A Conversation About Embodiment, Duality, And The Power of Dance with Brooke Yantzi

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I think we are recording.
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It's totally off today.
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I don't know what is happening with technology, but we're here.
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It's recording.
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The little light is going.
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Welcome back to an intuitive life.
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This is Alina Lipson, your intuitive coach and mentor.
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And I am so excited.
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This conversation has been a little bit in the making.
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We've had to reschedule a little bit, but always, always, always divine timing.
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And it is my pleasure to introduce Brooke Yancey, who is the founder of Dance Alchemy, is an intuitive business coach and somatic healer, and has been facilitating transformational dance and healing spaces for people all over the world for over 15 years and over 100,000 people with a background in psychology, years of healing, intuitive coaching, and personal development training.
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She's taught hundreds of people to become dance healing facilitators as a master trainer and international presenter for various companies before starting her own.
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She has a passion for facilitating transformational experiences through movement and dance.
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Burke has created a unique method and certification called dance alchemy, somatic and embodiment certification, which supports people in creating powerful deep somatic healing and or experiences, I guess, for their clients through movement and medicine.
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That's what happens when I read.
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I'd like to just talk better.
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I talk better.
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I just talk better.
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But yeah, I'm so excited.
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I, you know, it's funny reading your background, so much of it aligns with mine.
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And you sort of took the path of doing the thing that like has always been in my heart and mine.
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And so I just I'm so excited to just find out more about how it started, how you work with people, obviously through dance and movement in different locations.
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And I've been following you online for a while and just kind of seeing your work and how you talk about it, and also watching you navigate some real life stuff, right?
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That we all go through and how you still hold that.
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I've been starting to call it like this duality of holding the grief and the gratitude and holding life in this stage of life where we have experienced so much already.
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We have wisdom behind us, we have experiences, we've done healing, we've done all the things, and still life can sort of smack you upside your head, and still, and yet, and also you get to right do the things that bring you deep joy.
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And how do you hold both of those things?
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So, just you know, just a little conversation about all that.
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So, Brooke, welcome to this little space where we talk about intuition and bodies and somatics and all the things.
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So, so great to have you.
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How are you today?
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So great to be here.
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Thank you.
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I'm doing great, really well.
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Awesome.
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So I'd love to know like, how did you start your beautiful certification?
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Did it start as that?
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Did you just start dancing and then it sort of built into that?
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How did what's the what's the little origin story?
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Not the little origin story.
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What is the origin story?
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Yeah, I mean, I've been doing dance healing work for 18 years.
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I graduated university with a psychology degree and really wanted to explore how we heal through the body through dance.
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So I started taking ecstatic dance, dance healing, dance fitness, and just going on this whole journey.
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I traveled the world dancing with different cultures.
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And through that, I actually started teaching various healing modalities, becoming a master trainer, presenter for them.
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And my whole adult life, I've done some sort of dance movement, mental health, psychology.
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Um, and for about a decade, people kept saying to me, Brooke, why don't you create your own modality?
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Because I would be out there teaching so much and I would have my own flair as we all do, right?
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Have our own expression.
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And it was really powerful the work we did.
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And finally, a few years ago, it kept coming through really, really strong.
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Um, but I knew that the mission, it was almost this message of like you're ready now.
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Like I at that point had worked with over a hundred thousand people all over the world, teaching various dance modalities, training instructors.
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And I was like, it's time for you to bring people into their bodies and do deep healing work.
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And so dance alchemy was birthed about three and a half years ago, as I was living in the jungle of Costa Rica with my husband at the time.
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And right around the time that I launched it, um, I mean, we were already going through our own difficulties, and I really leaned into the healing work of movement and dance.
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And the first cohort of the certification was set to start around this time three years ago, um, which was around the time that my marriage, we decided to complete it.
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So dance alchemy became my medicine to heal through uh that divorce.
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And one of my dear soul sisters said to me, She's like, you know, divorce can be some of the greatest medicine.
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This could be your greatest medicine journey of your life if you embrace it.
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And so instead of running from it, instead of numbing and hiding and freaking out, I went into it and I allowed every emotion and everything that came up to be my medicine from the ancestral healing to the emotional alchemy to the rage to the anger.
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Um, and just really getting to know myself, getting to sit with, you know, anytime we go through a breakup or a divorce, it's like it opens up all of our abandonment wounds or attachment wounds.
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And it it gave me so much to work with during that time.
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Um, and it was a really difficult time.
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But it's almost like I had to be initiated in my own work before I could, well, and not even before I could bring it to others, because that first certification, we had 11 women enrolled.
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So it was almost like I was going through it and then bringing it to my community and to my certification and saying, okay, today we're working with sacred rage, or today we're working with ancestral healing.
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Um, and it really allowed me to get a deeper connection and an understanding of how powerful dance and somatic movement truly was.
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Yeah, I love that.
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There's okay, there's so much I want to kind of pull the thread on there.
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But one of the biggest ones that I heard you say was like really choosing at that fork in the road.
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Like, were you gonna let because it's very easy to sort of move the event to the side and keep going.
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And there is a version of that where it's like you have the capacity to teach, you're going through this thing in your life and you sort of put it to the side and deal with it separately.
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But it sounds like you really like, no, you stepped through it.
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So it's affecting you, it's integrating you, it's changing you.
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And so you can bring that to what you're to the work that you're doing because that is the work you're doing.
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And I think in this environment of expertise and minutes, you know, with AI and everything else that's available, it's very easy to sort of guide someone through, like, oh, here's what you should do.
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You should dance, you should move this way, this is what somatics is.
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But when you're really embodying it with your own journey, and then you're coming through that and teaching in it, like that to me feels like the expansion of a true capacity of taking the whole life in, and which is why I also love movement and somatics and dance.
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But I think the deeper thing that you're sharing is this embodiment.
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Like you're really not just teaching it, but you're also were given the opportunity, you know, you took it to really embody.
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And I think that is a huge marker of not just someone who can present well or teach well, but can be the teaching as you're moving through it.
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So I have no doubt why it grew, why your certification grew, why more people were attracted to it, because we need more people who are showing us how you can hold the messy and live in your truth and your joy.
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And it's okay to do both.
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And I know as someone who's very, very good at like suppressing that part and being super poised and regardless of what's going on and learning how to not just separate it to show up professionally, but to actually integrate it and to show up.
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So I guess I'd love to know, like for you.
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Um I know dance is it's beautiful and it's lovely, and people sort of want to do it because it feels good and it's fun, and people show up to classes, but how do you how do you hold that space to like really bring in the the messy too?
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Like almost like invite people to to bring their full self to the dance floor.
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I'm sure that's part of your the certification, which I we're gonna definitely talk about because I personally want to know about it too.
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You know, we've we've chatted about me doing the certification, so it's definitely still in my in my like purview here.
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So, how do you how do you bring that in?
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How do you invite people to bring more of themselves into the their experience with you?
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So people will only feel as safe to go as deep as you've taken yourself.
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And so I feel like because I've been able to and I've given myself permission to, and I've gotten support to really sit with some of the darkest, scariest, most wounded parts of myself.
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Um and because I've gotten comfortable with that and with that healing, naturally, people can open and feel safe to go there because they can feel that I'm a safe vessel and I'm not afraid.
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I'm not afraid of people's shadows or their darkness or their anger or their, you know, or their tears.
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I'm very comfortable with that.
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And I can tell you before this divorce, I had never really tapped into my anger or my rage.
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And there were certain parts of me that I had really rejected and I was trying to find in partnership, and there were so many things that I look back and I'm like, wow, I was such a different person.
