We offer a somatic, body-based approach in reclaiming your body, recreating your personal narrative, and reconnecting to your innate freedom.

 
Artwork by Sarah Sun Photo by Collette Wright

Artwork by Sarah Sun Photo by Collette Wright

It is a practice in remembering.

 
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Remembering all that you are and have always been. 

It is a practice in reclaiming your body, integrating your associated stories, and recreating your personal narrative. It is a practice in embodiment. It is a practice in finding your freedom and remembering your truth. It is a practice in taking up space and in not abandoning yourself as you and your story continues to evolve and change. 

It is remembering that this is all just a practice in awareness: life, you, me, vulnerability, health, growth, tension, joy, and pain.

There is no destination, no mastery, no end point. There is only practice.

Remembered Practice is a practice to strengthen your ability to remember, trust, and have compassion for the most important aspect to your self and your healing:

You.

 
 
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Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, a pioneer in trauma research, says:

“The only way you can change your survival orientation in your brain is by accessing your interoceptive world—the part of your brain that allows you to observe yourself…observing yourself, knowing yourself, being curious about yourself, befriending yourself, taking care of yourself.”

 
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I invite you to say “yes” to yourself.

 
Everything around us, within us, and between us has the potential to offer us a new awareness of who we are, who we want to be, how we show up, and what's getting in our way. We are always reacting and responding. We are always moving in response to something. What can that movement offer us? What can we learn about ourselves and each other from that moment? Are there patterns in our responses? Are there fears, belief systems, or societal constructs holding us back or keeping us in pattern? What would it be like to move, still as a response, but in a different way outside of our usual patterns? This is what having an awareness practice can offer you. Perspective. Possibility. Understanding. An opportunity to write and/or share a new story about yourself. Not the one your mom wrote for you, or your brother, or friend, partner, trauma, or circumstances. The one written by you, full of your own truth. Movement Meditations is $10 and begins April 29. Registration in my bio. Also, please note there are two scholarships available for POC. If you are a POC and are interested, please DM me. Feel free to share if you know someone who may be interested!
It is constantly affirmed to me in my work with clients, in my own self work, and in just witnessing and experiencing the world that we all just want someone to hear us. We want someone to see us for who we really are in our core. It is a basic need that we as humans need to survive: connection between our authentic selves. We truly need one another. I know this because I have wanted and continue to want these things. I know this because for a long time I didn’t feel seen or heard, even when I felt like I was screaming from the rooftops who I was. I know this because there have been times that I felt like I lacked true connection, I felt closed off from love and wondered why I didn’t feel love from other people who’s hearts had been practically barricaded as well. I longed for the holding that is given by someone acknowledging and validating my experience and who I was as a human being on a soul level. I know we all just want someone to hear and see us because I see the relief on clients’ faces and in their bodies when I listen to hear them rather than to respond. I know this because I often hear clients share with me after a session that they’ve never been able to share something so intimate to their story without it being judged, ridiculed, or used against them to make them believe they were too much or, conversely, not enough. I know this because when I reflect back to people what I see in them and their words and their somatic experience, they light up. They cry with grief and relief because finally they are being seen. They feel a little less alone in their experience. We need each other you guys. We can not do this life alone. We aren’t meant to. And I can’t help but wonder what it would be like if we all worked a little bit harder to make each other feel safe. Feel seen. Feel heard. It takes work on all of our parts. It takes dismantling our associated stories, feeling our bodies, somatic work to unwind said stories from being imprinted on our nervous system. It takes a lot of self work that can be painful, even scary. Most importantly, it takes a willingness to do so. 👇🏼| More in the comments |👇🏼
I bought this piece of art ten years ago after I moved to Seattle. I was meandering around Pike Place Market and an artist had set up a little booth full of little paintings like this. This one in particular stood out to me, though I didn’t know why other than the fact that I’ve always contemplated a life of full time mermaidship and sun worshipping. I suspected there was something more to the piece for me, but the fact that there was a mermaid apparently was enough. After I brought it home I never hung it up. Over the last ten years it’s moved back across the country with me and survived significant life transitions. But it always remained tucked away in a storage bin or drawer. I LOVE this artwork, and I have loved it all along. It just felt like too much of a statement to hang on my wall. And yet, I couldn’t part with it. Six months ago when I moved in to my own space after the end of a relationship, it was the very first thing I hung up in my place. She even survived the Great Purge that it took for me to move in to a studio apartment. It was the first time I looked at her and truly, deeply understood the significance of this conch-declaring, water-dwelling beauty: I am committed to truth. In me, in my work, and in you. I am committed to accessing more of who I am and freeing myself from anything that disconnects me from that. I am committed to taking back the power that I gave away, the power that others took from me, and accessing the power that has always been there that I stifled because I learned that it wasn’t safe for me to be the fullest and truest version of myself. I am committed to sharing all of the parts of myself that I remember, discover, and welcome home because when I share the sum of all of my parts it allows others to share the sum of all of their parts too. More in the comments. 👇🏼
