We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Kyra Newton a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Kyra, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Over the course of your career, have you seen or experienced your field completely flip-flop or change course on something?

In the field of trauma healing, one of the biggest U-Turns I’ve witnessed is around the role of catharsis.

For decades, the prevailing belief was that the path to healing PTSD and CPTSD was through “getting it all out”…big cathartic releases of rage, grief, or terror. Smashing pillows, screaming, or pushing the body into intense emotional discharge was considered the gold standard. The thinking was: if you purge the pain, you’ll finally be free.

But what we’ve learned through both clinical experience and emerging neuroscience is that this approach often overwhelms the nervous system, retraumatizes, and can reinforce dysregulation. Instead of resolution, clients are left depleted, flooded, or even more stuck in cycles of activation and collapse.

The U-Turn has been toward slow, titrated, and digestible somatic experiences, work that honors the body’s pacing and capacity. Somatic Experiencing®, Polyvagal Theory, and other trauma-informed modalities show us that true integration happens when people can stay within their window of tolerance, complete survival responses in bite-sized ways, and gently expand their capacity for regulation.

Science is now backing up what many of us have seen in practice: that safety, presence, and pacing are the cornerstones of lasting transformation. The nervous system doesn’t heal through force; it heals through resonance, regulation, and rhythm. This is the shift that allows clients not just to “release,” but to truly integrate and reclaim their lives.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I come from a background as a professional contemporary dancer and choreographer, which means that from the very beginning, my craft has been about listening to the body, expressing the unspoken, and finding truth through movement.

For four years, I also served as the Director of a disability dance company, which profoundly shaped my ability to work with diverse needs, adapt movement practices, and create inclusive spaces for expression and healing. That experience continues to inform my work today, as attunement is at the heart of every offering.

My own struggles with chronic pain, autoimmune disease, and the impacts of trauma drew me deeply into the field of somatic healing. I became a certified Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner (SEP) and Teacher’s Assistant in that work, and I went on to study and integrate Inner Relationship Focusing and Dynamic Attachment Re-patterning into my practice. From these foundations and my career as a dance artist, I developed my own frameworks: Somatic Experiential Alchemy (SEA) and the Somatic Healing Arts™ (SHA) training, which weave nervous system rewiring, attachment healing, and creative expression into a comprehensive path of transformation.

My work today bridges art and healing. I guide women, particularly those who feel trapped in shame, fear of judgment, or freeze states, into bold, radiant self-expression and authenticity. Many of my clients have experienced trauma, whether sexual abuse, bullying, religious oppression, invasive medical procedures, or narcissistic abuse. They often arrive disconnected from their bodies, carrying pelvic pain, low libidos, digestive issues, chronic pain and fatigue. What sets my work apart is that I don’t just focus on symptom relief; I help people repattern their nervous and attachment systems so they can reclaim their joy, resilience, and sense of belonging. And I do it in a creative, and often movement-based way.

I offer a wide spectrum of ways to engage:
One-on-one somatic trauma resolution sessions (focused on ending people-pleasing, healing core wounds, and creating embodied boundaries).
Workshops and retreats (such as Embodied Ritual, and 1-day retreats) that weave somatic movement, ceremony, and community connection.
Somatic dance journeys where participants move from fragmentation and frazzled energy into clarity, pride, and joy.
Facilitator trainings, including the 11-month Somatic Healing Arts™ Practitioner Training and the Body Prayer dance facilitator training, designed to equip space-holders, coaches, and healers with masterful somatic tools.

I am most proud of how my work has become a living, breathing ecosystem, one that blends artistry, science, and spirit. I often say: my mission is to make somatic healing mainstream and to sculpt masterful somatic leaders who can bring this work to communities across the world.

What I want people to know about me and my company is that this isn’t just another coaching program or training. This is a vocation. Somatic healing is my life’s work and my devotion. I bring to it the rigor of the arts, the precision of trauma science, and the heart of someone who has walked through the fire of chronic pain, shame, and self-censorship herself.

For clients, that means being met with acceptance, depth, and a kind of care that doesn’t force or rush the process, but instead honors your body’s own intelligence and capacity. For practitioners, it means being initiated into a lineage that values mastery, integrity, creativity, and embodiment above quick fixes or body hacks.

Ultimately, what sets me apart is that I don’t see this as just healing work. I see healing as living, breathing art, the act of reclaiming the body, restoring safety, and expressing one’s full self as the most radical and beautiful act of artistry we can offer the world.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Seven years ago I was trapped in chronic pain, depression, relentless fatigue, and psoriasis.

I wanted to leave this earth. I felt like my body was betraying me. Every morning I woke with blood under my fingernails from scratching my head, bloated, depleted, apathetic, and in pain.

And then, I had one of many “I’m done” moments. I remember writing in my journal: I’m done living with this much pain. I’m done popping codeine like candy. I’m done thinking about ending my life. I’m done not being able to eat anything. I’m done feeling like garbage.

That declaration became a gateway. By then I’d already been training in conscious dance, disability dance, somatics, and parts work…and I knew it was time to go deeper. I began intensive somatic therapy, embodiment work, attachment healing, and a whole raft of soul searching. I was an avid vipassana meditator and deep into CBT. And now, I was ready to commit to my healing in a new, embodied way.

Slowly, shifts began to happen.

I reflected on my standards and raised them, especially with other people. Boundaries became essential. I stepped out of chronic people-pleasing and started honouring my own needs and desires. I left a dance industry that had pushed my body too hard and devoted myself to building a somatic healing practice.

I began to unwind the shackles of toxic shame, unresolved rage and healed emotional wounds from childhood trauma.

And interestingly enough, and perhaps most importantly, I slowed way down. I had been stuck in constant doing and stress; that had to end. My body needed to recalibrate. I needed to get off the rollercoaster of internal and external overwhelm.

With somatic and attachment-focused healing, my psoriasis, chronic pain, and fatigue eased. And today I am living a vibrant, joyful life. Know that this didn’t happen overnight, I was devoted and I have seen massive shifts especially in the past 5 years.

Healing can and does happen, I am the living, breathing example.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

One of the biggest lessons I had to unlearn was the idea that I could “release” my anger and rage by through catharsis.

For years, I believed what so many of us are told: that if I screamed into a pillow, smashed things, or pushed my body into a big emotional release, I’d finally be free of the pain I was carrying. And for a moment when I did scream or hit cardboard boxes in my backyard, it did feel like something shifted. But inevitably, I would crash. The symptoms got worse, the chronic pain, the fatigue, even autoimmune flares. Instead of resolving anything, my nervous system was being overwhelmed, retraumatized, and stuck in cycles of activation followed by HUGE collapse.

What I’ve since learned, and what science is now confirming, is that the nervous system doesn’t heal through force. It heals through building capacity. The real work for me wasn’t about purging anger, it was about learning to actually feel anger in my body without dissociating, shutting down, or going out of my window of tolerance.

That shift changed everything.

Through somatic therapy, attachment healing, and titrated practices, I began to grow my ability to stay present with anger instead of trying to get rid of it. Over time, that gave me a much deeper sense of power and wholeness than any cathartic release ever did.

The backstory here is simple but also profound – catharsis didn’t work for me. Learning to slow down, stay in my body, and expand my nervous system’s capacity to experience anger did. And that’s the lesson I carry into all of my work today.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://somatichealingarts.ca
• Instagram: @somatichealingarts
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheSomaticHealingArts/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@EmbodiedWoman

Image Credits

Caitlin Uranu
Michelle Minke
Astral Harvest Photographer