Today we’d like to introduce you to Stacey Ramsower.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Stacey. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
I moved to Houston ten years ago for a job that I thought would support me while I pursued a dream of studying acting in London. It turns out that job would open doors for me to find autonomy, creativity, and community in the last place on earth I ever imagined. I was the first assistant manager of the Lululemon Athletica in Highland Village. This job afforded me unlimited yoga and fitness classes and allowed me to pursue my love of dance by connecting me with local leaders and organizations.
After two years of exploration I decided to sell all my stuff, pack up, and move to Brazil. That adventure lasted about four months, and then I returned to Houston and began to develop my yoga practice as a full-time professional offering. I had trained in Los Angeles after graduating from USC, and never really imagined it would be my bread and butter, but I loved it, and I was good at it. After two more years of teaching and dancing, I got the itch again and sold all my stuff, packed up, and moved to New York. I taught alongside some of the most incredible teachers in New York, and while it felt a little like being in a washing machine for 19 months, it was transformative.
Again, I returned to the vortex of Houston, and even more seeds sprouted. I developed a yoga teacher training program, I began to mentor teachers, and I developed new relationships, including with my birth mother back in Tucson, AZ. I was adopted about two weeks after birth, and meeting my birth mother had always been a question mark. It was a thrilling and somewhat confusing experience, but it clarified even more what I wanted to explore as a healer and teacher. So I began to study Vedic astrology and ancestral memory, which pushed me to wonder about birth and birth work.
While in New York, I met a few women who run an organization called Carriage House Birth, and they were like unicorns walking through my black and white world. I decided to return to New York to study with them. It opened me up to the concrete conversation around the ways that we as a society have ousted care, listening, vulnerability, and reverence from our culture. Medical birth culture in the United States has a horrifying track record, and it falls in line with everything I had learned in my yoga studies about the need for balance between effort and ease as well as reverence for and trust in MOTHER nature.
Fast forward to 20 + births later and my own experience with the loss of a pregnancy. I am in the thick of healing from and integrating the loss of my home in Harvey (9′ of water in my house) and the loss of my first pregnancy. What I realized I am particularly well-suited for is not to guide people through an hour-long movement practice, but to guide people through the grief and rehabilitation process of their soul. It may sound lofty, or even a little ‘out there,’ but bearing witness to so many births and the relationship dynamics of people trying to find their way through life as a human who wants and needs and craves and struggles, I just feel like there is a need for a lot more frankness and explicit coaching around sexuality, co-dependency, shame, and partnership.
My business is once-again shifting, this time away from the well-known but little understood practice of “Yoga,” into the much-talked-about but little understood realm of sexuality and healthy relationship. It’s really the same conversation in my mind, but we’re just going to get the distraction of tight pants and sweat and acrobatics out of it.
Which is ironic because whether we’re talking about yoga or sex, there seems to be this fixation on the tight pants and sweat and acrobatics, but the theatrics are really the least of our problems. I want to get into the real juicy shit with people. I want to heal, and there is nothing I’ve found yet to surpass the wisdom of the body. Which is awesome, because we all have one!
We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Ha! Maybe I went into too much detail in the first box… It’s been a bumpy road, and that is a huge contributing factor to the work. It’s bumpy. Life is tough. And it doesn’t have to feel like a struggle forever. The real secret is that things never change, we do. If you expect to find happiness in one thing that will inevitably change and/or disappear, you will suffer. I spent most of my time in Houston looking for a way to get out of Houston. Before that, I was looking for ways to get out of my body. We look for ways to get out of our jobs, our relationships, our families.
What if we looked around at all of it – this body, this family, this political disarray – and said, “how can I make this work?” I really like the metaphor of Iron Chef. That’s your life. Here’s a bunch of random shit. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to make something delicious.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
I am a healer. I have created trainings, mentorship programs, and private coaching programs to support deep healing in individuals and groups. I specialize in no-bullshit protocols for working through addiction, co-dependency, and the complexities of daily living, like feeding ourselves, having great sex and healthy relationships. I don’t believe in always finding the positive or saying the nice thing or looking good.
I believe in food and sex and sleep and intimacy and telling the truth and being in integrity with one’s self. It’s ancient stuff, like thousands of years old, and it doesn’t need to be dressed up or reinterpreted. I’m most proud of the group work I’ve created through my mentorship program, Swan Dive, and the soon-t0-be launched perinatal support group for women and couples called “re / birth works.”
What were you like growing up?
I was a performer, I loved to be on stage, and I was also deeply introspective. I spent a lot of time alone, writing and reading. I still need a lot of time alone, so much so that I need to be reminded sometimes to socialize. I grew up with two big brothers whom I ADORED, and I definitely started cussing at an early age so they would let me hang out with them. It worked. They’re still my biggest fans / best friends.
We spent a lot of time outdoors as a family, at the lake, in the mountains, playing sports. I did a lot of acting as a young person, so I was often surrounded by adults. I’ve always felt more comfortable around people who were older. As I get older I realize it’s not so much about age, but experience, confidence, and wisdom. Those are all super sexy qualities. I always wanted to be a dancer.
The body has always fascinated and delighted me. I have very vivid memories of being in rehearsals as a kid and just watching people move. I’d get lost in it. My mom and I were watching “Billy Elliott” when it first came out and she caught me breathing in time with the character Billy during one of his big dance scenes.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.staceymoves.com
- Phone: 5203099252
- Email: staceymoves@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/staceymoves/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sramsower
Image Credit:
Anthony Rodrigues/AR Expressions
Getting in touch: VoyageHouston is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