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But I think the more work we do on ourselves and the more safe we feel in our bodies, the more naturally people feel safe around us.
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Um, that being said, we do have a way where with the dance alchemy method where we help people feel safe in the dance alchemy class, in the workshop, in the journey, in this in the space.
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Um, and the way that we open it up and set the foundation for the dance alchemy journey is very specific of like really grounding and holding the nervous system, speaking to the nervous system and allowing it to feel safe to open to feel.
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I love that.
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Do you find that a lot of women have difficulty accessing the anger?
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I would say yeah.
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I would say yeah, I think I believe that we are becoming a lot better with anger, and we're seeing this also on a larger scale.
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And I do believe that as women learn how to feel their anger, learn how to channel it in a powerful way, that will change the world.
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Yeah, I think I totally agree.
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Yeah, I think we've been suppressing it for so long.
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Yeah, and we see a lot of anger out there, but I don't, I don't know if it's healthy anger.
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I think it's like sort of like I don't know, I'm gonna say performative anger a little bit.
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I'm gonna say a little bit of like expected anger, or it's like we are raging against this thing we're supposed to be angry about.
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But then personally, it's a very different story.
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I know, like, and I've I've facilitated and co-facilitated retreats where we have very specific days of like expressing emotions through movement, through, through somatics.
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And anger is the one that fascinates me.
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Like sadness, got that.
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We know that.
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Shame, whoo, like it is our next door neighbor, it is our best friend, like we know how to, we know how to feel that.
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But anger is harder.
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And I think it's because we are expected to be a certain way, like, especially as as young girls.
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If you've been gifted with parents who are like let you let you have that anger, it's a it's a true gift.
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I don't know very many women who have had that.
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I've seen, I've seen peers who are mothers now allow their children to do that, create space for children to do that.
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I'm like, oh, it's so nice to see.
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Like you're letting your child have the not just like a tantrum, but like express as it comes, right?
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And I think we just don't, we don't, we haven't gotten a lot of that.
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I grew up, maybe you did too, like in the sitcom era, like the after school specials where things are solved within 30 minutes, maybe an hour.
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And you're like, oh, well, I felt that.
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That was great.
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And I realized when I became a mother that I was very, very uncomfortable with anger because I was always like the happy child when whatever mess was going on in my family, I was like the sunshine.
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I was like always counted on to entertain, to like just come in and give the positive perspective.
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And that carried through quite a bit of my adulthood.
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Like that's really strong and um turned into people pleasing, turned into a lot of different things.
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And the anger piece was very difficult.
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And when I became a mom, my son was this huge like teacher for me because he was just very natural, like he's very spicy and very communicative, and also like he had a lot of fire.
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And uh once his fire came into towards my not to me, but near me, and I was like, My I thought my job was like to help him.
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Like, okay, everyone, be calm.
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Let's figure out what's going on here.
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And just no, and then my husband thanked God, he's like, shh, just let him let him be.
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And I'm like, I know, but I'm just so uncomfortable.
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Like, I'm so uncomfortable.
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And so really that awakened for me that I I did not know how to express anger.
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And we had a lot of great conversations around it.
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And luckily, he was like, just give it to me.
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I can, you know, I can help I can handle it.
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I'm like, well, I'm angry.
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He's like, well, you don't look angry.
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I'm like, I don't really know how to look angry.
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And so it just started this journey for me through movement, through dance, through expression, where I was like, oh, okay.
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I had a very wise yoga teacher who I took a six-month yoga teacher training with, and we had an anger day.
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We had a full like emotion day.
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And she gave us blindfolds because it's very embarrassing to be emotional in front of other people and played the music.
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And I'm like, and I just like I just I couldn't even stop it.
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I could feel it now.
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Like I just I just couldn't help the tears coming because anger, what I've learned through teaching this for a long time too, is it's sort of like wrapped in sadness.
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And so once you get past that, once you let the sadness go underneath, if you can let it come, then there's like that that fire that comes, that that belly of fire and that chest of fire and that words of fire eventually follow.
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Um, and it was very healing to watch it at retreats and to witness and to do it myself.
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And I think dance has been a very, very healing tool for me.
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So I love, I love that you're like taking it all and incorporating it because I think movement and allowing our bodies to move in a certain way that feels super uncomfortable at first is it's kind of like the way.
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Like I think um not everyone can like sort of go and and go to a nightclub and just like jump it out, which I think is actually coming back, right?
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Do you see that too?
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Like, especially for women who like want to go and like rave and just super jump.
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Um, okay.
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So I wanted to share that because I do think it's so important that there is there are like there are spaces for women to come and truly understand their own anger and express it in a healthy way.
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Because underneath that, I think then your voice comes too, like your your real expression comes.
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So I'd love to hear like from you what's most exciting for you as you host these events and you see people kind of come in and maybe they're a little, you know, tentative or maybe they're fully ready.
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But what kind of transformation do you see and do you love to see in your in your work with women that come to you?
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Like, why are they coming?
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And then what's a transformation that you see?
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I think you know, people come to my classes for many different reasons.
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I feel like we live in a society that's very numb and shut down, and there's a lot happening, and it can be really overstimulating, um, which puts a lot of people into shutdown or freeze.
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And so the movement allows people to get out of their heads and into their bodies, it allows the nervous system in the body to thaw out so that people can open so they can express.
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It allows play and joy because when we're numbing on the side of like anger and sadness, we're also numbing on the side of joy and pleasure.
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So it opens up this like, oh, I can feel again, I can feel joyful, I can feel alive.
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And um, you know, we've had so many people move through so many things from loss, divorce, sadness, shutdown, you know, to and and really transform.
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Like people will say in one session, it's like they'll have these powerful experiences where they'll feel so much peace or joy or lightness, or they'll be able to tap into that anger, that rage and move it.
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And I think that, you know, one of the most powerful things is when we actually allow it to move.
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So part of the numbing and the shutdown is that we're not allowing it to move.
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So it actually stays stuck in our body where it's like this under, it's like under the under the water, right?
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It's like just simmering under there, which is why so many people experience a lot of anxiety and depression throughout their lives and throughout their days, that blah feeling.
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But when we actually move it, we can like feel it fully, but then we actually get to the other side where there's this expansion and peace and joy.
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So the journey of can can be very different for each person, but it really dance really has the power to transform whatever it's alchemy.
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So whatever it is that you're stuck with, struggling with, to transform it into the equal and opposite, the expansion.
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Um, people also feel a lot more confident, more free, more alive.
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There's a lot of laughter and connection.
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And these are things that I believe are lacking in most humans, especially right now.
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There's so much stress, there's so much fear, there's so much chaos in the world that as a protective mechanism, I think we've had to shut down because it can be so overwhelming.
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But if we allow that to free from our bodies, we actually get to remember that we are peace, we are joy, and to connect to spirit source creator, our higher self.
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This is why dance is like this coming home to ourselves, this reconnection to our ancestral roots, to the roots of who we are.
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And it's so powerful.
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Yeah, like every culture has some version of dancing around the fire, right?
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Whether it's like folk dancing or whether it's tribal dancing or whether it's um everything.
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I come from a like Russian-Ukrainian background.
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So we have a lot of like very folk, very like um, very poise, I should say, dance.
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I don't know if you've ever seen like a Russian ballet or something like that.
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It's so, it's very like it's a very cultural poise.
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Like it's a very cultural intellectual head up kind of thing.
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Like you're watching, you're like, wow, it's so complicated and so strength-based.
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And it very much represents like a culture because there is not a lot of space in my culture for expression of emotion.
