About Katherine
Healing From the Inside Out
Health and Fitness were the cornerstones of my life.
From my early 20's until the age of 50, I lived the dream of doing what I loved. As a fitness instructor, health club owner, program creator, public speaker, and all around Healthy Living advocate. When I taught my creative dance class, called Mind/Body Expressions, I could feel the positive energy flowing through my body as I danced with a room full of smiling women. Happily married mother of two boys, business owner, community involved, and generally loving life.
That life all ended in 2008 with the arrival of an economic crisis which ultimately led to a four-year legal battle resulting in my husband and I walking away from the health club we had owned and loved for 14 years.
To say that I was depressed was an understatement. While spending time in federal court trying to untangle our business issues, my husband and I became a target to some unfortunate personal attacks. My spirit died, and my outlook was dark and morose. I was a mere shadow of my former self - dodging any accompanying health issues through my daily practice of yoga, meditation, and deep relaxation. I watched my soaring self image dissolve and instead choose to isolate and fly under the radar.
My theory was, if I disappear no one will notice me.
We left Northwest Arkansas and moved to Colorado to start over and recover. An unexpected opportunity fell into my lap in 2016, when I took a dance class and discovered the non-profit Dance To Be Free (DTBF). Lucy Wallace - DTBF's founder - was going into women's prisons and teaching the women on the inside how to lead healing dance classes for their fellow inmates. I joined Lucy and we grew DTBF to include women's prisons in Arkansas, Mississippi, Florida, and Virginia.
I spent the next couple of years traveling with Lucy to deliver Teacher Training Intensives before deciding to focus on two prisons in Arkansas. Little did I know I was healing myself while in prison dancing with women who taught me about life and resilience. Despite the grim living conditions, these "women on the inside" were eager to learn, quick to smile, and incredibly creative.
Dance To Be Free changed my life in ways I didn't anticipate. I found my voice and creative expression behind those walls. As it turned out... this was just the start of my healing journey - the relationships I built within the Arkansas Department of Corrections led to an invitation to teach in the Pulaski County Jail in Little Rock.
Now living in Little Rock, I have expanded my teaching horizons by working with men and women enrolled in a re-entry program while incarcerated. The focus of the jail class is healing through movement and relaxation. The intention is to create a safe space for each person to relax, restore, and connect with their true self. A calm nervous system can lead to healing on many levels, and it is this truth that shaped the foundation for my passion to share this experience in the FREE WORLD.
At the heart of my work is a desire to create opportunities to heal, because hurt people hurt people... and healed people do not.
My intention is to meet each person or group of people right where they are and to draw from my experience by offering custom-fit sessions. No one's healing path is the same but we can all benefit from deep relaxation, connection, and peace.