How Dance Heals Trauma: Emma Leach on Five Rhythms, Grief & Finding Your Voice

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Host Dave Roberts welcomes Emma Leach to the Teaching Journeys podcast to discuss how art and movement shape healing and meaning. Leach describes a childhood rooted in theater and visual art amid family instability and bullying, and how creative expression helped her cope. She shares the loss of her first love, Ray, who died of a heroin overdose at 27, and how discovering Gabrielle Roth’s Five Rhythms dance practice became a turning point, leading her to teach the method for 25 years and apply arts-based work with marginalized youth, prisons, and addiction. Leach explains Five Rhythms (flowing, staccato, chaos, lyrical, stillness) as an energetic “wave” that supports intuition and trauma release. She also outlines her in-progress documentary, Let It Play, centered on Ray’s handmade guitar as a metaphor for grief, hope, and storytelling through musicians and dance. Emma's Bio and Contact Information Emma Leach has spent 35 years listening to bodies. Not as objects to be trained or corrected, but as living texts, fluent in a language older than speech. Movement, for her, is not decoration or performance. It is metaphor in motion. A way meaning arrives before thought has time to organize it. Rooted in the Five Rhythms as her main body of study, Emma has been teaching this practice for 25 years. Over decades of guiding others through sweat, silence, pulse, and release, she has witnessed how movement tells truths the intellect cannot negotiate. The body speaks sideways, symbolically, through weight and rhythm and pause. It reveals what words circle but never quite land on. Alongside this devotion to movement practice, Emma has wandered widely through other art forms. Visual art. Installation. Clowning. Burlesque. Theatre and ritual theatre. Each discipline added texture, tension, and contrast. Each offered another doorway into presence, risk, and transformation. Yet again and again, she found herself returning to the body as the primary instrument, the original stage, the first storyteller. Now her work is evolving. What once lived in separate rooms is beginning to converse. From this convergence, Movement Metaphor is emerging. A living, expanding practice that recognizes the body as a generator of meaning rather than a vehicle for ideas. In this work, movement does not illustrate concepts. It unlocks them. Emma’s inquiry rests on a simple, radical knowing. When the body moves with attention, something beyond intellect comes online. Memory. Image. Instinct. Archetype. The unsayable finds form. Gesture becomes sentence. Rhythm becomes revelation. Her work invites people into that threshold, where language dissolves into motion and motion reassembles as understanding. Not tidy. Not fixed. Alive. Emma Leach continues to explore, create, and listen. Following movement not as an answer, but as a question that keeps unfolding. 🎵 About the Documentary: Let It Play is currently in post-production and seeking support. Follow Emma's journey at emmadance.co [http://emmadance.co] | Instagram: @EmmaChristinaRed To connect with Dave, go to davidrobertsmsw.com [http://davidrobertsmsw.com]

From Prison to Purpose: How RJ Johnson Found Redemption Through Faith

What happens when your worst chapter becomes the foundation for your greatest purpose? In this powerful episode of the Teaching Journeys podcast, host Dave Roberts sits down with RJ Johnson — speaker, author, and founder of Not My Will Ministries — to explore one of the most remarkable stories of redemption, faith, and transformation you'll ever hear. After making a devastating choice that led to a 20-year prison sentence, RJ didn't just survive incarceration — he encountered the relentless grace of Jesus Christ and came out with a mission. Serving seven of those years, RJ faced multiple attempts on his life, found faith in the darkest of places, and ultimately discovered that God doesn't waste a single moment of our pain. In this episode, you'll learn: • How RJ found faith and purpose while serving time in a maximum-security prison • Why taking full accountability — without justification — is the first step toward real healing • The powerful scripture-based workshop RJ created to help men break free from destructive cycles • What forgiveness truly looks like, even toward those who tried to take your life • How RJ's nonprofit, Not My Will Ministries, is transforming lives both inside and outside prison walls • The story behind his memoir God Doesn't Waste a Thing (written under the pen name Luke Chance) Whether you're walking through your own dark season, working in ministry, counseling, or simply looking for proof that God can redeem any story — this episode will challenge and inspire you. Bio and Contact Information RJ Johnson | Founder & CEO, Not My Will Ministries | Author of God Doesn’t Waste a Thing www.notmywillministries.com [http://www.notmywillministries.com] RJ Johnson is a speaker, author, and redeemed son of God who is passionate about helping others discover that God is still in the miracle business. After serving seven years of a twenty-year prison sentence, RJ encountered the relentless grace of Jesus—and everything changed. Through his journey of transformation, RJ founded Not My Will Ministries, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit committed to helping men—both in prison and in society—break free from destructive cycles and rediscover their identity, value, and purpose in Christ. His ministry leads powerful, scripture-based Cycle Workshops that equip men to confront lies, build resilience, and walk in lasting freedom. RJ is also the author of God Doesn’t Waste a Thing (written under the pen name Luke Chance), an awe-inspiring memoir of the miracles he witnessed behind bars. His story challenges churches and communities to step outside their comfort zones and into God’s mission field—even when that mission field has razor wire and locked gates. With transparency, intentionality, and a spirit of joy, RJ brings a message of hope, redemption, and real-life faith. Whether he’s speaking to a church, podcast audience, or leadership circle, RJ’s life proclaims one core truth: Your worst chapter does not have to be your last one—and God can use every broken piece to build something beautiful. Connect with RJ Johnson: 🌐 NotMyWillMinistries.com [http://NotMyWillMinistries.com] 📖 God Doesn't Waste a Thing by Luke Chance — available on Amazon If this episode moved you, please share it with someone who needs to hear it, leave a rating and review, and subscribe so you never miss a Teaching Journeys conversation. To connect with Dave go to davidrobertsmsw.com [http://davidrobertsmsw.com]

28. Juni 202652 min

How Dance Heals Trauma: Emma Leach on Five Rhythms, Grief & Finding Your Voice

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