00:19:41.359 --> 00:19:46.240
There is not a lot of place for like, let's let's go to therapy and like no, no, no.
00:19:46.400 --> 00:19:47.920
That was examining your belly button.
00:19:48.000 --> 00:19:48.960
That's what it was in my home.
00:19:49.039 --> 00:19:50.400
Like that's not a thing we do.
00:19:50.480 --> 00:19:54.319
And so trying to like peel some of those layers off and get to dance is really important.
00:19:54.400 --> 00:19:57.680
But every culture has some sort of dance that you can bring.
00:19:57.759 --> 00:20:11.599
But what I love about what you do, and I and I you can fill in the blanks here, but it feels like like there is dancing where you go and you take choreography and you learn the movements and it's very refined and you're like technical and sort of get there, which has its own beauty and benefit.
00:20:11.759 --> 00:20:17.359
And then on the other side, there's like this extest ecstatic dance, which I have done as well, which at first it was very scary for me.
00:20:17.519 --> 00:20:25.599
I was like, you mean I'm just gonna like move the way I want to move, and then I'm gonna like it, just sort of hypes you up and and then brings you back down.
00:20:25.680 --> 00:20:28.720
If you've never done ecstatic dance, it's it's kind of wild.
00:20:28.880 --> 00:20:35.920
Um, but but I'd love to know, like, where do you find is for you like that sweet spot of of dance?
00:20:36.079 --> 00:20:36.640
It's dance.
00:20:36.720 --> 00:20:41.039
And when when you say dance, I think everyone has like their own sort of visual of what that looks like, right?
00:20:41.119 --> 00:20:47.680
Like whether it's the choreography or whether it's in a club or whether it's turning off the lights in your bedroom, closing the door and the blinds, and putting on music.
00:20:47.759 --> 00:20:48.400
I don't know.
00:20:48.559 --> 00:20:50.880
So, what do you when you when I say dance?
00:20:50.960 --> 00:20:55.119
First of all, what do you think of in your like personal inner world?
00:20:55.359 --> 00:20:59.519
And then how do you create dance within your containers?
00:20:59.680 --> 00:21:00.240
Like, what is it?
00:21:00.319 --> 00:21:03.519
What is really the essence of that, the your version of dance?
00:21:05.519 --> 00:21:11.119
Yeah, I mean, dance is just moving your body to music, just moving your body.
00:21:11.599 --> 00:21:13.039
Put on the music and move.
00:21:13.200 --> 00:21:18.559
But I'll tell you, I will tell you that is it can be scary for people.
00:21:18.799 --> 00:21:19.519
That's what I'm saying.
00:21:19.680 --> 00:21:26.240
Like, you know, sometimes it does take close the door, shut off the light, even close your eyes and let yourself move.
00:21:26.400 --> 00:21:36.079
Because for someone who had when I hosted my first retreat many years ago, and it was like a it was like a soul spirit kind of thing.
00:21:36.160 --> 00:21:37.119
We did all these different things.
00:21:37.200 --> 00:21:38.799
And at the end, we had movement.
00:21:38.880 --> 00:21:41.759
And I literally just picked four songs and danced.
00:21:41.839 --> 00:21:48.559
And I just like assumed, because I danced so much, I assumed that everyone would just dance, and they did, except for one woman.
00:21:48.720 --> 00:21:51.200
And she did it, and I see her like she's crying.
00:21:51.359 --> 00:21:54.240
She's like, We're in this beautiful yoga studio, and she's crying.
00:21:54.400 --> 00:21:55.279
I'm like, I come up to her.
00:21:55.359 --> 00:21:58.160
I'm like, afterwards, I'm like, hey, what happened there?
00:21:58.240 --> 00:21:59.039
Like, tell me what was going on.
00:21:59.119 --> 00:22:02.720
She's like, This is the First time in my life, and she was probably in her mid-20s.
00:22:02.880 --> 00:22:07.680
She's like, This is the first time in my life that I've ever danced in front of anyone else, ever.
00:22:07.920 --> 00:22:17.839
And I was like, whoosh, oh, like, oh, and she's like, it was so profound and so healing, and like she really got and she did it, and she got it.
00:22:18.000 --> 00:22:21.119
But really, like it was it was to me, like, oh, right.
00:22:21.359 --> 00:22:23.359
Like, it's not an assumed thing for everyone.
00:22:23.440 --> 00:22:30.799
Some people really don't, for whatever reason, whether it's a body thing or a mind thing or a family thing, like they don't know, but I agree.
00:22:30.960 --> 00:22:32.720
Like, put on the music and just move.
00:22:32.799 --> 00:22:33.839
It's beautiful.
00:22:34.240 --> 00:22:40.400
And that being said, so in dance alchemy, we actually have a methodology where we use simple movements.
00:22:40.480 --> 00:22:44.000
And you outline like there's ecstatic dance and there's like structured dance.
00:22:44.079 --> 00:22:46.400
And I grew up in the structured dance world.
00:22:46.799 --> 00:22:53.359
I've also studied and done a lot of ecstatic dance, and both have their places and are both are beautiful, right?
00:22:53.440 --> 00:22:56.559
The structured dance is a it's an art form, it's a performance base.
00:22:56.720 --> 00:22:58.240
There's there's a place for it.
00:22:58.559 --> 00:23:04.880
It also wasn't for me, like it really stifled me personally because I wanted more freedom.
00:23:05.039 --> 00:23:16.480
Now, ecstatic dance and just free movement, putting on music and being like, now move your body is for the majority of people, um, for a lot of people, it's overwhelming because they don't know where to start.
00:23:16.640 --> 00:23:53.279
So with dance alchemy, we actually find the middle ground where we create some structure and simple movements to connect people to the music, to connect them to their bodies, to connect them to the style of music, and to bring in some simple dance moves because there are dance moves that work to different music and people want to learn those because as you're learning simple dance moves, you're creating um synapses in your brain and you're letting, and as people are learning these simple moves and they're doing and they're they're achieving success in the brain.
00:23:53.440 --> 00:23:57.599
I studied education and adult education for many years and worked in schools.
00:23:57.839 --> 00:24:03.519
So I really base this off of adult education, children's education, and how we learn.
00:24:03.759 --> 00:24:17.599
And so when you give people simple movements that they can learn and anchor into and feel like, oh, I've got this, I can do this, it's gonna increase their confidence, which increases their motivation so that they keep going.
00:24:17.680 --> 00:24:19.599
And now it's like, okay, now we can build on this.
00:24:19.759 --> 00:24:20.960
Can you add your own style to this?
00:24:21.039 --> 00:24:24.319
And they're like, oh my gosh, I could do it and I'm doing it, I've got it.
00:24:24.480 --> 00:24:32.720
And so this signals to the brain that we're safe, signals to the body, oh, I can do this, I'm not getting left behind.
00:24:32.960 --> 00:24:36.000
And it actually invites in a more freedom.
00:24:36.240 --> 00:24:41.119
So the way that we coach and guide people is very intentional.
00:24:41.359 --> 00:24:54.240
It's not just put music on and dance, it's very intentional because my passion and my purpose, it's not necessarily to reach the person that comes in and they're like, just ready to go, let's go.
00:24:54.400 --> 00:24:54.960
That's awesome.
00:24:55.039 --> 00:24:56.079
They're gonna love it.
00:24:56.400 --> 00:25:12.079
Mine is to reach that one woman that's terrified, that has never danced in public, that one man who's been told he has too left feet, that one woman, you know, I have a friend who had lost a hundred pounds and had always been overweight her whole life.
00:25:12.240 --> 00:25:19.279
And one of like it in the because of random synchronicities, she ended up at my dance class.
