I left the Netherlands wishing to find another approach to movement, one that wasn’t about perfect technique, high legs, immaculate turnouts. One that didn’t make me feel disgusted with my own body, or dependent on external validation for how I moved. But in many “spiritual” spaces I entered, I found the same patterns in disguise: trainings that spoke of liberation while still chasing the aesthetic, reaching for transcendence without touching the ground.

In somatic practice, I’ve often noticed a gap when it comes to responsibility—how regulation and presence aren’t just personal, but deeply relational. So much of the focus is on self-regulation and embodied awareness, yet the ability to attune to others and make choices that are ethical and responsive to our surroundings is often overlooked. I personally see this relational dimension as the heart of somatic practice: the ongoing negotiation between knowing ourselves and responding with care and integrity to the world around us.

I questioned the what was being shared in these spaces, and more so, the absences — the bodies that weren’t there, the silences and tensions, that were not named.

Over the years, I worked with directors, choreographers, and artists who told me what was right and what was wrong, what to eat, how to move. Ironically, it mirrored the very system I thought I had escaped in the Netherlands. It reflected the boundaries I was afraid to place and the fear of not trusting my own voice.

It followed me in my gut, in my shoulders rolling forward, in my head nodding “yes” even when I knew I was being spiritually bypassed, manipulated, or given generosity followed by control.

I believed the stories that promised belonging and success, which, as a traveling young artist, I went after. I let myself be shaped by expectations, silently walking further from my own truth and deeper voice.

I moved for validation. I feared creating from what was truly mine. Today, I can proudly say I’ve taken the hard lessons and mistakes, moving myself onto a path I am dedicated to as a human and an artist—still learning every day—to express with grace and care: the pain, the doubt, the beauty, the humor, the kindness, the love—all as the material of what lives inside and around me.