Cleo Darling

25/06/2024

YEAH, I’M TALKING TO YOU!

So many women don’t even make it through the door of my classes.

And I have heard all the reasons why:

* "My kids need me."
* "I don’t like being in a room of strangers."
* "I can’t move my body like that."

What I low-key hear are all the excuses that you have used and continue to use to not show up for yourself.

These are the women who feel caged because of the lack of movement and connection they experience in their bodies.

Deep down, I know they really want to come.

They think about it.

It caught their eye for a reason, and this is the dance they play with themselves to make it okay.

I get that this would expose you.
I get that this would make you feel vulnerable.

To be naked like this is fu***ng uncomfortable. I get that. (That’s a whole other post!)

And because of that, the distance to get there feels like it’s too far to cross, so they sit at home, but they still wish to be this thing they think they can’t have.

Eventually, this tried-to-be-forgotten part starts to get even more uncomfortable than not showing up at all, and they book that ticket. Then they put the next hurdle in their own way and the next one and the next one…

This is the real-life way you don’t show up for yourself. It does not just sit in this one part.

You are exposed already. So why not go all the way? 😏

I would never tell you not to be scared.

I have done and continue to do a lot of things scared. It is my resilience to practicing moving anyway that I take the most pride in.

I will say this though: BE BRAVE.

All the best things in life require your bravery! 😊

You are the only one who is intimate with the ways you stop yourself from living the way you truly wish to.

Turn, “I almost didn’t come,” into “I’m so glad I did this for myself.”

These two lines are legit what all these women have said to me almost word for word.

What I also know is that you won’t be alone. There will be a whole room of women waiting to meet you with open arms who have had the same head conversations as you.

I know that the deep principles I teach in burlesque start way before you even get a welcome message from me. It starts the moment you make a choice to show up for my class, which is the same as declaring that you show up for yourself!

What I also know for sure is that because of them choosing to do this for themselves, they start something that changes them for the better, deeper, and more loving of themselves.

CHOOSE YOU!

You’re welcome 😊

(It’s an inside joke that you will understand after class, and it’s a doozy.)

Tease and Transform. 13 July 2024. DM for the link!



The pic above is a moment that I will never forget where I danced my first solo. My whole body was shaking. I thought I would throw up. I did not do half the moves I had practiced. Yet by the time I got off stage. I was so much more than I thought I could be. I SHOWED UP. Funny that 😊

20/06/2024

WHO RUNS THE WORLD…

I just got a video and a message from one of client’s! She is a genius! A fantastic thoughtful game-changer. She has been rewriting her own narrative, switching on what one would call magic with me consistently over time. Today, she presented her vision to a Vice President of a country!

This freaking had me in tears of joy for her!

So I thought I would take this moment to flex 😏

I have had women work with me that are:
* 🎨 Creative Business Owners
* 👩‍💼 Entrepreneurs
* 🎭 Actors
* 🏆 Award-Winning Writers and Directors
* ⚖️ High Court Judges and Lawyers
* 🏢 Real Estate Executives
* 🎶 Musicians
* 💿 Music Moghuls
* 👩‍👧‍👦 Moms
* ❤️ S*x Therapists
* 🧠 Therapists
* 📅 Events Organisers
* 👩‍💻 Corporate Executives
* 🍎 Teachers
* 💪 Personal Trainers
* 🧘‍♀️ Life Coaches

They have:
* Changed their company structures to support their new visions
* Held their visions in high places (like with Vice Presidents of countries!)
* Danced on stages in front of hundreds of people telling new stories
* Confronted old narratives and changed bloodline expressions
* Come off their antidepressants and anti-anxiety pills completely
* Found vitality in their bodies again
* Found love again after many years alone
* Left jobs they didn’t like
* Left careers they didn’t like
* Left partners they didn’t like
* Cured themselves medically in unconventional ways
* Finally gotten pregnant
* Increased their business profits
* Completely changed their health status
* Taken on big corporations to change the status quo
* Fought for human rights and continue to do so
* They have walked into places not giving a flying #% to the structure that has told them to show up in a specific way
* Some have even lost weight but let me tell you that’s the least interesting thing about them

This isn’t even the wins I would consider to be the truly life-changing ones.

These rebels are the women that move DIFFERENT.

These women have all fallen in love with themselves through our work together and have a completely different sense of themselves in their bodies. They have all made big swings at life with many re-orientated, somewhat nameless moves that they chose to do during our sessions.

They chose to make their hidden selves visible.
They have “taken off” what is not authentically them.
They have chosen to become more intimate with their intuitive languages and processes.
They chose to release the emotions that no longer served them.
They chose to learn how to use what they perceived as “bad.” They chose to unearth their innate power and creativity.

Most of all, they learnt to trust what was there all along: themselves.

This is what getting to the heart of things looks like.

Every moment of every day, the spaciousness of learning to make these kinds of choices has improved the very quality of their day-to-day living.

These are the REAL women!

They know that they answer to themselves first and foremost, the ones that know being themselves is the real flex on life. It’s the most perfect dose of rebellion.

They have produced the knock-on effect of inspiring the people they come into contact with by the mere presence of living as they are meant to for themselves.

This is how you change the world.

This work makes my literal insides shake! Did I mention how much I love this work, being surrounded by these kinds of ungovernable women?! If I didn’t, now you know.

It is my delight.

If you want to be one of them, DM for 1-on-1 sessions.

