Beyond Words: Healing Through Movement and Expressive Arts

What if healing didn’t require talking?

In Episode 143 of ANEW Insight, Dr. Supatra Tovar is joined by Cathy Williams - Body-Based Healing Practitioner, Expressive Arts Therapy expert, and Founder of Intuitive Self.

Cathy shares the life-changing moment when she stepped into a women’s circle where movement and creative expression became a therapeutic language beyond words. Instead of analyzing or naming her pain, she learned to move it, express it, and release it.

In this deeply reflective conversation, discover how unspoken exhaustion, helplessness, and emotional tension can live in the body - and how expressive arts and movement offer a safe, powerful pathway for emotional release and reconnection.

This episode is perfect for anyone feeling tired of explaining their struggles, or curious about healing through embodied, creative experiences.

📌 Listen and explore more at anew-insight.com

Main Points Covered

• Why healing doesn’t always require verbal processing
• How expressive arts therapy supports emotional release
• The role of movement in accessing stored exhaustion and helplessness
• Women’s circles as safe spaces for embodied healing and catharsis
• Recognizing when you can no longer “show up” the same way
• Body-based healing as a catalyst for personal transformation
• Moving from suppression to expression
• The power of creative processes in trauma recovery

Connect with Cathy Williams
Want to know more about Cathy Williams? Explore her social media and online resources:- https://www.instagram.com/intuitiveself, https://www.facebook.com/IntuitiveSelfCathyW , https://www.linkedin.com/in/cathywilliams-intuitiveself/ , https://www.intuitiveself.com.au/ 

Share This Episode
Know someone struggling to express emotional exhaustion? Share this episode and help them discover healing beyond words through movement, creativity, and embodied expression.

#expressiveartstherapy #bodybasedhealing #somatichealing #embodiedhealing #drsupatratovar #drtovar #supatratovar #drt #anewinsight #deprogramdietculture #nutrionalpsychology #womenscircles #creativeHealing #TraumaRecovery #NervousSystemHealing #EmotionalRelease #HealingBeyondWords #MovementAsMedicine

Transcript

0:00 dr--supatra-tovar_5_12-10-2025_130435: 0:01

I am very excited to pick her brain about all things, uh, somatic based healing for trauma and the like. I am gonna read a little bit about Cathy before we get started, and then we'll dive right into our questions. Cathy Williams is a body-based healing practitioner, expressive arts therapy expert, and the founder of Intuitive Self. She supports people in reconnecting with their bodies, creativity and intuition as a pathway to healing trauma, stress, and depression. She and I are very aligned these, these pathways. Drawing from her own recovery journey, Cathy blends somatic movement therapy, expressive arts, trauma-informed practice, and spiritual reflection to help individuals reclaim their sense of wholeness, and self-trust. She is an award-winning author and speaker with over 17 years of experience in community development and social justice, bringing both compassion and depth to her work. Cathy holds a master of science and extensive training in somatic therapy, expressive arts modalities, and trauma healing. Her work centers on restoring the mind body connection through creative expression, body awareness, and intuitive listening. Cathy, welcome to my podcast.

cathy-williams--she-her-_1_12-11-2025_080435: 0:02

Yay. I stumbled into this work after I returned from some overseas projects, and this was many, many moons ago now, but I had been doing back to back projects overseas and had been in a, a way of living where I was very much in my head, I was very much in the must keep busy, must be go, go, go, do, do, do. And I And what my body was communicating with me, and it was around this time when I came back from overseas and was feeling quite, yeah, was feeling quite lost and at a loss as to what to do now with my career. And I still wanted to work with people and I still wanted to support people and communities and to hear people's stories and to see how I could be part of that. But I needed to do it in a way that was much more sustainable. And so it was around this time that I was invited to what essentially was a women's circle, but the facilitator had just finished her dance movement therapy training and, it was the first space that I experienced movement and creative arts in a therapeutic way where, you know, we didn't have to speak or name or identify what was happening within us, but we were able to give that story a different platform to express and And when I experienced this, this women's circle and this workshop and these processes, I was really, uh, it was, it was such a cathartic release for me on that day, but also really showed me the potential of what, of what this work could do. So I very enthusiastically asked, you know, what? What is this work and how could I

dr--supatra-tovar_5_12-10-2025_130435: 0:07

Okay. So Cathy, oh my goodness. I think certainly there's a running theme in my latest podcast, uh, but I've had so many people on my podcast with very similar, uh, impetus to do the work that they're doing. And I think that it comes from, uh, uh, conditioning, particularly people who identify as female, the conditioning that we receive as young children moving up, on having to do and be and have it all. Do you think that that was a part of your burnout? What was, what was really driving your productivity goals and how exactly did that contribute to your burnout?

cathy-williams--she-her-_1_12-11-2025_080435: 0:08

Yeah, I, I've thought a lot about this and I, there's different threads I feel like. There was this really, um, there was this sense that I had to do everything right now and that I, yeah, I really wanted to achieve a lot and I felt like I had to, had to squish it all into a really short period of time. Um, and I. And I, I really needed that. And I feel like from a young age, there was, there were particular events in my childhood. My parents divorced, for example, that I didn't quite understand or comprehend. And so those feelings had never been given space to be explored and to be expressed. Um. And so I think my way of throwing myself into my work was my way of, of coping and, and also distracting and numbing myself from those inner feelings.

dr--supatra-tovar_5_12-10-2025_130435: 0:10

We don't, we are not afforded the luxury of the time to process through things. It's better to just, you know, put your head down and keep moving. And when we do that, and you can speak to this, I think especially with what happens in the body when we do that, something significant happens in our bodies when we're repressing things or we're not dealing with things, what starts to emerge or what starts to happen in our bodies as a result?

