Movement therapy
Your bones are tired of carrying what never belonged to you. . . They know how to let go. Let’s listen.
Movement therapy meets you as you are - in a body, with a brain and a nervous system whose number one priority is to keep you safe. Learning to read this nonverbal map offers a powerful pathway back to yourself, one that honors the wisdom your body has been holding all along. If you've spent years living from the neck up, pushing through exhaustion, and wondering why doing all the right things hasn't brought the relief you crave, you're not alone. Your body has been patiently, or impatiently, waiting for you to listen.
I'm a licensed therapist and board certified dance/movement therapist in Layton, UT, offering both online and in-person sessions. Movement therapy isn't about learning choreography or being graceful. It's about coming home to a body that has been carrying so much for so long.
Why the Body Holds the Key
Your experiences don't just live in your thoughts. They live in your muscles, bones, your breath, your posture, and your nervous system. That tightness in your shoulders isn't random. The way you hold your breath when someone asks what you need isn't a coincidence.
When you've spent a lifetime abandoning yourself to keep relationships intact, your body becomes the container for everything you couldn't express. The anger you weren't allowed to feel? It's there. The grief you never had space to process? It's there too. Our bodies tell stories of our history. Generations of survival patterns often get held and passed on, showing up in postures, gestures, reactivity or responsiveness. Movement therapy helps us hear the stories, accessing what words alone cannot reach.
If you are reading this, you have probably been told, more times than not, that you are making too big a deal of things, that you’re too sensitive, that your are the problem because no one else is bothered. What if this isn’t true?
I’ll give you an example. Let’s take this sensitivity piece. I learned from an early age to be exquisitely tuned into the meaning and energy underneath the words being said. Someone said they were fine? OK . . .but I felt the disconnect and instinctively knew to tip toe around all the unsaid-not-fine things lurking under the surface in order to keep it that way. Crazy making!
As I have been leaning into more visibility in my professional life, I hired an SEO company to support me. Part of their job is to shore things up so you can find me easier. Which means - creating new optimized pages for my website with the help of AI. Now - my deepest desire is to help those who resonate with my particular brand of magic, find and connect to me. Yet, as I read through these new pages I noticed my throat tighten, a vibration in my chest, and my brain turn into a mess of confusion. It sounded like me, but also didn’t sound like me. My initial survival response was to shut down, avoid, and try to figure out what was wrong with me.
But here is the rub. My body was alerting me to the truth - the robotic nature of AI generated content that almost sounds like me, but carries a different energy and is not fully me. It’s like I was there, but not there, and I felt it.
Say What?
Once I was able to untangle this, I could bring it to the surface and unearth the unmet need it was signalling (that my real human voice matters, my own words and the way I write carries a resonance that is uniquely me).
From here, I could choose how to relate to it differently, rather than continuing down the danger road of shut down, confusion, and self-blame. For me, this meant naming it transparently while also rewriting some of the content to restore my voice. Now it is in more alignment - I’m giving us the best chance of finding each other in this virtual world, while also acknowledging to both of us that some of what you read might have an energy that is not quite human. Both are true. (I also spent billions of hours combing through each word to make sure it resonated with me cuz that’s how I roll).
This naming of the truth - this is how we will work together. Our body will always speak it - while our minds and survival strategies are going to try to keep shoving it under the rug and asking the elephant to stand on top of it. You are going to do everything you can (unconsciously of course) to try and get me to ignore the fact that the elephant is surfing on uneven ground. Luckily for you, I’m skilled at elephant introductions and can do it in a way that is uncomfortable but tolerable.
Who This Work Is For
You might be someone who has read all the self-help books, attended workshops, and journaled until your hand cramped up, yet you're running into the same old problems over and over again. You're a deep thinker who wants to understand the roots of things rather than settling for surface-level fixes. You can logic your way around things, trying to convince yourself you are safe and yet. . . your body keeps throwing down the low level panic, keeping you awake at night, collapsing you right before your needs can squeak through.
Perhaps you grew up learning to read the room before you could read books. You became the peacekeeper, the parentified child, the emotional translator between adults who couldn't communicate. You learned that your needs came last. Your body got you through this - the migraines that hit just as a family visit approaches; the lump in your throat that stops you from saying a truth that will rock the boat; the brain fog and confusion that hits you just as your about ready to set a boundary in service of yourself (cuz that would have been dangerous back then).
Now, in your 30s, 40s, or 50s, you're realizing that the strategies that helped you survive have become what's keeping you stuck. You're overworked, burned out, and going through the motions of a life that looks fine on the outside while you're quietly struggling on the inside.
My Approach
I integrate several body-based modalities tailored to your unique needs:
Dance/Movement Therapy allows us to access emotions and patterns that words can't reach. This isn't about performing or being a dancer. It's about letting your body express what it needs to express. It’s also about bringing in some creativity and curiosity. Our bodies can’t stay in the danger zone and be creative, curious and playful at the same time. When we can approach the pain in a way that signals safety, our body is able to unfurl in its own time and in its own way.
Somatic Therapy helps us work directly with your nervous system, building capacity to tolerate sensations that may have felt overwhelming before.
Authentic Movement invites you to move from the inside out, following impulses rather than instructions. For all of you who hate being told what to do (hi! I see you!), this practice is for you. We follow your truth, your wisdom, and learn how to stay with it in relationship.
Parts Work helps us understand the different aspects of yourself that developed to protect you over the years. That inner critic? The part that never lets you rest? They all have stories to tell. We can locate them by listening to our bodies as each part has its own sensation and movement signature.
