Waking Energy 7 Timeless Practices Designed to Reboot Your Body and Unleash Your Potential

introduction
This book is really a love letter. It’s my soul’s autobiography—a weaving together of my personal
discoveries, a tapestry of every healing movement that has changed and continues to transform my life
—and the program I developed to share this gift with you.
As a professional ballet dancer, I spent years of my life treating my body like a performance tool,
pushing myself past every conceivable physical limit. On stage, I was ethereal, powerful, magnetic.
At times, I even felt superhuman. I cherished the thrill, the sheer elation that swelled inside me when
the curtain went up, the honest sweat that soaked my costume from the exacting effort necessary to
make the nearly impossible appear effortless. When I filled the stage with something beautiful, I was
completely fulfilled. And when the last note sounded and everything went dark, I wanted more.
Dancing was the only thing that could magically take all the “stuff” inside—my brain’s incessant
chatter, the worry, the regret, the stress—and purify it, burn it all clean. Left in its place was a feeling
of rebirth, an incredible lightness of being and a deep satisfaction in my soul.
And yet, right alongside this unutterable joy, I also felt incredible pain and anguish. Behind the
velvet curtain, grueling, hours-long practices and bloody feet were the norm. The more it hurt, the
more I suffered, the better, because it was a palpable sign that I was working hard toward my goal.
This total dedication “at all costs” was reinforced by my ballet masters and mistresses (even ballet
terminology speaks to domination). It seemed I was doomed, like Moira Shearer, a slave to the dance
in the movie The Red Shoes, to love a profession that demanded I be its prisoner—trapped in front of
the mirror for hours, day after day, my innocent, earnest young body constantly scrutinized through the
warped and critical lens of my teachers. I can still hear the sharp echo of their voices: “Not strong
enough,” “Not fast enough,” “Not thin enough,” “Not pretty enough.” In reality, I was all those things
and more. But because I was fed by a constant stream of negative projections, it’s no wonder I
couldn’t see it.
In spite of it all, I lived for it, because performing was my salvation and my greatest joy. As soon
as I heard the magic words, “Places, please!” and felt the quiet beat before the stage lights went up—
so bright they literally blinded me—none of it mattered. Not the packed theater, the critics, the
hundreds of pairs of watchful eyes in front of me. No longer the dancer, I was the dance. I was the
flow. I wasn’t just in the zone; I was no longer of this world. The moment I stepped on stage, I had
wings. I was a prisoner no more. I was beautiful. I was transcendent. I was free.
When I danced, gratitude rushed through the river of my soul, overflowing its banks, sweeping