cathy-williams--she-her-_1_12-11-2025_080435: 0:11

What we know is that the body carries all of our experiences, it carries all of our stories, and that is carried in the way that we hold ourselves. curiously, explore what's there to be expressed and give that space to be heard and seen and acknowledged and released and moved. And that has was a really, you know, it was a revelation to me that this could be expressed in a way other than talk therapy. Which I know has absolute value, and I had been doing it for many years, but I feel that the, the movement therapy side of things really compliments what we, what we say and what we talk about, because we can acknowledge where we're holding it in the body and give expression to it in a new way.

dr--supatra-tovar_5_12-10-2025_130435: 0:13

Yes. I do think that most people think of therapy as talk therapy. Certainly you have the gamut. You have people who strictly focus on the talk part of therapy. You also have therapists who do a combination of both. That's definitely in my arena. And then you have the, you know, somatic types of therapies. What uh, or why are movement and expressive arts therapies so powerful in healing trauma, stress, and depression in ways that just talking, can't you, you mentioned it being stored, you know, trauma or difficulties being stored in the body. How exactly do you utilize movement to help release that trauma? Then we would actually be overwhelmed by all of the things we've been suppressing and go into a state of collapse, for example. So what I always tend to start with, depending on what's presenting and depending on what people have come with, but it is to really foster that relationship with their body. And I feel like this is a really important way to start because when we're able to acknowledge the body in this way, we're also able to acknowledge our feelings and the emotions that are within us and that are rising at any given time and learn ways that we can not only be compassionate to those parts of ourselves, but we can regulate those emotions and feel capable to handle them and to move through them when they come up during our day and outside of our sessions, obviously. What are the sensations that they're aware of? Notice how they're holding the body and you know, maybe that's a, that's, you know, it's, it's in a closed frame because they're being quite protective and it's not about changing anything as such, but just getting curious about that and seeing what's there that wants to be expressed and. And that could be something like bringing in some gentle touch to the body for comfort. It could be shaking the body out if there's an emotion that wants to be released. Um, it really varies depending on what we're working with. But the framework is very invitational and it is giving expression through sound, through the body, and then onto the paper with different creative arts. Let's make that bigger. You know, what, what, what does that movement want to say? How does it wanna shift? How does it want to move further. Um, and this can lead to so many different revelations. It could be that there is a particular movement that feels really supportive to ground them. There could be a particular posture or gesture that when they do that, they're reminded of their strength. I love this, and give me a picture of what you see happening at that release and after that release. I know that when I work with my clients and I help them in a somatic way, I, I can visually see areas of their body relaxing or releasing. What kinds of results do you see when people are tapping into where trauma or the pain is housed in their body and releasing it? Their body will soften actually with, with, with their shoulders, with the tension. They'll sort of, they'll loosen up a little bit. Um, I see a lot of the time actually, I see people wanting to go straight into analyzing, so they wanna go straight to sort of the problem solving side of things. And that is part of our conditioning, right? people moving in, in ways that they, you know, sometimes it's slow to, to unfold. But people are starting to get more comfortable with, with moving. And there there's a curiosity there because my prompts are so invitational and you know, we're, we're bringing attention to parts of ourselves and ways of moving that we, that isn't common, isn't, isn't part of their every day.

cathy-williams--she-her-_1_12-11-2025_080435: 0:22

So the way that I work is really weaving in movement processes and creative arts therapy. So there's a real combination here with the work that I do and the, the processes come from seeking ways to connect them deeper with their body. So being aware of their breath, working out ways of somatic touch that feels really supportive and comforting for them. You know, what, what does feel comfortable to me? What is uncomfortable to me? Where. Is this, is this touch supportive or is it heightening, for example? And so there's different inputs that come with this work that then allows them to get a really clear understanding of what is their yes and what is their no, and how do they want to meet themselves in this way. I bring in a lot of different music and movement prompts to get them familiar and comfortable with expressing themself through the body and through different types of movement. And I use a variety of different creative movement prompts here. So this could be, you know, exploring the room, exploring different levels of high, medium, and low. Different shapes. I have some creative arts, so. The most accessible one for that is big butcher's paper or a three paper and playing with different colors, lines and shapes with pastel. And again, you know, it's not about being an artist, but it is about continuing the exploration through what's come through onto the page. But we can also use the art as a, as a, as a place to explore further. So. We call these sort of keys, so they might be a particular, maybe there's a spiral shape that they've drawn, and so that has. Being extra curious for them, or, you know, they're, they're really drawn to that. I'll, maybe it's somewhere where I'm like, oh, can you feel that in your body somewhere? Bringing out the wisdom from the body that is from their own psyche, from their own body's dialogue, and then bringing it back into self so that they can create it as a resource or as a, as an entry point for further connection to their body and their intuition.

dr--supatra-tovar_5_12-10-2025_130435: 0:28

I really wanna encourage people to get out of this podcast. Uh, half of episode, we're out of time for this one, and we're gonna really delve into this a lot more in this second half. There is something really valuable, really freeing in tapping into our creativity and our intuition and our joy through just taking the mind offline a little bit and getting into the body and letting the body do more of the talking. We have become, I think, a little bit too conditioned to be up here we're a little divorced from down here, and if we can bridge that gap. Tap in down here a little bit more. You start to hear intuitively the answers to whatever problem you're working on, especially the more connected you are to your body. That's a lot of the work that I do with my clients. So, Cathy, we are ugh, sisters on this. I am so excited to pick your brain a little bit further. We're out of time for this half, but will you come back and join me for the second half please? Yes. Alright. Thank you all for joining us. I really hope you tune in next time for the second half of this amazing interview with body based healing practitioner, expressive arts therapy expert and founder of Intuitive Self, Cathy Williams.