ElizaBeth Alexander

My path

How I got here.

My first introduction to somatics was in 2013, when I was working as a personal assistant for a philanthropist who studied with Richard Strozzi. At the time, I was living month to month in Santa Barbara, CA, drawn to his programs but convinced they were out of reach: both because of finances and because I was in my early twenties, certain that I needed more life experience before guiding anyone else.

So I threw myself into fitness. I worked six to seven days a week, teaching classes, training clients, juggling side jobs, to make my career sustainable. I built programs like the top selling 21-Day Booty Core, trained celebrity clients, and received kind messages from people whose lives I’d impacted through movement. I was proud of my work.

But something didn’t feel fully aligned. I loved movement, yet I never fit into the fitness world. The culture felt performative, focused on weight loss and aesthetics I didn’t resonate with. My colleagues teased me for “squirming” at fitfluencer events, because my discomfort was palpable. I knew I wouldn’t stay a trainer for decades.

Working with 1:1 clients showed me how deeply emotions, spirit, and the body are interconnected, and that focusing solely on physical fitness was not my path. Fitness gave me resources, community, and opportunity, but it didn’t fill a deeper need: alignment with my own body, emotions, and presence. Over the years, I studied Reiki and Energy Medicine, curious about a more integrative path.

When gyms shut down in 2020, I realized how much of a toll gym culture and being a “fitfluencer” had taken on me. I also realized I wanted a career where experience, insight, and the wisdom that comes with age mattered. It was time to begin my transition, and within the year my curiosity about somatics was reignited through various teachers and certificate programs. Eventually I completed multi-year immersive study programs with Somatic Experiencing and Strozzi Institute, thirteen years after first hearing Richard Strozzi’s name.

Let this be a reminder to you: it’s never too late to pursue what you long for.

Over the past five years, somatics has allowed me to integrate over fifteen years of experience and education in exercise science with my studies of energy healing. Finally, I have a framework to connect body and energy in the way I had longed for. It feels like the path I was always meant to follow.

As I deepened my studies of somatics, I’ve transformed personally, walking through fire over and over again: moves, endings, burnouts, betrayal, chronic health issues and a level of stress I’d never been through before. There are so many stories to share, but I’ll save that for when we get to work together. Throughout all the chaos and upheaval, I found myself still needing to perform: for work, for the relationships. Performing was the one thing I still knew how to do, and it cost me. I had to find another way to take care of myself, and to build the next chapter of my life, and somatics helped me do that.

Through it all, I became someone who really likes herself.

I do this work because I know what it’s like to feel stuck in patterns that your mind understands but your body can’t release. I’ve lived the tension between knowing what to do and actually being able to do it, and I’ve seen how exhausting that disconnect can be. Somatics allows me to guide people out of overthinking, over-giving, and over-efforting, helping them access clarity, confidence, and alignment in their own bodies.

My why is simple: I want to invest in the people who care for other people and for the wellbeing of our planet. I want them to experience the gift of deepening embodiment, so their work is sustainable, supported and can have a bigger ripple effect, without taking so much of a toll on them.