00:25:19.440 --> 00:25:24.799
She thought she was getting a smoothie and ran into one of her friends and she's like, the class starts in five minutes.
00:25:24.960 --> 00:25:27.039
We'll take this as a sign, you're coming with me.
00:25:27.200 --> 00:25:32.160
And she looked like she wanted to kill me for the first half of the class because she's like, I don't want to be here.
00:25:32.480 --> 00:25:41.039
And but she, you know, and midway through, something broke in her where she was like, Oh my gosh, I'm doing this.
00:25:41.200 --> 00:25:43.759
I'm actually dancing and it's fun.
00:25:44.079 --> 00:25:48.799
And for the first time in her in many, many, many years, she was dancing.
00:25:49.119 --> 00:25:54.880
And then she be she came to all of my classes and invited all of her friends because it changed her life.
00:25:55.119 --> 00:25:59.519
And so dance helped so many things.
00:25:59.680 --> 00:26:06.960
It's like we can release years of shame and guilt and sadness and and shutdownness with dance.
00:26:07.119 --> 00:26:25.279
And the way that we facilitate in the dance alchemy world is to create as much safety as we can to set people free because the structure that we create and when we're holding people in this beautiful structure, we can invite in play and creativity and aliveness.
00:26:25.519 --> 00:26:32.640
It's just like when we were when we were in like school and they were like, write an essay, and you're like, on what?
00:26:32.799 --> 00:26:34.240
And they're like, anything you want.
00:26:34.400 --> 00:26:36.559
You're like, just like give me something.
00:26:36.799 --> 00:26:39.039
Broccoli, broccoli, go.
00:26:39.599 --> 00:26:40.319
What do you mean?
00:26:40.480 --> 00:26:48.240
Anything like it's overwhelming versus like write an essay on a flower, and then you're like, okay, I can pick an orchid, right?
00:26:48.319 --> 00:26:52.559
Like, there's we as humans like a certain amount of structure.
00:26:52.799 --> 00:27:06.799
So this is where I love ecstatic dance, but sometimes it can be so overwhelming for people because for most people who are disconnected from their bodies and their expression, it's just it's too far, right?
00:27:06.880 --> 00:27:09.279
It's too many, like they're just not there.
00:27:09.519 --> 00:27:16.640
Um, and so for me, I'm always thinking, how can we reach as many people as humanly possible?
00:27:16.799 --> 00:27:34.079
And in the dance alchemy world, you know, people are bringing this into corporate, into yoga studios, into um all different, like into work, into families, into like all different walks of life because there's a certain amount of structure.
00:27:34.319 --> 00:27:34.799
Yeah.
00:27:35.039 --> 00:27:35.359
Right.
00:27:35.440 --> 00:27:40.000
So they feel like they've got something to kind of hold on to and and sort of teach, which is I love that.
00:27:40.079 --> 00:27:43.200
And I think I love hearing that it's going into corporate.
00:27:43.359 --> 00:27:45.759
Oh my gosh, because uh they need help.
00:27:45.920 --> 00:27:47.279
Like I really need help.
00:27:47.440 --> 00:27:56.400
You know, I I think that between the sitting and the stress and the the pressure of create the pressure of goals and all that, I think people definitely need some awakening.
00:27:56.559 --> 00:27:57.440
So lovely.
00:27:57.680 --> 00:28:16.000
Um that's so I actually that was kind of my next question is once someone's certified in your methodology, which I love to hear that there's a structure and there is the loot, the, you know, because I think at some point you, you know, if you if you feel comfortable doing the structure, you can also sort of move into the ecstatic style.
00:28:16.319 --> 00:28:19.119
And like I said, I did try it once, I didn't go back.
00:28:19.200 --> 00:28:19.839
I did okay.
00:28:20.000 --> 00:28:23.839
Like I was super self-conscious the first, like the first song.
00:28:24.000 --> 00:28:29.519
And I just sort of like, you know, you can't help, but if you just keep moving, the the energy sort of goes anyway.
00:28:29.599 --> 00:28:37.759
Like you just can't help it if you just keep moving, something happens, you loosen up a little bit, and then like they're like, cross the floor, like where?
00:28:38.319 --> 00:28:41.759
Like, because I'm so I grew up in choreography and dance classes too.
00:28:41.839 --> 00:28:43.839
So I'm like, just tell me where to go and I'll do perfectly.
00:28:44.000 --> 00:28:45.440
I promise I'll be a good student, you know.
00:28:45.599 --> 00:28:55.200
But if it's just like dance, um, I remember learning like non-linear, the difference between linear movement and nonlinear movement and how our body sort of feels in both.
00:28:55.279 --> 00:28:59.039
And one is very like, whoa, oh my gosh, what do I feel?
00:28:59.119 --> 00:29:01.759
And the other one's like, I can move like this really well.
00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:14.480
And and somewhere in between, you start to realize you do have something to say with your body, and you do have something that's being expressed with your body, and you do have things that need to come out of your body, like through sweat, through emotion, through tears.
00:29:14.640 --> 00:29:24.000
I mean, I can't tell you how many times I've cried in just like a Zumba class, like just because something's going on in my life and I'm dancing and it's like raising, raising, raising, and finally I'm like, and now I'm crying.
00:29:24.160 --> 00:29:32.720
And it's okay because I'm super red and sweaty anyway, but it just happens, and I think it's such a beautiful permission slip to feel the feelings.
00:29:32.799 --> 00:29:35.839
And I think, well, I I do still remember the question.
00:29:36.000 --> 00:29:38.160
I do like tangents, but I still remember the question.
00:29:38.319 --> 00:29:53.519
I think it's so important to acknowledge the power of what you're teaching because a lot of times in this world, we have our personal problems, we have our world problems, our children, our families, our friends, like we're holding so much and we're really good at it.
00:29:53.680 --> 00:29:58.160
And sometimes it's really hard to even pick apart what am I feeling right now and who for?
00:29:58.240 --> 00:30:06.799
And we're so empathetic, and we're just we have this ball constantly in our body, but that's what we're like, all the emotions are like holding hands and just holding us up, right?
00:30:06.880 --> 00:30:11.039
And so when when you sit down to therapy and like, well, what do you feel today?
00:30:11.119 --> 00:30:13.920
I'm like, the weight of the world on my shoulders.
00:30:14.000 --> 00:30:14.319
I don't know.
00:30:14.400 --> 00:30:15.359
What do you want me to talk about?
00:30:15.519 --> 00:30:25.440
Like, maybe there is something acute that you're processing, but a lot of times it's very difficult to just talk through it unless you're a verbal processor, unless you really understand and you're aware of your own emotions.
00:30:25.519 --> 00:30:29.519
And even then, it could be still, you know, kind of difficult to just let it go.
00:30:30.079 --> 00:30:44.079
Speaking personally, but with with movement, with dance, whether it's like people love walking or hiking, but specifically with dance, it doesn't even matter, like if you know the emotion, because it's all gonna, it's all gonna start coming up, right?
00:30:44.240 --> 00:30:46.079
So I think it's so powerful.
00:30:46.319 --> 00:30:50.720
So the original question was what you know, what are people doing with the certification?
00:30:50.799 --> 00:30:54.240
And like, are people coming in, are they already dance teachers?
00:30:54.480 --> 00:31:00.000
Are they just like people who wanna want to enjoy dance or they and they're coming in to teach?
00:31:00.160 --> 00:31:02.640
Like, do they start their own sort of dance classes?
00:31:02.720 --> 00:31:03.440
What do they do?
00:31:03.680 --> 00:31:04.240
Who are they?
