Today's guest is Chelsea Horton — a board-certified dance and movement therapist, somatic practitioner, educator, and founder of Healing Embodied, where she trains wellness professionals and leaders to integrate somatics, creativity, and emotional healing into their work. Chelsea has a master's degree in dance and movement therapy and has worked with over 2,000 clients, specializing in relationship anxiety, shame, and nervous system healing.
She is also one of the most alive, funny, and genuinely embodied humans I've had the pleasure of talking with — and her story, from evangelical worship leader to pole dancing somatic therapist, tells you everything you need to know about what it actually looks like to come home to your body.
What we cover:
Chelsea's path from conservative Bible college and worship leader to dance movement therapist and somatic coach — and why religious trauma, earth-shattering heartbreak, and the saving grace of dance were all part of it
What "feel your feelings" actually means — and the concept Chelsea calls "thought-feeling fusion," where we think we're feeling our emotions but we're actually just rehearsing a story about them
Sensation without explanation — the practice of staying with pure bodily sensation without needing to label, justify, or explain the emotion
What it looks and feels like when an emotion has truly been processed versus managed or suppressed — and why the body has a natural arc of completion when we get out of the way
The shame and anxiety cycle — why shame is not an emotion but a belief system about our fundamental worth, and how anxiety functions as shame's exhausted bodyguard, always scanning for evidence that we are not enough
Working with shame somatically — externalizing the shame voice, activating the inner advocate, and the groundbreaking work of David Bedrick (The Unshaming Way)
Creativity as healing — why creativity is not a talent or skill but the most fundamentally human thing we do, and why it is essential — not optional — to nervous system regulation and emotional processing
The Artist's Way, morning pages, and a shared love of authentic movement — a beautiful tangent about reclaiming creativity in midlife and motherhood
What practitioners most commonly miss when adding somatic tools to their work — and why learning to trust your own body and creativity is the foundation of being present with clients
Books & resources mentioned:
The Unshaming Way by David Bedrick
The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron
Beautiful Oops by Barney Saltzberg
Dr. Russell Kennedy — "sensation without explanation"
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