Why I do this work

For a long time I thought vitality came from discipline, optimization, and pushing harder than most people were willing to push. It took my body forcing me to slow down to realize that the thing I had been searching for all along was something much simpler, and something I had actually known as a child.

Lately I’ve been feeling really called to speak about my why with this work. Earlier today I caught myself thinking about how much I genuinely love doing it. So much so that, if I’m being honest, I would probably do it for free. I do believe in fair and ample compensation for energy exchanged, because there is real value in that. But the deeper truth is that this work has changed my life so profoundly that sharing it feels less like a job and more like something I’m compelled to offer.

What I want to speak to is how differently I move through each day now because of this work. Coming back to my body. Listening to my body. Reconnecting with my intuition and learning to trust it. Stepping out of my mind long enough to remember that joy is something we are actually meant to experience.

Vitality, I’ve learned, is not about finding the perfect equation of health. It isn’t the next protocol, the next supplement stack, the next diet, or the perfectly optimized workout plan.

I know that because ten years ago I was the person chasing those things.

Ten years ago my life looked, by most standards, like success in the health and fitness world. I owned a strength and conditioning gym and a nutrition coaching business. I was raising two kids and competing in CrossFit. I trained hard, ate carefully, tracked macros, and believed I was doing everything right. From the outside, it looked like vitality.

But slowly, my body began asking me to pay attention.

It started with small things that didn’t quite make sense. Stubborn gut issues that never fully resolved. A little belly fat appearing despite disciplined training and nutrition. Unusual dips in energy. At one point I remember drinking a Five-Hour Energy shot and feeling sleepy instead of energized. Those moments led me down a path of curiosity that eventually brought me to the nervous system.

What I began to understand changed the way I saw my entire life. My body wasn’t just busy or ambitious or high-performing. It had been living in a chronic stress response for most of my life. Pushing, achieving, staying in motion all felt normal because my nervous system had learned to live there.

Looking back, it explains something I had never questioned before. When I was deep in a brutal CrossFit workout—heart rate sky high, lifting heavy, sprinting, doing endless pull-ups—I would actually feel calm, focused, and clear. At the time I thought that meant I thrived under pressure. Now I understand that my nervous system simply felt at home in a heightened stress response.

That same pattern shows up in everyday life for a lot of women. Being constantly busy, constantly achieving, constantly pushing, constantly scrolling—it starts to feel normal because we’ve been living inside it for so long. But normal doesn’t mean healthy, and it isn’t how our bodies were designed to live.

Without going through every step of what unfolded after that, the woman I am today moves through the world very differently than the woman I was ten years ago. That realization eventually led me somewhere I never would have expected: back into my body in a way that had nothing to do with performance.

ReBody itself began during a deep somatic dive I was doing in 2022 while working through childhood trauma. The somatic work was incredibly powerful, but it was also heavy. Processing years of stuck stress in the nervous system can be exhausting on a deep level. Around that time I started doing something very simple. I began dancing.

Not in a class. Not on a stage. Not in a bar. Just alone in my bedroom with the door closed and my eyes shut.

What I noticed right away surprised me. I couldn’t dance without performing, even when no one was watching. If my right foot tapped twice, my left foot felt like it had to tap twice to match it. My mind kept trying to correct and organize every movement. So I got curious. What would it feel like to move without trying to do it right? What would it feel like to dance without bossing myself around? What if I just moved because it felt good, the way I did when I was a kid?

That is where it began.

Just me, alone in my room, trying to make it through a single three-minute song without my mind criticizing the way I moved. At first I couldn’t do it. But I kept showing up and trying again. Eventually I started sharing it with other women.

What I see happen in those spaces is why I believe this work matters so deeply. There is often a moment when something inside them remembers. A moment when the eight-year-old girl inside them comes back online, the one who used to dance and move and play freely before the world taught her about performance, roles, expectations, and getting it right.

Somewhere along the way many women learned that their worth was tied to what they produce, how they look, and what other people think of them. But when they move like that little girl again, even for a few minutes, something softens.

As I welcomed my own eight-year-old self back through this work, I discovered things I didn’t even know I was missing. I found unconditional self-love, freedom, and ease. I found a level of vitality in my body that no protocol ever gave me. And I found joy.

Joy is different than happiness. Happiness tends to depend on circumstances. Joy lives in the body itself. Children do not need the world to be perfect in order to feel joy. It simply moves through them.

I know that feeling can seem very far away for many women. It once felt impossibly far away for me too. But what the mind tries to convince you of is simply not true.

The mind is doing what it has always done. It is trying to protect you. It wants things to stay predictable, familiar, and controlled. When you begin talking about joy, ease, play, and letting your guard down, the mind often steps in and tells you that it is unrealistic, irresponsible, or naïve. It may even try to convince you that what I am describing here is a little crazy.

But that voice is not the truth. It is simply a protective mechanism doing its job.

The joy that moved through you when you were a child is still there. It never disappeared. It simply got buried under expectations, responsibilities, and years of learning to perform and get things right. When we allow that joy to move through us again, even for a few minutes, something in the nervous system shifts. The body softens. The guard drops. The system remembers what safety and aliveness feel like.

In my experience, there is no stress relief or nervous system repatterning tool more powerful than that.

That is why I say I would do this work for free.

Every time I watch a woman reconnect with that playful, joyful part of herself, even if it only lasts a few minutes, I am reminded why I am here. Part of my work in this world right now is to remind women that they do not have to earn feeling good. You do not have to perform your way into worth. You do not have to keep carrying the stress, the armor, and the roles that were handed to you.

You can put them down.

And from that place of presence, ease, and joy, you can begin creating the life you actually want.

It is safe to do so.