00:31:04.400 --> 00:31:05.839
Who are these lucky people?
00:31:06.000 --> 00:31:07.119
What do they do?
00:31:08.400 --> 00:31:11.039
I mean, we get people from all walks of life.
00:31:11.200 --> 00:31:26.559
Uh, we get a lot of therapists, coaches, healers who want to deepen the embodiment and the somatic healing of their practice because even therapists have realized like we can only talk about our emotions so much, like we need to feel them.
00:31:26.799 --> 00:31:30.480
And dance has, you know, and they want to experience it for themselves.
00:31:30.640 --> 00:31:37.279
They've spent years and years and years sitting in a chair listening, talking, but the movement piece is missing.
00:31:37.440 --> 00:31:47.440
So we get a lot of people from many different walks of life, also yoga teachers, yeah, dance teachers who it's too rigid and they want to bring in more healing and freedom.
00:31:47.599 --> 00:32:05.279
Um, but I would say people who really want to create change in people through dance, people who have a passion for dance and they just feel that call come into this space because my specialty is teaching anyone how to facilitate.
00:32:05.680 --> 00:32:10.720
And you do not need to be a dancer to facilitate healing through dance.
00:32:10.799 --> 00:32:23.119
You don't have you like, and in fact, most of our um instructors aren't dancers, and that's actually really powerful, or aren't like trained dancers, trained national ballet dancers, right?
00:32:23.359 --> 00:32:28.240
Um, but people who just love to dance and want to explore it for themselves.
00:32:28.480 --> 00:32:37.279
Often it's something that maybe got shut down earlier in their life, and then they're coming in because they're like, oh, I want this, and I want to be able to help other people.
00:32:37.759 --> 00:32:42.079
Now, how people utilize it is in many different ways.
00:32:42.240 --> 00:32:57.039
You know, we have people who are out there teaching regular classes and workshops, um, bringing it into their retreats, um, therapists that are bringing it into their client sessions, coaches, healers, same thing.
00:32:57.200 --> 00:33:03.519
Um, we have some people working, bringing it into the corporate setting as we discussed, into yoga studios.
00:33:03.839 --> 00:33:09.519
I go into conferences, festivals, and events, warming people up, getting people moving.
00:33:09.680 --> 00:33:22.880
I'm training some of our more skilled facilitators, more of our more advanced facilitators to do that next level facilitation where we're working with hundreds, sometimes even thousands of people at a time.
00:33:23.119 --> 00:33:28.240
In fact, tonight I have an event which is probably going to be between 100 and 200 people.
00:33:28.559 --> 00:33:41.759
Um, and so, and just really getting people out of their heads and into their bodies because let's be honest, most of us spend way too much time sitting behind a computer, even at a big event or in anything.
00:33:41.920 --> 00:33:45.039
Like most people need to uh move more.
00:33:45.279 --> 00:33:53.920
And there's very easy somatic exercises and things we can teach through music and movement.
00:33:54.319 --> 00:34:02.319
And my favorite way to teach people how to regulate, how to connect to themselves, how to move emotion is with the music on.
00:34:02.400 --> 00:34:05.839
I'm on the microphone and I'm like, this is what we got.
00:34:05.920 --> 00:34:06.319
Let's go.
00:34:06.480 --> 00:34:14.159
Like shaking, tapping, um, bouncing, moving in these ways, but also regulating how how do we take some deep breaths?
00:34:14.239 --> 00:34:15.440
How do we get into our bodies?
00:34:15.519 --> 00:34:19.679
How do we move in a way, a non-linear way that feels really good?
00:34:19.840 --> 00:34:22.320
How do we listen to our bodies?
00:34:22.480 --> 00:34:23.519
We hear this all the time.
00:34:23.679 --> 00:34:25.280
Listen to your body, listen to your body.
00:34:25.519 --> 00:34:26.800
How do we listen to our bodies?
00:34:26.960 --> 00:34:43.280
Like most people, you know what, you know, dance alchemy was partly created because I was in the coaching healing world in the online space, and I saw everyone talking about embodiment, but no one was doing embodiment.
00:34:43.440 --> 00:34:45.199
And I was like, what is happening?
00:34:45.360 --> 00:34:50.480
We have so many people with all of the right words, but none of the actual embodiment.
00:34:50.800 --> 00:35:18.079
And when I worked in schools and I worked in mental health, there'd be all these like motivational speakers, and they would talk about anti-bullying and they would talk about these different things, and the kids' eyes would glaze over, and then they'd bring me on, and I would talk a little bit about these things, and then I would dance and get them moving, and I would integrate lessons that the speaker would have spent how much time doing, and I got kids to experience it.
00:35:18.320 --> 00:35:24.079
They were having these breakthroughs, and that's when I realized like I can literally teach anything through dance.
00:35:25.039 --> 00:35:26.079
Okay, say more.
00:35:26.239 --> 00:35:30.559
What do you mean out of their bodies, out of their heads and into their bodies?
00:35:31.840 --> 00:35:34.719
People can find and access their truth.
00:35:35.599 --> 00:35:40.960
We're just so up here, so many people are overthinking.
00:35:41.280 --> 00:35:57.599
And you know, in the context of kids, you know, we can talk about anti-bullying, or we can say, go find a pro partner, and then they're and then we have this whole thing about like shopping for friends, and it's like, you know, find the person closest to you, right?
00:35:57.679 --> 00:36:03.679
We can tell people when I work with adults, it's like walk around and smile at people, look them in the eye.
00:36:03.840 --> 00:36:05.360
This is how we create connection.
00:36:05.519 --> 00:36:14.559
So it's just like getting people to experience it, or like we're doing maybe rock star poses, and it's like this is how we build confidence, this is how we build expression.
00:36:14.800 --> 00:36:22.079
So it's like we can I can talk all day about being more expressed and more confident, or I can actually just have them do it.
00:36:22.880 --> 00:36:23.440
I love that.
00:36:23.920 --> 00:36:42.320
And so for me, it's almost like for many years I've been a bit of a like motivational speaker ninja, where it's like I we're just I take I love taking concepts and having people experience the concept through their body instead of through their brain.
00:36:42.559 --> 00:36:43.760
Yeah, I love that.
00:36:43.920 --> 00:36:45.280
I love it because I I agree.
00:36:45.360 --> 00:36:51.519
I think we we think we're supposed to think with our brain, but actually our brain is actually the strategist.
00:36:51.599 --> 00:36:56.239
It's like the once once it has a project, it's like, okay, now like let's figure it out.
00:36:56.400 --> 00:37:03.280
But really, a lot of the the thinking, the the information, the data, the the cellular knowing, it's in your body.
00:37:03.360 --> 00:37:12.960
And I think you know, trying to sit down and come up with an idea is very, it's like pulling juice from a rock, and you're like, okay, let me just think, let me just think, let me just think.
00:37:13.039 --> 00:37:16.639
No, like go for a walk, do some, do some shaking, do some tapping, do some movement.
00:37:16.719 --> 00:37:17.840
Like you said, I love that.
00:37:18.000 --> 00:37:21.679
And I the fact that you're like anything through movement is possible.
00:37:22.000 --> 00:37:23.519
I completely, completely agree.
00:37:23.599 --> 00:37:26.079
And one thing you said a couple of times now is nervous system.
00:37:26.159 --> 00:37:39.679
And I think most of us sort of know what that is and have heard the term, and it's that cool, like, you know, network of nerves and stuff that develop the first thing and you're in the womb, right?
00:37:39.840 --> 00:37:44.800
But like, and I think we're all familiar with fight, flight, fight, flight, freeze, fawn.
