My mom’s side of the family is Chinese — they’d been in Canada for generations. My dad’s parents immigrated from Germany. I was their first child. Their world.

I was a quiet, sensitive kid — the one who always noticed the things other people didn’t. The one who felt things more deeply than I could explain.

Dance found me when I was four. I was instantly mesmerized. My parents say I remained completely focused the entire class, while other little girls twirled around or stared off into space.

I didn’t talk much. But movement made sense in a way words never did. Dance became the place where I felt most like myself and connected to my body.

I got straight A’s, won awards, excelled in dance.

No one told me I had to be perfect — but that’s what I absorbed.

I heard “Everyone loves Brittany” more times than I can count. Somewhere along the way, I started hiding the messy parts — the real parts — to keep being liked.

I became who I thought I had to be.

Then we moved to Michigan. I was about to start 7th grade, and we left behind the diverse community I’d known and landed in a place that felt foreign to me.

I was the only mixed-race kid in my school. The arts weren’t celebrated in the way I was accustomed.

I didn’t feel like I belonged — so I made myself smaller, quieter. I tried to fit in.

I was spiraling into depression (though no one knew) and had nearly lost my love for dance and life itself.

Then I was accepted into the University of North Carolina School of the Arts for my junior year of high school.

It cracked something open in me.

Contemporary and modern dance gave me a new language.

Long days — 8am to nearly 10pm — but I thrived. I was challenged, seen, and I felt something true again.

I didn’t pursue dance professionally. Instead, I studied engineering, which felt like the responsible choice.

I saw people going the corporate route and figured that was what life was supposed to look like.

But the pressure was intense, and I was becoming more and more disconnected from myself.

I drank, partied — anything to numb the stress and pain I didn’t know how to face.

I had always dreamed of going to Australia and eventually did for a semester abroad.

It was the first time I really slowed down. I started journaling. Reading self-help books.

I backpacked through New Zealand alone and reconnected with nature in a way I hadn’t since I was a child.

For the first time in a long time, I felt peaceful and began thinking for myself.

When I returned home, my family went to a retreat led by a performance coach.

It awakened a depth of living I never knew existed.

I saw a new way of being — one rooted in heart, presence, and purpose.

I turned down the corporate job offer I had lined up.

I didn’t know what was next but I knew that wasn’t it.

After living in Rwanda for a couple months and learning from their way of life, my aunt introduced me to the Co-Active Training Institute, and I knew immediately: this is the work I’m meant to do.

I loved it — deeply.

But I was fresh out of college and didn’t quite have the confidence to leap yet.

So I followed another passion — sustainable clothing — and worked as a buyer for a few years.

Chronic illness had been quietly building in the background for years.

And then it exploded — hair loss, cystic acne, chronic fatigue, anxiety, depression.

I could barely get through a day.

My confidence vanished. I felt like a shell of myself.

But somewhere deep inside, I knew this wasn’t just physical.

This was a call to go inward. To heal — truly — from the inside out.

I hit rock bottom with my physical and mental health. So I quit my job, converted a camper van, and drove away.

I had no idea where I was going — only that I couldn’t keep living like I was.

I gave myself space to breathe, to heal, to be.

And in that space, I found coaching again — not just as my path, but as my own medicine.

The more I coached — and was coached — the more my body began to soften. My mind followed. I started to come back into coherence.

I spent a year on the road. Alone. Living close to the Earth. Listening.

It was raw, beautiful, uncomfortable, honest.

I saw where I was still living from fear. I met parts of myself I’d hidden.

And I started building a new kind of life — one rooted in truth, love, and freedom.

I traveled. Worked on my own terms. Trained with coaches. Sat in ceremony.

Studied healing. Practiced Vipassana. Danced again.

I trusted my intuition, even when I didn’t have the whole map.

And somehow, life got fuller, richer, more awe-filled than I ever imagined.