About Misa

I continue to return, again and again, to the evolving wisdom, compassion, intuition, and love within my mind, heart, spirit, and body. Years of struggling with body image, perfectionism, eating disorders, depression, and addiction ignited a deep longing for spiritual connection and expansion—and a fierce hunger for a more peaceful, self-loving, and authentic way of being.

There is a certain humility that arises when we realize we cannot climb the path to wholeness alone. True healing begins with surrender and the willingness to receive. I am endlessly grateful to the many souls—mirrors of truth, reflection, kindness, and compassion—who have helped me along the way.

My personal reclamation of healing and recovery began at age 27, following the death of my father. Through years of talk therapy, working and reworking the 12 steps in OA and AA, and the transformative experiences of motherhood and marriage, I came to know the power of forgiveness, surrender, and love. But it wasn’t until I began dancing again in 2011 that a profound shift occurred—deep in the undercurrents of my conditioned patterns and beliefs. Grace and timing brought the right teachers into my life, both for my journey in dance and for my spiritual growth. Becoming a certified death doula further deepened my relationship with grief and death. Eventually, through my devotion to dance as a healing path, Soulpower was born.

Dance is alchemy. It is the transformation of thoughts, emotions, and belief systems through the physical and expressive language of the body, heart, and mind. It weaves music, movement, intentional energy, and archetypal patterns into healing. As science continues to affirm dance as a potent somatic modality, I remain committed to empowering myself and others to release one story, one belief, one layer at a time—through movement, music, and creativity.

The learning never ends. But my deep and passionate desire to create connection, offer healing reflection, and share the transformational tools that have changed my life is what brought me to create Soulpower Living. This approach invites profound embodiment—of the physical and elemental body, the intuitive and light-infused spiritual body, and the powerful emotional body. All are energetic, meaningful, and essential to our wholeness. This is a path of movement as embodied prayer, awakened consciousness, and spiritual communion. We dance to reclaim our freedom from judgment, fear, and stuckness.

On a practical level, this work is grounded in my background as a dance instructor, an occupational therapist specializing in sensory integration, a certified death doula, a group fitness facilitator, and a certified Earth Medicine practitioner.

For the past eight years, I have walked a path of studying the old ways of the original peoples of these sacred Asheville lands, with humility and reverence. I’ve been honored to learn through the teachings of Will Rockingbear, as shared by his apprentice Greg Lathrop and elders of the Earth Green Medicine Lodge. I continue to support others on this sacred path of remembering and reweaving.

Outside of Soulpower, I serve with the nonprofit Dance To Be Free, bringing the healing power of dance to women in prison, and volunteer as a firekeeper for the Crossing Fire at the Center for Conscious Living and Dying. I am a mother of two, and a partner of 27 years. I am half Japanese, the daughter of a brilliant, tough, and loving Japanese mother, and a war veteran and Naval officer father, now buried at Arlington National Cemetery.

Most recently, my training in Light Body Activation (June 2025) has affirmed how essential it is to be aware of our own energy field, and how we move within and between the energetic fields around us. As Dr. Joe Dispenza reminds us, we are more energy than matter, more wave than particle. To “know thyself”—inwardly, energetically, multidimensionally—is, to me, the path toward wholeness, harmony, and an awakened life. Life will never be free of pain, grief, or challenge, but when we understand the intelligence of our life force energy and the role our mind plays in shaping it, we begin to heal ourselves—and in reciprocity, we begin to tend to our communities, our earth, and our future.

Personally and communally, my practice is to seek meaningful ways to evolve my perspectives and relationships with all things—with grace, humility, and gratitude. Through the sacred mirror of dance, I’ve found a beautiful reflection of how to love each other as ourselves, again and again.

In Lak’ech Ala K’in—I am another yourself. You are another me.

Credentials:

• Light Body Activation Training Yelapa, Mexico June 2025

• Internal Family Systems (IFS) Online Circle—Continuing Education for IFS informed training April 2024, 2025 to current

• Life Coaching Certification for Health Professionals with Guerrette Institute 2023

• January 2021, November 2021 Dr. Joe Dispenza Weeklong Advanced & Advanced Follow-Up Retreats

• The Golden Serpent Shamanic Priestess and Temple Arts Program with Caroline Padgett 2019-2020

• Certified Death Doula Training with Conscious Dying Institute 2016

• Certified Soulsweat Dance Teacher Training 2015 Boulder, CO

• Earth Medicine School 2012-2014 with Pixie Lighthorse, Level 1 and 2 Certified

• Licensed and Registered Occupational Therapist since 1996, graduating Magna Cum Laude from University of Florida. Specialized in Sensory Integration and Pediatrics

• Vanderbilt University, School of Engineering and Naval Reserve Officer Training Corps 1989-1990