Today, we celebrate our dear friend and collaborator, Bernadette Pleasant. A grief educator, somatic healer, and creator of Femme!, Bernadette has spent her career building a practice in which movement and honesty do the work that words alone cannot. Certified in the Nia Technique, Nia 5 Stages, Ageless Grace, Somatic Healing, Reiki, and Integrated Energy Therapy, and trained in African, Tribal, and Free Dance, she travels the world to empower individuals through classes, workshops, retreats, and conference engagements.
We have had the privilege of sharing space with her over the years, and here are some Flawless Talks and blogs from our collaboration.
Starting with Bernadette Pleasant with Tre Gabriel – Self-Care on authenticity and self-care, to a reflection on what a Flawless world looks like, in Bernadette Pleasant with Tre Gabriel, where she described it as a place of acceptance, free of judgment, and full of grace for our own imperfections.
Bernadette teaches that the body holds grief, and that moving through it is not optional.
In Shake It Out: Movement, Grief, and Somatic Healing with Bernadette Pleasant, she traces how the body stores what the mind cannot yet process and offers accessible techniques for somatic healing. Her movement practice comes to life in Bernadette Pleasant on Femme! in Conversation with Tre Gabriel, fusing primal movement, dance, meditation, and creative visualization into sacred, safe spaces where everyone is invited to reclaim their power. She has also made the case in Bernadette Pleasant on Mental Health & Awareness Months that this work cannot be confined to a calendar month.
You can read more about her self-care philosophy in Self Care Tips: Movement and Emotional Intelligence and see her in action at our Flawless workshop with students at one of our partner schools in New York City in Flawless Love Grows in Harlem. On her birthday, we are grateful for the wisdom, movement, and humanity she has brought to our community and beyond.