00:37:44.960 --> 00:37:46.719
I think there is definitely more to it.
00:37:46.880 --> 00:37:49.840
How do you integrate nervous system?
00:37:50.079 --> 00:37:52.639
Like, do you do you just actually empirically teach it?
00:37:52.800 --> 00:37:56.159
Is it just part of sort of integrated into the experience of what you teach?
00:37:56.480 --> 00:37:58.719
And how do you how do you bring that into what you do?
00:37:58.800 --> 00:38:08.639
And and like, you know, how did you choose to, I mean, sort of obvious that it's part of movement, but how do you choose to integrate that with your dance teaching nervous system piece?
00:38:09.519 --> 00:38:16.400
So the nervous system piece is integrated into the dance alchemy um class.
00:38:16.800 --> 00:38:21.039
So we do teach a little bit about it when you're facilitating a class or workshop.
00:38:21.119 --> 00:38:31.920
We go much deeper in it with the certification into polyvagal theory, into a lot of different nervous system work and how we can support people with that, support clients with that.
00:38:32.159 --> 00:38:36.880
And um it's very much integrated into the whole dance alchemy experience.
00:38:37.039 --> 00:38:42.800
Of course, the degree that it's integrated is dependent on how deep you choose to go, right?
00:38:42.960 --> 00:38:44.880
Taking one class, you're gonna learn a little bit.
00:38:44.960 --> 00:38:46.800
You're gonna be like, oh, that was really neat.
00:38:46.880 --> 00:38:52.159
I can see how my nervous system regulated there, how I move through emotions.
00:38:52.639 --> 00:38:56.719
Um, and then with the certification, we go much deeper with all of it.
00:38:56.960 --> 00:38:58.559
I'm very passionate about that.
00:38:58.719 --> 00:39:00.320
I've learned a lot about that.
00:39:00.480 --> 00:39:06.480
I think we've come a long way in the field of psychology when it comes to trauma and nervous system work.
00:39:06.960 --> 00:39:10.159
And I have studied the ins and outs of it.
00:39:10.239 --> 00:39:15.519
I have many certifications around this because I think it's the key.
00:39:15.760 --> 00:39:23.519
And I think trauma and healing, trauma is one of the keys to us feeling happier, healthier, more free.
00:39:23.760 --> 00:39:25.599
So I think it's really, really important.
00:39:26.239 --> 00:39:30.800
Yeah, I agree, especially with how much we're taking in every single day.
00:39:31.119 --> 00:39:37.920
Um, so so let's do a quick question about the dance alchemy, and I want to ask you some some questions, just some more fun questions about you.
00:39:38.079 --> 00:39:40.159
Um, how often do you teach dance alchemy?
00:39:40.320 --> 00:39:41.599
Like, is it available anytime?
00:39:41.760 --> 00:39:43.760
Is it available a certain time of year?
00:39:44.639 --> 00:39:49.280
The certification I do generally in the fall.
00:39:49.440 --> 00:39:52.880
I'll run a fall cohort and sometimes in the spring.
00:39:53.119 --> 00:39:58.079
Um, depending this spring, I'm actually going to be leading a trip to Kenya.
00:39:58.239 --> 00:40:02.880
And I have a big event in Costa Rica in February and a Kenya trip in April.
00:40:03.039 --> 00:40:05.760
So there may be another cohort in May.
00:40:05.920 --> 00:40:11.199
Um, but definitely we start a cohort of the certification in November.
00:40:12.159 --> 00:40:16.880
So the fall is generally when we when we start a cohort.
00:40:16.960 --> 00:40:24.480
And then I have a level one foundations training, which I do in person and online or online.
00:40:24.639 --> 00:40:26.239
So you can take one or the other.
00:40:26.880 --> 00:40:32.239
Some people do both, um, but it's the same training, just um in person.
00:40:32.400 --> 00:40:40.239
I just did one in Toronto last weekend, um, the online one starting in a few weeks in October online, and it's over eight weeks.
00:40:40.400 --> 00:40:43.920
So that gives you the foundations of dance alchemy.
00:40:44.000 --> 00:40:46.719
We go through the elements: earth, water, fire, air, ether.
00:40:47.119 --> 00:40:53.760
You learn how to facilitate some songs, you learn about the somatic arc of transformation as well as the nervous system.
00:40:54.159 --> 00:40:58.320
It's a really powerful training that is can change people's lives.
00:40:58.400 --> 00:41:00.800
But it's almost like the foundations is our level one.
00:41:00.880 --> 00:41:02.880
It's taught multiple times throughout the year.
00:41:02.960 --> 00:41:17.440
And the certification is for the people really wanting to dive deep, become masterful facilitators, build beautiful businesses around movement and dance, or integrate it into their own coaching, healing, therapy business.
00:41:17.679 --> 00:41:19.119
Um yeah.
00:41:19.440 --> 00:41:19.760
Awesome.
00:41:19.920 --> 00:41:26.960
So are they then licensed to teach dance alchemy, or are they like certified dance alchemy students who then take that, like teach their own business?
00:41:27.199 --> 00:41:28.400
You know, which one is there?
00:41:28.480 --> 00:41:30.159
Like a, hey, I'm a dance alchemy.
00:41:30.960 --> 00:41:32.960
Yeah, you become a certified, yeah.
00:41:33.039 --> 00:41:41.119
You become a dance alchemy facilitator with the foundations and you get become certified dance alchemy facilitator with the certification.
00:41:41.280 --> 00:41:47.920
There's just a lot, it's a lot deeper that we go, and there's a lot more skills that you have from the certification, right?
00:41:48.079 --> 00:42:00.719
We go into women's circles and um doing somatic experiencing through dance and the chakra system, and there's just so much more we can do in an eight-month period.
00:42:00.880 --> 00:42:10.079
We also have like a business module because part of my passion, part of what I've done over the last decade is build six-figure businesses through dance.
00:42:10.159 --> 00:42:14.480
And so I love helping people build their businesses through dance.
00:42:14.639 --> 00:42:26.000
Not everyone wants to have dance as the focus, but we've had people come through, and one woman, you know, she struggled with an eating disorder and it dance alchemy really helped her heal that.
00:42:26.079 --> 00:42:38.000
And now she has a thriving business and even wrote a book on eating disorders and helping women get over food addiction and food freedom, um, or become food, you know what I'm saying.
00:42:38.159 --> 00:42:47.119
Um, and we have another woman that focuses more on perimenopause and she brings dance into it, and another woman that does more like sex, love, and relationship.
00:42:47.199 --> 00:42:50.719
And so she's bring bringing dance and movement into that.
00:42:51.039 --> 00:42:58.880
So it's also about helping people find their own voice and find their own path with dance and with dance alchemy.
00:42:59.039 --> 00:43:02.559
So everyone does it in a little bit of a different way, which is what I like.
00:43:02.719 --> 00:43:06.239
I don't necessarily want to have cookie cutter.
00:43:06.480 --> 00:43:06.880
Yeah, yeah.
00:43:07.039 --> 00:43:13.039
You're not like carving out like, do my business this way, and you're gonna copy my business, which does not feel like what you're doing at all.
00:43:13.280 --> 00:43:24.400
Feels like super free and just you're like you're being infused with these skill sets and knowledge that you can then go and apply to your own passion and business, which all right, I'm thinking about it, Brooke.
00:43:24.639 --> 00:43:24.960
Okay.
00:43:25.440 --> 00:43:38.800
Um, you know, yo, I just have so many like pieces of my my work that I I like to integrate, but I love that you can at the at the very baseline, you know, transform your own sort of embodiment.
