I’ll be honest, I didn’t set out to dance every day for a year.
It started as a simple intention. To move a little in the morning, shake off whatever was lingering in my body, and maybe shift my mood before stepping into the day.

But it quickly became something more.

Some mornings it was a 10-minute solo dance party in my kitchen. Other times it was full-out movement in my living room, on the beach, or on some dance floor across the world. Sometimes it looked like crying while swaying in silence. Other times it was joy, release, chaos, stillness.

And somewhere along the way, I realized:
This was healing. This was nervous system work. This was somatic therapy.
Dance was helping me feel again, after years of not even realizing I’d left my body.

The Early Years: Dancing Before I Even Knew Why

I started dancing when I was three. My parents signed me up for classes — ballet, tap, jazz, hip hop, lyrical, the list goes on. I stayed in dance through my childhood, teen years, and up until college.

At the time, it was just what I did.
What I loved.
What I excelled at.

But looking back now, I can see that dance was one of the first places where I ever felt truly at home in my body.

It had its shadow side — like anything competitive or performance-based. But even then, it was a lifeline I didn’t know I had.
In college, I stopped dancing formally.
Quickly yoga took its place.
So did parties and music festivals. Movement was still part of my life, but it had changed.
And honestly, so had I.

A Turning Point

Last year, everything shifted. I attended a retreat in Mexico, and one of the offerings was a somatic dance class with SAH.

I went in expecting a fun, free-form movement session.
I walked out knowing, deep in my bones, that I had found something essential (both personally and professionally).

That class cracked something open in me. It reminded me of the medicine of movement — not performance, not perfection, but presence. I realized in that moment that this wasn’t just something I loved; it was something I needed to study, practice, and live.

That retreat became a catalyst for my deeper exploration of somatic dance and eventually, my decision to integrate it into my own healing journey and therapeutic work.

Coming Back To Dance

After Mexico, I danced again, but this time it was different.
Not for performance.
Not for a crowd.
Not for fun in a party sense.

I danced for me.
Sober. Present. Curious.

And in that moment, something cracked open.

I realized how much I had been dissociating… how long I had been moving through the world without really being in my body.
During my masters program, I had read books like The Body Keeps the Score and Waking the Tiger so I knew how trauma shows up somatically.
I had talked about my trauma.
Analyzed it.
Processed it.

But I hadn’t fully felt it.

Not deeply. Not embodied.

Until I danced.

Dance as a Somatic Practice

Day by day, dance became my way of checking in.
Of regulating.
Of expressing.
Of remembering.

Some days I danced with tears streaming down my face. Other days I danced with full-bodied laughter. Sometimes I danced to shake off freeze. Other times I danced to burn off activation. I moved to move emotion. To metabolize memories. To reconnect with the parts of myself I had once pushed away.

Dance became:
**A pathway back to safety**
**A bridge out of dissociation**
**A way to feel alive without needing to numb or escape**

It wasn’t always graceful.
It wasn’t always easy.
But it was *always true.*

What I learned from dancing everyday…

The body knows.
Movement often revealed what words could not. My body would express things I didn’t consciously know I was holding.
Regulation doesn’t always look “calm.”
Sometimes regulation is shaking, crying, thrashing, stillness, or laughter. Dance gave my nervous system a non-verbal way to release.
Healing can be joyful.
Not all trauma healing has to be heavy. Some of the most profound shifts came through music, sweat, and smiling with my whole body.
Dissociation is sneaky.
I hadn’t realized how much I lived “from the neck up.” Dancing helped me gently come back into my body — moment by moment, breath by breath.
Consistency matters more than perfection.
Some days I danced for 2 minutes. Others for an hour. What mattered was showing up. Not how it looked.
Movement builds trust.
The more I danced, the more I trusted my body. I stopped seeing it as something to manage or ignore, and started relating to it as a wise partner.

Why This Matters In Trauma Work

For trauma survivors, being in the body can feel unsafe. That’s why we often dissociate. Not because we’re broken, but because it was once safer not to feel. Dance offers a unique pathway back — not through force, but through rhythm, spontaneity, and joy.

Dance invites us into:

Embodiment without pressure
Regulation through movement
Healing that doesn’t rely on words
The reclamation of aliveness

If You’re Healing Consider Dancing

You don’t need choreography.
You don’t need the right playlist.
You don’t even need to “feel like it.”

All you need is a few moments of willingness to let your body lead — without judgment, without performance.

Because healing isn’t always a linear conversation.
Sometimes it’s a rhythm.
A beat.
A breath.
A sway.
A sacred yes to being here now.

“The rule is you have to dance a little bit in the morning before you leave the house, because it changes the way you walk out into the world.”

— Sandra bullock

And boy, was Sandra right.
I don’t know why I ever doubted her in the first place, but it’s been over a year now that I’ve put that into practice, and I can confidently sit here writing this and say:
Dance has been medicine.
A way home.
A way back to myself.

I didn’t know back then, as a little girl in tap shoes, how deeply dance would stay with me. I didn’t know that it would carry me through college, through chaos, through loss, through healing, and back to my body.

Now I dance —
Not to perform, but to feel.
Not to impress, but to express.
Not to escape, but to come home.

And I share this because maybe you need that too.
Not another coping tool.
Not another self-help book.
But a simple, sacred reminder:

✨ Your body knows the way back.

Sometimes, all it takes is:
One song.
One breath.
One honest moment of movement.

Your body remembers.
Let it dance.

**Expanding the Journey: SAH Method Teacher Certification**

This practice has changed my life in ways I’m still uncovering. What started as a personal healing ritual has now evolved into something much bigger.

Now, I’m honored to share that I’ll soon be completing my certification through SAH and The Somatic Dance Institute as part of the Somatic Activated Healing (SAH) Method Teacher Training.

It feels like a full-circle moment: from dancing as a little girl, to dancing through pain, to now sharing this work as a facilitator of healing for others.

This isn’t just about dance.
It’s about embodiment.
It’s about remembering.
It’s about coming home — together.

I Danced Every Day for a Year…Here’s What I Learned