

I saw countless therapists, yet I still felt something was missing. Over time, I came to understand that none of the approaches I'd tried were addressing my nervous system in the way I needed. I tried medication, meditation retreats, spiritual workshops, and anything else that promised healing. I even became a yoga instructor, hoping that helping others move and breathe might somehow help me heal too. Yet nothing seemed to reach the place inside me that still felt trapped in survival.

When an acupuncturist friend suggested Somatic Experiencing®, I was hesitant. By that point, I was exhausted from trying "one more thing."

But after just a few sessions, something began to shift.

My practitioner was gentle. She worked slowly and safely, and she had healed her own nervous system through this work. That mattered to me. She met my body with deep respect and compassion, helping me see it not as 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 when given the right conditions. When the body is met with support instead of force, softening becomes possible. What once felt frozen or incomplete can begin, in its own time, to move toward completion and rest.

For the first time, healing didn't feel like something I had to make happen. My body already knew the way.

Slowly, I began to come home to myself.

I returned to performing—starting small and eventually making my way back to Broadway. But the greatest transformation wasn't returning to the stage. It was finally feeling at home in my own body.

I discovered a nervous system that could regulate, an intuition that had room to breathe, and a spontaneity that had long been hidden beneath fear.

Somatic Experiencing changed how I see my art, my teaching, and myself.

My background as an artist, mover, and yoga instructor gave me valuable tools, but it is my lived experience that has shaped me most as a practitioner. It awakened a lifelong dedication to sharing this work and walking alongside others on their own healing journeys.