Ballet Was My Passion Until It Became My Trauma. Here’s How I Found Joy Again Through Somatic Movement

Why reclaiming play and movement is the real fountain of youth and how somatic movement helped me heal and return to joy.

Growing Up in Play

When I was two years old, I fell in love with ballet. Too young to join, I stood on the side of my sister’s class and copied every move. On the morning of my third birthday, I announced to my parents, “I’m three. Sign me up for ballet.”

Ballet was the beginning, my first taste of discipline, beauty, and the joy of moving my body. But as I grew, my family showed me that play didn’t only live in the studio. Summers meant daily tennis with my mom and evenings on the golf course as a family. Winters were for skiing every weekend. After dinner, we’d often end up in a game of pig at the basketball hoop, an air hockey match in the basement, or chasing each other around the house playing tag.

Movement and play were everywhere. They weren’t just for childhood, they were how we lived, how we connected, how we grew. And that’s the point: play should be a part of life whether you’re three or thirty-three. Somewhere along the way, many of us forget that.

When Joy Turns to Trauma

For years, ballet was my safe haven until it wasn’t. The art form that once filled me with awe and freedom became tangled with self-criticism and heartbreak. When I retired, I walked away completely. I stopped dancing in class, in clubs, and even in my own living room.

What had once been my escape became a place of pain. And when I stopped playing altogether, I lost more than dance. My body began to ache. I carried tension everywhere, survived on ibuprofen, and felt the weight of suffering in both body and mind.

Somatic Healing

Somatic movement became my way back. At first it was just breath, one inhale and one exhale at a time. Then small, intentional movements to re-pattern my nervous system and body. Slowly, I felt safe in myself again.

Somatic movement works on both levels. It heals us emotionally by giving us a safe place to feel again. And it re-patterns us physically, helping us let go of the tension patterns that pull us out of alignment, tug on our fascia, and leave us stiff, sore, and in pain. Over time, these patterns unwind. Space returns to the body. Alignment restores. Movement feels fluid again. My posture shifted, the aches eased, and for the first time in years I wasn’t just surviving on ibuprofen.

This practice is what made it possible for me to return to ballet years later. Without that healing, I never could have stepped back into the studio. It is also the root of my movement technique today, the way I guide others to heal, release, and build strength from the inside out.

Returning to Ballet

One day in my third trimester, a friend invited me to class. My old fears surfaced. Would I embarrass myself? Would the old pain return? But my healing gave me courage. My body was different, my balance shifted, but I didn’t need to be perfect. I just needed to be present.

Months later, four months postpartum, I went again, this time with my daughter in my arms. My body was fragile, still rebuilding, but the joy was pure. Ballet became play again.

The Real Fountain of Youth

We fear aging, but what really ages us isn’t time. It’s the loss of play. When we stop moving, exploring, and finding joy in our bodies, we shrink. Trauma and stillness close us in. But play opens us back up.

Somatic movement makes it possible to reclaim what we’ve lost. It gives us the safety to move again, the courage to return to what we love, and the freedom to let it be about joy instead of performance.

Your body remembers joy. And with play, you can reclaim it.

An Invitation

So I’ll leave you with this: what inspires you? What did you once love that you’ve left behind? What would it look like to return, not to perform, but to play?

Start small. Go for a walk, dance in your living room, try the class you’ve been curious about, dust off the racket, or chase your kids around the house. Movement doesn’t have to be perfect. It only has to be yours.

Play is the real fountain of youth. And it’s waiting for you.

With Love,

Regan