The Girl Drawn to Burlesque

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Hello, my beautiful friend,

I was the girl drawn to burlesque: the feathers, the fishnet stockings, the adornments, the dress-up, the sensuality of it all. Dita Von Teese and Kiki de Montparnasse belonged to a world I found beautiful and bewitching. And I still do.

I started modeling at fourteen and later moved into acting, music, and fashion. Alongside my modeling jobs, I was always up for creating imaginative worlds with photographers…gold leaf covering only the essentials, corsets laced tight, a little daring, a little fantasy.

Sensuality was part of that creative play, and it lit me up.

After seeing Crazy Horse in Paris, I was captivated. How had nobody told me something this wonderful existed?

I also took a couple of pole-dancing classes. I’m not sure whether it was the pole, the high heels, the stockings, or simply the permission to be fully sensual.

Whatever it was, I was committed…for a while.

Until I arrived at a modeling shoot and the stylist, who was putting me into a miniskirt, looked horrified.

“What’s on the back of your legs?”

In my determination to get up that pole, I hadn’t noticed the bruises. Thankfully, stockings are a thing in London, so on went a pair.

There was fun and creativity in that life, but I was also searching for deeper meaning and understanding. That search led me to yoga.

When I began teaching, I didn’t know how to bring this sensual side of me into the role. How could I teach yoga and the yamas and niyamas while also feeling drawn to play, lingerie, mischief, and that inner sizzle?

I thought I had to keep those parts of myself separate.

But the more I practiced and taught, the more alive this part of me became.

Yoga was bringing me closer to my truth, even as I struggled to express all of myself as a yoga teacher.

I even created workshops called Bring Your Sexy Back and Find Your Sizzle. As yoga awakened more of this in my own life, I wanted to share those awakenings…but I never fully stepped into that work.

For me, sensuality is magic.

It’s that buzz in your body that makes you feel awake and alive, slightly in love with life itself. When Shakti is moving, there’s excitement, curiosity, energy. That spark of:

Aha! There you are. I thought I’d lost you.

For years, I glimpsed that buzz through something outside me: an exciting project, a win, falling in love. Sometimes even witnessing someone else’s aliveness would spark it in me.

I also know what it feels like to feel flat, numb, a little dead inside, a little lost.

So I began paying attention to the moments that woke me up—what brought back that inner light, that buzz, that beautiful energy.

Now I’m discovering how to coax that life force awake within myself, in my own body and in my own life. This nectar is available to all of us.

We don’t have to wait for someone else—or something else—to wake it up.

That’s what Im going to share with you in my next women’s workshop:

Kundalini Activation & the Divine Feminine

An evening to explore your own energy, sensuality, and aliveness through embodied practice.

It’s going to be a beautiful night.

Come as you are, bring your curiosity, and let’s see what wakes up.

Thursday, November 19

⁠Reserve your place

Select November 19 in the calendar to find the workshop.

Love always, 
Sonia