I believe in the relationship between awareness and movement. In my movement practice, I've discovered new levels of awareness of how I show up, how I process emotions or situations that are emotionally charged, and what my relationship is to my body. I've used movement as a way to explore how my inner work spills out in to the rest of my life as we truly are in relation to everything at all times. We are always reacting or responding. I've used movement to give voice to my body because, in my experience, words can only get you so far. I’ve even uncovered unconscious patterns and beliefs through movement. Having a movement practice has been so pivotal in my own process and life that I've created a weeklong virtual project called Movement Meditations where we’ll be exploring how movement can be used as a practice in your own awareness. Every day participants will receive an email with a movement prompt and writing prompts to support the day's practice. There is also a private Facebook group for participants to reflect, share, or pose questions. AND, if you're one of the first five people to sign up, you will get a complimentary thirty minute Zoom Video Call with me! If you are local to the Grand Rapids area you will have the option to do this in person if you prefer. This has the potential to deepen your understanding of what came up for you throughout the week as well as explore continuing your own practice, so if this appeals to you in any way don't hesitate to sign up! Movement Meditations begins April 29. You can be anywhere in the world and still participate. The cost is $10. No movement or dance experience is required. All bodies are welcome. Registration is in my bio.
“Your trees have been planted in California!” That was the subject line of an email from @onetreeplanted that I received tonight. Turns out we contributed to the 101,350 trees that were planted in Mendocino, CA who was hit hard by the 2017 Redwood Valley Fire, losing more than 36,000 acres of forest. On top of that, forests had already been degraded by severe drought and a bark beetle infestation which impacted many trees across CA and North America. After giving the land had enough time to recover, they focused on three main areas: Redwood Valley, Potter Valley, and the Willits Watershed. Restoring these areas is important because: - They contain critical watersheds that help supply water to more than 560,000 residents of Mendocino and Sonoma counties. - Reforestation is a part of restoring the ecosystem before invasive species take over. Planting native trees and supportive plants ensures that the forest that comes back includes a good mix of local species. - As the trees mature they will offset the carbon loss released from forest coverage loss and capture further CO2 emissions. - Critical habitat is being restored to house the wide range of biodiversity in the region. So. Just know that you contributed to that. We are making the world a better place ya’ll. In so many ways, with so many ripple affects. Keep showing up! P.S. We are donating $35 for the month of March. I am feeling all the gratitude, and sending all the love to those 35 little tree babies. Check out the link in my bio to learn more about my Giving Practice.
I am a soft thing. I didn’t think I could be soft. I’ve always felt like I was a hard thing. Like I could plow through anything. Almost like a bowling ball pummeling through those ten pins with so much force they’d ricochet off of one another. I didn’t have to use that much force all the time, but I did knowing I could endure anything because I always have. Grief and anger taught me of my softness. Grief for an old life I had to leave behind because it wasn’t good for me anymore. Grief for that which I needed but didn’t receive. Grief for the ways I struggled to show up for myself. Grief for the hardness I used to have that protected me when I needed it and hindered me when I didn’t. Grief for all that I couldn’t allow my heart to receive because I had her locked away behind layers of armoring. Grief for all of the love that I missed out on, love mostly from myself. My anger taught me about softness as well. It has been through my deepest rage that I have emerged to see that my true power is in my ability to be soft, vulnerable, seen. Reclaiming my power through working with my anger and piecing that power back together from all of the people and stories I gave it to allows me to reconnect to my truth. It allows me to drop the need for false protective mechanisms and false narratives that disconnect me from my true self. My work with grief and anger moves me closer to the truest me. And I am a soft thing. A soft thing who needs a village to help her heal, who needs connection to remember who she is. A soft thing who can’t do any of this work alone. A soft thing who realized love is just as important as truth. A soft thing who is also powerful. A soft thing who can offer herself what she needs, even if she’s still learning how to do that. A soft thing who is human, who wants other humans to know: You will go through things that will change you. Painful things. Hard things. Excruciating at times. But those things aren’t trying to destroy you. Those things are reminding you of who you are. They’re reminding you of who you don’t need to be anymore. They’re reminding you that you can be soft, too.
One day in December as my friend Kara @grandrapidsnaturopath and I drove by a beautiful giant mural painted by @ellenrutt on Division, we pulled over and had a silent somatic dance party. We moved our bodies the way they wanted to be moved in relation to ourselves, nature, the passing traffic, the periodic silence, and each other.⁣ ⁣ This wall and the experience we had with it inspired us to start pop-up dance community gatherings in front of the vibrant murals displayed across the Grand Rapids community.⁣ ⁣ Head over to @themovementcollaborative where we’ve joined forces to create opportunity for community and connection through somatic experiences with the first one coming up in April! Follow us there to stay tuned for much more to come.