We’re looking forward to introducing you to Heidi Tacktill. Check out our conversation below.
Hi Heidi, thank you for taking the time to reflect back on your journey with us. I think our readers are in for a real treat. There is so much we can all learn from each other and so thank you again for opening up with us. Let’s get into it: What is something outside of work that is bringing you joy lately?
Mahjong. It has become this surprising little pocket of joy in my week. I get to sit with friends, challenge my mind, and drop into something that feels completely separate from my work and my roles. It is mine. It wakes up a part of me that loves to play, to think, to connect without any pressure to hold space or guide anyone. It has been such a nourishing shift.
Can you briefly introduce yourself and share what makes you or your brand unique?
I am Heidi Tacktill, an integrative breathwork and somatic practitioner. My work meets people in the moments when the old ways of being stop working and something deeper inside is asking to be heard. I guide clients through breath, somatic awareness, energy work and sound so they can move what has been stored in the body and reconnect with the parts of themselves they have muted to get through life.
What makes my work unique is that I do not fix or diagnose. I witness. I guide. I invite people back into relationship with their own inner wisdom and with the intelligence of their nervous system. My sessions are not meant to calm someone, they are meant to expand their capacity to feel and choose. Clients often come to me in seasons of identity shift: people who feel disconnected, stuck in roles that no longer fit or overwhelmed by emotions they have learned to push down. Together, we peel back the conditioning that tells them who they should be and help them remember who they are.
At the heart of my work is a simple intention: to help people come home to themselves in a way that feels honest, embodied and sustainable.
Great, so let’s dive into your journey a bit more. What breaks the bonds between people—and what restores them?
I do not see bonds as something that break. I see them as living connections that shift as we grow. We are here to play roles for each other, to mirror what we cannot see on our own. Sometimes that mirroring is gentle, and sometimes it stretches us in ways we never expected. What people often describe as a broken bond is usually a moment when two paths are no longer aligned with who each person is becoming.
I do not believe every relationship is meant to be restored. Some are meant to teach us, wake us up, or redirect us. When a bond feels like it is falling apart, it is usually asking us to look at what the relationship invited us to learn in this lifetime. The restoration is not always in coming back together, it is in the clarity that the connection served its purpose for growth and realignment. That knowing is its own kind of healing.
What have been the defining wounds of your life—and how have you healed them?
One of my deepest wounds has been the belief that I had to earn my place by being who everyone else needed me to be. The good girl. The helper. The one who held it all together. I learned early on to quiet my own needs in order to stay connected, which created a lifetime of overgiving and disconnecting from myself.
Another wound has been the fear that if I showed my full range, my intensity, my truth, I would be too much. So I learned to shrink. To soften my edges. To stay within what felt acceptable. That shut down parts of me that were meant to be expressed, not managed.
I have not healed these wounds by fixing them. I have healed by turning toward them. By listening to the places in my body that held the stories. By letting myself feel what I spent years avoiding. Breathwork, somatics and energy work opened a way back to myself. They helped me unlearn the idea that my worth was conditional and remember that wholeness comes from integration, not perfection.
The healing has been in choosing myself with more consistency and softness, letting my voice take up space, and allowing relationships to meet me where I actually am instead of where I performed myself to be. I am still healing. I imagine I always will be. But now it feels like becoming, not surviving.
Sure, so let’s go deeper into your values and how you think. Where are smart people getting it totally wrong today?
I think many smart people are relying too much on intellect and not enough on embodied truth. There is so much focus on knowing, solving, optimizing and staying ahead that they miss the wisdom that comes from being in their body and actually feeling their life. You can be brilliant and still disconnected from yourself. You can understand everything about human behavior and still not know how to sit with your own discomfort.
What gets missed is the part of growth that cannot be thought through. The part that asks you to slow down, feel what is real, and let your nervous system guide you instead of your mind. When people stay only in their intellect, they often override the signals that would bring them back into alignment. They analyze what needs to change instead of sensing it.
The smartest people I know are the ones learning to pair their insight with embodiment. They do not just think clearly, they feel clearly. They let their body be part of the conversation. That is where things begin to shift.
Okay, we’ve made it essentially to the end. One last question before you go. What do you understand deeply that most people don’t?
That healing is not about becoming calm. It is about becoming available to the full truth of your experience without abandoning yourself. Most people are searching for a regulated nervous system as if it means steady, quiet or peaceful. What I understand in my bones is that a regulated system is one that can move between states with choice. It can rise, soften, contract, expand and still stay connected to itself.
I also understand that the body remembers everything the mind tries to forget. You cannot think your way into wholeness. You have to feel your way there, slowly and honestly. The body will tell you the truth long before your mind is willing to.
And maybe the deepest understanding is this. Nothing about you is broken. Even your protection patterns are love in disguise. When you stop trying to fix yourself and instead listen to yourself, everything begins to shift.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.heiditacktill.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heiditacktill/
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/heidi-tacktill-bethesda
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@GoSageYourselfPodcast
- Other: https://share.google/tPrKHDG2JlwcxwG1s
Image Credits
Joey Rushfield
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