We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Cynthia Aguiar. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Cynthia below.
Cynthia, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
In 2021, I was in a severe car accident which caused a severe concussion and other injuries. We were hit head on by someone that was not supposed to be driving. At the time I was a single-mother of 2, a full time teacher (working in Special Education at a high school), a professional dancer and a dance company owner. I was doing all of the things I loved, on a constant high on life and on a non stop journey.
After the accident, everything went dark. I couldn’t drive for months, I had to do physio to regain my balance to walk in a line, I couldn’t dance, I couldn’t mom, I couldn’t work.
No one tells us what Concussion recovery actually looks like. No one can ever prepare you as a single parent to try and heal with your kiddos watching.
For that next year and a half, I tried to get my life back. Back to dance, back to momming, back to work. But it wasn’t working, I was burnt out, in pain and not even close to being the parent I wanted to be. The expectation from most was that I focus solely on getting back to my teaching job, and to drop dance and my professional movement company. This was devastating. Dance is how I breathe, it’s my therapy, it’s my way of life.
Within 6 months of going back to teaching, my nervous system completely shut down and I was back in the hospital. I had to start my recovery from scratch. I know now, that the universe was trying to bring me to a different path. I decided to stop resisting the change. And I decided to heal in my own way, for my kids – and this needed to include dance.
So I surrendered. I spent 6 months intensively focusing on my health, on healing my nervous system, on learning how concussions work, on movement, on mindset. I did a coaching program to become a certified life coach so that I could support other women living difficult life transitions, I went back to dancing professionally & running my professional dance company.
In September 2023, I left my teaching career and jumped into my passions and the things that I loved. The universe put me down a path to lead me back to me – a life of dance, movement, community, art, coaching.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I’m a mom of two beautiful kiddos, Juliette (10) and Mattéo (5). They are just the most wonderful kiddos.
I now own 2 Movement companies, continue to dance professionally, have my own coaching business as a certified coach and run a podcast called Moms with Concussions. I can work according to my symptoms and get to do what I love the most every day. The universe often shakes us to awaken us. The accident was easily the most difficult experience of my life – and yet the most beautiful. These difficult situations often shift our paths towards what we’ve always wanted. We just have to surrender.
La Compagnie de danse is a professional Movement company. We do all things movement. From running healing workshops to help us step back into our bodies, to sensual movement workshops to help us fall back in love with ourselves/our bodies, to creative workshops. We do events, music videos, backup dancing, storytelling through movement, performance coaching and other professional projects. This has always been my dream, and I’m so grateful to be back doing what I love. IG: @lacompagnie.dedanse
In addition, I am now a certified life coach supporting moms and women in reducing their overwhelm and increasing confidence so that they can step back into their passion and purpose. I’m helping women and moms make their Comeback in whichever way they desire. Being able to learn how to heal and regulate my nervous system after the concussion was essential in my own healing. Our bodies cannot heal when we are in constant fight or flight. My training and certifications taught me what I needed to know to be able to coach while my accident gifted me with the life lessons needed to know how to apply the tools to heal. To now be in a place to support others on their healing journey is honestly the greatest gift. I know this is my purpose and I am so grateful to be here. IG: @coach.cynthia.a
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
Love all versions of yourself, Step back into your body to make decisions, Finding your people.
Any type of journey absolutely needs to include a deeper love for ourselves. I used to get frustrated with my brain and say things like “ugh my brain sucks today” when I was feeling symptomatic. But looking back, I now realize that my brain and body were trying to heal and they were doing the best that they could. We often show little compassion for ourselves, especially past versions of ourselves. We criticize the decisions we’ve made, the things we’ve done or the way we’ve healed. I needed to stop doing this in order to heal. I need to be kind to my body and listen to her again. I needed to be patient. I needed to love all versions of myself, past and present, and remember that I was always just doing the best that I could in that moment. This is a game changer for anyone trying to push forward. You are doing the best that you can. We all are.
When being a creative, a parent and an entrepreneur, we are often needing to make important decisions. The problem is, there is always a lot of noise – other’s opinions/judgments, the things we “should do”, finances, societal expectations, etc. But our body always knows what the answer is. Sometimes we need to get rid of the noise and just listen to our body for the answers. Try this; tell yourself a bunch of truths (I am sitting in a chair, I am wearing a sweater). Then tell yourself a bunch of lies (I’m outside, I have green hair). See how that feels in your body. Once you feel the difference, ask yourself the question you are wanting the answer to. You may just find your answer. This is how I make most of my important decisions (this was taught to me by a mentor). If it doesn’t work, we just aren’t meant to know yet. Sometimes there’s a purpose in surrendering.
Find your community, especially when on a healing journey as a creative. Often we are judged or fear being judged. In addition, as artists, our love for art isn’t fully understood. Not everyone sees Art as the medicine that it is. Surround yourself with people that see you and want to understand. Surround yourself with people that have the same passion as you and see the value in it. Find the people that want to honour all versions of you. Finding your community within your passion and purpose can help keep you going when you start to fall back into societal expectations.
Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?
As a life coach, performance coach and movement coach, my job is to provide my clients with the tools to help them reduce their overwhelm and step into their purpose/power. We have always been taught that talking about our experiences and processing them is important and it is! However we forget a very important thing: our bodies store more memory than our brains. You can process all you want, but you still need to clear the experience and energy from your body. We need to check in and ask our bodies what they need. Otherwise we are carrying this around with us every day.
A few tips:
1) Allow the emotion and feeling to be felt. Yes it’s vulnerable. Yes it’s uncomfortable. But the more we resist it, the more we feed the emotion. Let it flow into your body and stomach. You’ll feel it become a bit lighter.
2) Check in with your body often. We often don’t actually feel safe in our bodies and so we tense up, especially around our chest, shoulders and neck. Check in right now, where is your energy? Now take a deep breath and soften – allowing the energy to melt down through your body & into the ground. Then tell your body that they are safe. Do this as much as you can this week and see how you feel.
3) EFT Tapping – this is an amazing tool that has helped me regulate my nervous system, release energy and is extremely helpful during an overwhelming moment. Here we tap with two fingers on different acupuncture points along our meridian pathways. This very simple tool has been proven to decrease cortisol, stress & anxiety, and increase mood & so much more. You can head to my website or IG for my free mini-course on this amazing tool.
4) 4-7-8 breathing technique. This breathing technique sends a message to your nervous system that you are safe. Breathe in through your nose for 4, hold for 7 and breathe out through your mouth for 8. It’s simple and effective.
5) Movement! Get out and move. Dance, jump around, twist, whatever feels good. The key is to move the energy through in whichever way that feels good for you. There’s no wrong way of moving. We are all moving through life differently, and that’s what makes us beautiful.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.cynthiacoaching.com
- Instagram: coach.cynthia.a
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lacompagnie.dedanse
- Youtube: @lacompagniededanse4309
- Other: La Compagnie website: www.lacompagniededanse.com La Compagnie IG: @lacompagnie.dedanse
Image Credits
Sidney Siu Marshall’s World (@marshalls.worldx) Natasha Roberts (@photos_by_natasha) Merc Jane Photography (@mercedington) Jason Sunio (@jsun1)