What I Help With
Trauma lives in the body as much as the mind. You don't need to recount every detail of what happened to heal. In fact, that might do more harm than good. The part of our brain where trauma is stored - it can’t tell the difference between past and present, between real or perceived danger. This means that if your body is sending signals of danger, they will show up in real time, present moment - and if there isn’t an actual threat happening - no bear is chasing you, it is our clue that this signal is coming from the past. This allows us to slow down, bring some curiosity in, and offer some support.Sometimes the most profound shifts occur when we work directly with what your body is holding.
Grief, especially complicated grief, doesn't follow a predictable path. It may suck the air out of your lungs, while at the same time releasing your shoulders from the weight of never being enough. You can feel relief and devastation simultaneously. You can love someone deeply and still carry anger. In our work together, all of these experiences are welcome.
Anxiety shows up as that constant hum of worry, the inability to settle, the racing thoughts. Rather than trying to think your way out of it (which, if it worked, would have worked by now), we work with your body's innate wisdom.
Depression often appears when the body has decided that collapse is safer than continuing to push through. Movement therapy meets you exactly where you are, honoring whatever your body is ready for.
What Makes This Work Different
I've walked through my own fire - and I keep walking. I know intimately what it's like to carry burdens that aren't yours, to lose yourself in relationships, and to face the terrifying prospect of reclaiming yourself. I'm not offering you theory. I'm offering lived experience combined with professional training.
I start from a place of inherent health. Whatever symptoms or reactions are showing up, I trust they have very good reasons for being there. Our work isn't about fixing what's broken. It's about understanding what's been protecting you.
So . . . I won’t tell you what to do, nor will I use my magical powers to fix you. This might be super irritating . . . when in pain, we often want someone to give us the easy way out. But hang on! This is where things get juicy - because slowing down, leaning in and learning to trust yourself is the exact thing that will bring epic transformation and build the inner bold badass who can navigate your life on your terms. Can I get a HELL YEAH!!!
I also trust the pain and the darkness to guide us. I'm skilled at moving tenderly, slowly, and courageously toward wounded places, allowing them to be seen, known, and understood.
And while we're doing deep work, we're also going to find moments of play, humor, and lightness. Healing doesn't have to be somber all the time.
The Paradox of This Work
Many of our protective strategies have disconnected us from our body - out of necessity. If, in the past, your body let you know something didn’t feel right and instead of that being validated and acknowledged, you were met with shame, being told you were too sensitive, or just making a big deal out of nothing. Well. It wouldn’t have been very useful to keep listening to messages that were only going to keep you feeling crazy and wrong. So, maybe you went numb, became a super good over analyzer, learned how to shut down emotions and body signals like a champ.
Now . . . I’m telling you that the way back in is through getting back into touch with your body? That it has known the answer all along? That the path forward is going to be actually learning to feel into, listen to those signals, and meet them with what they should have gotten back then. Understanding, deep listening, and support. It’s crazy talk right?
I get it. And yes, it might be a little scary. You are probably going to have parts that will work their very hardest to keep us away. If their efforts alone could heal you, you'd be healed by now.
So, together we will be with each part, as it shows up. If that means starting with the over thinker who just wants to fix things. Great, that is where we start. This welcoming of all parts, will support you in doing less. Learning to rest. Letting go of weight that was never yours to carry. For someone who has survived by being useful and indispensable, this can feel terrifying. Movement therapy helps your body learn, in your bones, that rest can be safe, that all of you belongs.
Frequently Asked Questions About Movement Therapy
-
Every session is different because every person is different. A session might include gentle movement explorations, breathing practices, or somatic awareness exercises. It might mean we talk together and sometimes, we pause and notice what your body is saying. There's no choreography to learn and no right way to move.
-
Absolutely not. This is about reconnecting with your body, not performing. All bodies and all movement abilities are welcome. Your body is moving all the time - with no thought, force or pressure. We are going to learn to listen.
-
Exercise focuses on external goals like fitness. Movement therapy is a clinical therapeutic approach focused on your internal experience, using movement to access emotions and create lasting psychological change.
-
Feeling disconnected is one of the most common reasons people seek this work. We rebuild connection gently, at a pace your nervous system can handle.
-
Whatever you are most comfortable in. There is no requirement to move in any certain way. If you're feeling the desire to move and groove - dress for that. If you don’t, no problem, wear what makes you feel good.
-
Trauma lives in the body. By working with physical patterns like tension and bracing, we can process stored experiences without requiring clear memories or words.
-
Completely normal. You never have to do anything you don’t want. No matter whether or not you want to move a lot, or would prefer to simply notice the movement that is happening all the time, we go slowly and build safety first. The safety that comes from within. You're always in control of what you do.
-
Some people notice shifts in their first few sessions. Deeper patterns typically take longer. I recommend the initial three sessions before reassessing. Changes can sometimes be subtle - maybe you notice the tension in your throat when you are wanting to say no. You might not be able to say no just yet, but that increased awareness is going to pave the way for the next step.
-
Movement therapy naturally incorporates verbal processing. We talk about what comes up and integrate insights through conversation.
-
Highly effective. Anxiety lives in the body, and movement therapy helps you develop a new relationship with your nervous system.
What to Expect
We begin with a free consultation to see if this feels like a good fit. If we decide to move forward, I ask for a commitment to three initial sessions. This gives us time to get to know each other and determine whether to continue.
Once established, we'll schedule weekly sessions a few months in advance, checking in regularly about what's working. Sessions can be held online or in-person at my Layton, UT location.
Please contact me for pricing and scheduling information. I offer superbills for those who wish to use out-of-network benefits.
Location: