Board‑Certified Dance/Movement Therapist | Somatic Movement Coach
I’m Andrea Murray: a creative soul, a somatic practitioner, and someone deeply attuned to the healing power of movement.
My journey began in the world of therapy—as a licensed mental health counselor in California and a Board‑Certified DMT—where I saw time and again how traditional talk therapy could reopen wounds without touching their roots. It was only through movement, nervous system embodiment, and gentle presence that clients could feel safe in their bodies again.
Movement Beings emerged from this realization: that transformation doesn’t happen through thinking alone—it happens through feeling, moving, and being seen through your body’s wisdom.
Why I Do This Work
I don’t just do this work — I’ve lived it. What I offer isn’t theory or performance. It comes from a real place, shaped by both clinical training and lived experience.
In my own journey, I’ve tried to manage my emotional pain by doing the right things and being the right person — in relationships, in work, in healing. I told myself I was safe, that I was healed. I performed wellness, convinced myself I was whole.
But underneath it all, I was still in a state of emotional avoidance — bypassing my body, my grief, my truth. And the more I tried to “get it right,” the more disconnected I became.
Eventually, the mental load of holding it all together collapsed into a state of emotional exile.
That unraveling—painful as it was—became the doorway to something far more real: Post-traumatic growth rooted not in striving, but in surrendering to the wisdom of my body.
Movement became the language my body used to speak the truths I had silenced. It gave me a new home for my emotions, showing me how to feel safely, how to trust again, and how to stop performing my life—and actually live it.
Guiding others into that felt freedom is now my calling.
That’s why I do this work. Because transformation doesn’t happen by willing it.
It happens when we listen to the body that’s been carrying it all.
My Path to Specialization
Before I was a somatic coach or a therapist, I was a dancer.
I trained formally in multiple genres and spent over 15 years as a full-time performing artist. Dance was my first language — a way of making sense of the world through rhythm, form, and felt expression.
After an early retirement into a desk job, something in me unraveled. I realized that dance had never just been about aesthetics, performance, or discipline. It was — and always had been — a beautifully complex and nuanced way of being human.
This understanding became the seed of my current work.
I went on to become a Dance/Movement Therapist and Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor in private practice with over seven years experience, helping clients through anxiety, depression, and complex trauma (C-PTSD).
I blend creative expression with psychological insight. And it was the body — not the theories — that kept teaching me the most powerful truths.
Now, I guide movement-based transformation that draws from everything I’ve lived, studied, and felt:
Phenomenological listening
Expressive movement
Nervous system repatterning
A deep trust in the body’s capacity to heal and lead
What I offer here is informed by clinical depth, yes — but it is not therapy.
It is presence-based, creative, and embodied. It is human.
“Andrea is exceptionally gifted at helping me process pain and grief I didn’t even realize was affecting me. I’m continually amazed that I can be crying and feeling deep pain from my past with her and then she leads me to move my body in such a way that the pain and grief gets processed. I feel peace settle over me from the healing taking place. Each visit I am amazed at the healing that can happen in my life as Andrea skillfully guides me with questions and movements! I highly recommend Andrea!”
— Barbara Voldstad (former client)