00:43:38.960 --> 00:43:40.880
Because I do, I love embodiment and I agree.
00:43:40.960 --> 00:43:46.480
Like so many people talk about embodiment and integration and like, and how are you living that?
00:43:46.639 --> 00:43:47.440
Like, how is that?
00:43:47.599 --> 00:43:52.960
Like, if I have to ask how are you living that, you're probably already not sort of showing me that you're living that piece.
00:43:53.119 --> 00:43:55.920
Um, which is something I I hold in really high integrity.
00:43:56.000 --> 00:43:59.679
Like, if I'm teaching something, you better believe I'm I'm working on it myself or how.
00:44:00.320 --> 00:44:07.280
worked on it and like and and I understand the ins and outs and have a lot of compassion for what it takes to embody something that you believe in.
00:44:07.519 --> 00:44:16.880
But on a on a lighter note tell me about Kenya like I know you do a lot of travel I've seen Costa Rica I've seen other places tell me like what how did that happen?
00:44:16.960 --> 00:44:19.760
What's your are you going to have a dance are you going to dance in Kenya?
00:44:20.000 --> 00:44:21.119
Like what is happening?
00:44:21.440 --> 00:44:21.920
Tell me.
00:44:22.320 --> 00:44:22.880
Yeah.
00:44:23.199 --> 00:44:30.239
Yeah so I went to Kenya in 2011 the first time and I was doing a volunteer trip.
00:44:30.320 --> 00:44:36.079
I was fresh out of university and I had done different volunteer trips to different places.
00:44:36.239 --> 00:44:48.719
And I had just started my dance healing training and then we were working with women and kids with HIV AIDS and they were like oh my gosh you teach dance healing will you dance with us so of course the answer is yes I'll dance as anyone who'll dance with me.
00:44:48.960 --> 00:45:19.519
And um and we started dancing and every day we would dance and we would dance outside because it's the slums of Kenya like there's no indoor spaces and when you are dancing outside music's playing people come from all over and we just had the most incredible time and at that time the stigma around HIV and AIDS the women we were working with all had HIV AIDS was that if you were around them that you would get it like a cold.
00:45:20.400 --> 00:45:30.320
But that was not the case as you know and so it you know dance people started asking like why aren't you afraid of getting AIDS?
00:45:30.480 --> 00:45:41.679
Like you guys are dancing with these women and so we were like well that's not how you get it like you know and and so I realized that dance became a vehicle for education and connection.
00:45:41.920 --> 00:45:49.920
And so I trained a couple of the women to teach the dance modality at the time because I was a master trainer for that modality.
00:45:50.079 --> 00:46:38.159
And then they started teaching and every a couple times a week they started dancing and it was so healing for their bodies because you think wow but they're in Africa aren't they dancing and singing all the time and you know when someone has been you know kicked out of their tribe and abused and they're struggling to survive and they have turned to prostitution like the lives that these people have had especially be once they get diagnosed with AIDS they become literal like tossed out by their tribe and community they're not dancing they're surviving just like a lot of the world and so this became a way for them to reconnect to that.
00:46:38.800 --> 00:46:52.559
And yeah I taught them some stuff but man they taught me so much and then through and you know we'd use a lot of their music and we just jam and that's the power of creating space for movement and dance.
00:46:53.840 --> 00:47:02.480
And then I've been back it was like every time I'd go I would come back and I would talk about it and my friends would be like can we go?
00:47:02.719 --> 00:47:09.679
And so over the course of the next eight or nine years I went back um so I've been to Kenya eight times.
00:47:10.159 --> 00:47:16.320
We were supposed to go in May 2020 and then the world shut down and we did not go and that was the last time.
00:47:16.960 --> 00:47:22.400
So this has been a long time coming because I used to go every single year and now it's been six years.
00:47:22.559 --> 00:47:48.800
This has been the longest time but somewhere in 2021 I moved to Costa Rica then I went through a divorce then I went through the death of my next partner like I had my own journey on the other side of the world that kind of inhibited me from traveling to Africa wasn't my first priority but it has been on my heart for a while and people keep nudging me and they're like Brooke when are we going to Africa?
00:47:48.960 --> 00:47:50.159
When are we going to Kenya?
00:47:50.320 --> 00:48:08.159
And it truly is one of my favorite places and I work with an incredible organization called Living Positive that helps women and kids with HIV AIDS heal mentally, emotionally physically and then teaches them skills and helps them build businesses and brings microlans to these communities.
00:48:08.480 --> 00:48:30.079
Amazing Brooke that is I mean I I just I love how you sort of just you know went there not quite knowing what what it would be and yeah I think you're right I think we do think of like well aren't they just like dancing all the time and isn't you know we have these weird perceptions of certain cultures like dance like kind of what we talked about earlier like cultural dance in different cultures we perceive a certain way of being there.
00:48:30.239 --> 00:49:04.719
But yeah I think when you're when you're ill and when you're ostracized likely and when you're dealing with life threatening things it's you know dance doesn't just come on naturally you need a little help putting on that music and figuring it out which I'd love to talk about too like just as we sort of start to wrap up here like how like okay so when I was in Spain it was 95% lovely beautiful gorgeous wonderful and then one day we had witnessed something really painful with an animal cruelty situation.
00:49:04.880 --> 00:49:24.239
It was just like yeah I could still cry thinking about it like super helpless couldn't do anything different language very scary and then I sat down I'm like okay like here I am living out this dream of like doing a dance immersion in this beautiful country and everything's been so lovely and really wonderful.
00:49:24.320 --> 00:49:30.320
And and then there's this thing that like it just landed right like we didn't do anything to create it.
00:49:30.480 --> 00:49:46.480
We just happened to be walking on this one street and and it just hit and I'm sitting there like wow like this is I just felt so helpless and so sad and so like defeated in a way and then of course like my brain sort of does what it does like okay why did this happen?
00:49:46.639 --> 00:51:28.639
What did I need to see like trying to trying to like pull out meaning right which is sometimes there's just not like sometimes there's just fucking not meaning like there is just something shitty happened and when you're in it the right thing to do not is not necessarily um find the meaning and I was thinking about it and I was like okay so I'm I what are my tools like I can just feel it fully I don't need to suppress it yet like this is the feeling the tears are coming like I need to be able to feel it because if I don't I'm gonna carry it and I still carry it but I carry it differently right so like I was able to I think through the ability of dance through the movement practices I've had through ups and downs in life I was able to like sit and just understand that if I don't fully feel this right now it's gonna it's gonna like lay in a different way and then I we were able to sort of walk through it and talk through it and and move through the feeling of it and I still like I'm still asking like okay what do I need to do like I saw something that changed something within me chemically like I need to do something and I will um but I think the ability what hit me in that moment is that duality and I think I recorded a reel on it like the duality of being in the most joyous state and then something shitty happens and that's life right maybe you're not joyous maybe you're just comfortable life is just great it's going along and then poof something happens to you around you you witness it and and I think what dance does and and likely what dance alchemy does is give you the tool set to be able to sort of navigate and kind of how we started the conversation with you being able to embody the depth of what you were going through personally in divorce and then allowing that to inform how you're showing up and embodying and teaching the lesson.
00:51:28.880 --> 00:52:23.920
So I guess the question in that is now that you've sort of have had this experience teaching and you've witnessed all this work and you yourself have been through very recently like really powerful sadness and loss and grief like how do you what is happening in your in your sort of educated and knowledgeable and embodied you know nervous system and brain when that does happen like I know you can't like therapise all of us right now but like how do you process that like how do you walk through that duality of having so many beautiful things happening and then so many tragic things happening too maybe not so many, maybe just one or maybe just a hardship or maybe just some a shitty day or everything in between like how do you how do you hold that yeah I think you know the only way out is through and allowing ourselves to feel it is such a big part of it.
00:52:24.239 --> 00:52:39.119
You know so many people were so people are so afraid to feel like when something shitty happens it's shitty can you feel the grief can you feel the sadness well the reality is most people can't most people especially grief.
00:52:39.519 --> 00:53:30.239
Grief is a hard one I've you know I lost someone I loved I was in a romantic relationship with after my divorce I lost one of my chat my high school best friends this summer suddenly both suddenly heart attacks at the age of like 42 both of them and just wild and these are really difficult things to feel right watching an animal be hurt these are really difficult things to feel even what's happening right now on social media and and with different things on the news like these are big things to feel I think one of the worst things we can do is to suppress it because then it gets stuck in our body and it comes out sideways at other people or it manifests into disease, into anxiety into depression to cancer all of these things there's so many studies that show it.
00:53:30.400 --> 00:53:42.559
So we really it's so important that we feel it's so important that we don't just shove it down and ignore it because you're right life is hard sometimes and hard shitty things happen.
00:53:42.800 --> 00:54:06.880
And that's the reality of life like there are things that um that you don't ever wish on anyone to happen that we get to move through and when we allow it to become our medicine they can become it can become our greatest teacher and our greatest expander even though it's very very difficult.
00:54:07.760 --> 00:54:25.039
Yeah I think I think that piece really landed like allowing it to become our teacher because ultimately right you you can move forward and have a deeper sense of compassion for other people and a sense of like not everything has to be perfect in order for me to move forward and I can still carry it.
00:54:25.119 --> 00:54:31.199
And I think like you said going through which I think more people need to learn how to do that.
00:54:31.280 --> 00:54:50.800
Like I when my dad died very suddenly when I was like 24 I remember someone telling me well just when like I would just cry at all these different moments which is very natural and and I think it was my husband who was my boyfriend still then and he was like well can you just sit with it and I'm like like you mean like like what like sit in a chair?
00:54:50.960 --> 00:54:52.320
Like what does it actually mean?
00:54:52.480 --> 00:55:10.880
And I was I was very much into self-development even then like Wayne Dyer, Tony Robbins, like all the self-help stuff that was all very heady although Wayne Dyer did better spiritually but um not so much embodied but it was very spiritual and I remember like that was like starting my my exploration of embodiment like what do you mean?
00:55:11.039 --> 00:55:19.199
Can you just tell me like am I actually supposed to sit with my hands in my lap and think about my dad like I don't really know what it means to sit with it.
00:55:19.360 --> 00:55:30.719
And so I because I was very good at like just moving just keep like from my family like shove it under the rug keep going shove it under keep going and then when something stops you and you can't shove it under the rug but you don't know what to do with it it's very scary.
00:55:30.880 --> 00:55:31.119
Right.
00:55:31.199 --> 00:55:41.840
So then you'll like you said it it would come out sideways and like we're at dinner and all of a sudden like what is happening right now which is fine that happens too right when you're grieving things like that do happen.
00:55:42.000 --> 00:55:45.679
But I remember like really under trying to figure out what does it mean to hold space?
00:55:45.840 --> 00:56:03.519
What does it mean to sit with it and really understanding that it's really not sitting it's actually quite the opposite can I move with it can I like one step in front of the other can I can I dance with it that's like to me that's sitting with it like sometimes it is actually sitting sometimes it is actually moving.
00:56:03.679 --> 00:56:20.239
So I love that like it's just the duality right it's the duality but in like embodied duality you have to have the like the the the physical form to be able to like feel it cry it scream it dance it whatever whatever needs to happen.
00:56:20.400 --> 00:56:27.519
So I love that you're out there doing this incredible work with a hundred thousand people come on I mean that's amazing it's so good.
00:56:27.840 --> 00:56:44.000
It's like yeah it's a lot of so blessed I feel blessed that my career has and my life has taken me in this direction and that I've gotten so many beautiful opportunities and experiences to bring dance to different parts of the world.
00:56:44.239 --> 00:56:45.039
Yeah I love it.
00:56:45.199 --> 00:57:01.679
I love what you do you know I've been considering doing your your certification and I have my own little gremlin sort of fighting me on on the practicality of all of it but it's it's really in my heart and I I know we'll talk more about it because I can see it, I can feel it, but my brain is like and well how is that going to work?
00:57:01.760 --> 00:57:02.239
I don't know.
00:57:02.400 --> 00:57:13.840
And so we'll just have a little more of a conversation around it because obviously dance it's part of my life it's a huge part of my life and it's a it's a it's an inflection point in my business.
00:57:13.920 --> 00:57:18.000
I talk about it informs it quite a bit but I don't actually like do it.
00:57:18.159 --> 00:57:41.840
So we'll talk we'll talk but so I just want to say thank you Brooke so much for sharing your work for I mean if you're not I will put all the links on Instagram I just get I guess so much out of just following your your teachings and your conversations around dance and what the work that you're doing I I really get a lot out of it out of just like planting those seeds in my body like what this could look like for me and my work.
00:57:42.239 --> 00:58:22.400
But I think there's so many women and I didn't know you worked with men in your certification too which is really cool that I think could benefit from just learning to process emotion and heal their nervous system through dance to be able to walk this sort of like collective path of what the heck is going on in the world but also to be able to be that that like that embodied person in your in your life and your family in your work to be able to help other people to do the same too like to really understand how to how to alchemize which is great right that's the whole name like how to alchemize the the fertilization of all the stuff going on and then come out with something useful and meaningful and valuable and impactful.
00:58:22.559 --> 00:58:35.119
So I just honor you for doing that work for so long and I hope to experience it myself one day once my brain lets me give myself permission to do this this you know this part of my work.
00:58:35.599 --> 00:58:36.480
But thank you so much.
00:58:36.639 --> 00:58:48.320
I think you're lovely your energy is really grounded and beautiful and sweet and powerful and I I think that makes for like an incredible teacher presenter speaker.
00:58:48.400 --> 00:59:14.320
I'm sure you create this beautiful energy wherever you go and this and very intentionally I just want to thank that thank you for that and honor that in you and just really yeah thank you for being so such a beautiful presence and voice in this world you're so welcome I so appreciate you having me and I love how connected you are to dance and healing and I can't wait to get to know you better and thank you for this beautiful conversation.
00:59:14.559 --> 00:59:30.719
Can't wait to dive deeper with you you beautiful soul you know what it's like I never hear that question of like if you want to know what to do next imagine you're in a movie and the audience is screaming like do that thing do that thing that's like I hear that like the audience is like just do the freaking dance already what are you waiting for?
00:59:30.880 --> 00:59:34.320
Like you're already doing it like that's what I hear in the background.
00:59:34.400 --> 00:59:36.239
So I'm sure we'll talk very soon.
00:59:36.559 --> 00:59:37.360
I love it.
00:59:37.519 --> 00:59:38.400
Just do it.
00:59:38.719 --> 00:59:39.039
Thank you.
00:59:39.119 --> 00:59:58.000
So we'll put all of the the links to your upcoming trainings and your Instagram profile and please go follow Brooke just to kind of see what's happening and infuse some some of that energy into your life and yeah thank you thank you thank you and um I will see you on the Instagrams and yeah again thank you so much for for being here.
00:59:58.320 --> 00:59:59.440
You are so welcome.
00:59:59.679 --> 01:00:02.079
Have a beautiful day thank you