18/06/2024

I LOVE A GOOD LITTLE “BUMP AND GRIND.”

It’s a dance move! Take your mind out of the gutter.

Let’s be clear.

I am not a professional dancer.

Nor have I had what would be deemed as a lot of high level training in that particular field.

I am not going to be teaching you routines or the latest twerk. That’s not what I do.

You might be wondering at this point then, "How can you teach Burlesque if you don't know how to dance or don’t teach dancing?” 🤔

How does this even work? What does a class with me even look like?

My strength here lies in more than the sum of my parts.

Makeup artist and hairstylist turned fitness professional turned life coach.

What that doesn’t say is that I had to create new ways to see because of the “untrained” angles that I had to use to get there.

The way the body feels and how the body moves is inextricably linked.

I have created processes in movement, heart and thought space that gets you deep down into your loins! Yes, those ones. The ones that turn you on to life and help you fall in love with yourself. Some aunty in the corner is blushing profusely! Good. Blush.

I had a workshop attendee the other day say that I approached the workshop like it was therapy, and she hit the nail right on the head. That’s because I do. My Burlesque Therapy Baby!

There are real-world crossovers to learning about yourself in the way that I teach. This is where my magic works best. 🌟

🌟I connect people to their true selves and teach them to move from there.
🌟I read the way their body moves, meeting and guiding them on with options with what feels natural.
🌟I show them new ways to see themselves so that they can tell new stories.
🌟 I show them how to connect to their intuition to move.
🌟 I connect them to all the sensual parts that they may have misplaced.

I’m not interested in making you all move like that girl you saw on Instagram, even though she is beautiful. She is not You!

Have you ever stopped to consider who you would be if you stopped trying to be everyone else and just be yourself? 💃

Big Bold Juicy moves in life start with the small nameless ones where you trust yourself.

I love working with women who know that there’s more. They want it. They want to be creative. They taste their wildness under the constraints of life. They are willing to deep dive for it. 🌊
Are you one of these women?

No dance experience required. Do you have a body? Does it like to dance. Enough said. Let me Move you!

Consider this the training playground where you learn to make big moves for yourself and the life you wish to live, one glorious step and hip grind at a time.

Be bold, drop me a DM. There is “work” in play to do. 💬


film
Courtesy of for Baddie

26/05/2024

WOMEN CRY AFTER DOING A WORKSHOP WITH ME.

It’s not because I wish that for them, just to be clear.

IT'S BECAUSE THEY EXPERIENCE such a deep relief, more than anything.

They cry because they see themselves for the first time, like really see themselves.

They get to take off the weight of the expectations that they have carried for others.

They can take off the roles, hats, or masks that they have to wear to be accepted or function in the world. They realize that they can function in this world without having to be any of that stuff.

They walk away having experienced the felt connection with that part that’s been trying to get their attention for a long, long time.

They realize how they have had to function until this point.

They cry for what feels like the missed opportunities to be themselves and the recognition that they have been starving for their own attention.

They let all the times that they felt some type of way leave them because they realize these were all the times that they were trying to stand up for themselves and thought that they couldn’t.

WE get to the heart of things here.

That may involve a few tears of recognition; however, that’s what deep down we are all after, truly. It may not always look like tears, but sometimes grief is the only way we can get in.

Here you can just BE. There is no need to keep the performance of the world up anymore. It's flipping exhausting!

This is an invitation to experience yourself and the adventure of what knowing yourself actually is.
YOU CAN SPOT A FAKE A MILE OFF! You don’t like that, then why do you tolerate it from yourself?

I know that you don’t wish to continue to subscribe to that anymore.

You want to come back to yourself.
You want to be yourself more than the one hour of dance class every week. That’s not good enough for you anymore.
You want to feel at peace in your body.

The dance is only clunky if you are out of step with yourself.

Can you be yourself regardless of the circumstance? Can you be yourself regardless of the things around you that need your attention? Kids and spouse included.

Can you just be yourself?

So I know that my milkshake brings all the …….

Badass women to the yard.

They all have some things in common. They want to know themselves and be themselves so completely. They want the full experience of life, and they know that that can only be done through their relationship with themselves.

I offer guided explorations and invitations to those places of being through my Workshops, one-on-one sessions, and small group experiences.

Are you one of these glorious women? Do you know some more that want this too?

DM me to book a session or enquire about my small group experiences. I look forward to hearing from you.

To all the glorious badasses:

May we be them.
May we know them.
May we dance with them.
May we laugh and cry with them.

We all walk each other Home, after all.

It’s the real story of how to Fall in Love.

A deep thank you to the incredible ungovernable women that attended my Intimate Playground on Saturday. It was glorious to have that space with you.

12/05/2024

TALK DIRTY TO ME

I think many of us can relate to a moment in a past relationship when everything seemed to crumble. The final moments were often the hardest. I remember feeling like a mess of emotions, unable to control the tears streaming down my face. Despite my request for him to leave, he stood there, unwilling to let go.

I found myself saying, "I can't do this anymore. I have nothing left to give you."

In that moment, I realized I had given him everything I had. But the emptiness I felt wasn't just because of him. It was a reflection of how I felt about myself. I had poured so much of myself into the relationship that I had neglected my own needs and desires. It's a familiar story, isn't it? We often give so much of ourselves, hoping to be seen and valued, only to find ourselves feeling empty and unfulfilled.

It’s excruciately painful.

Yet also, it was one of the most face to face moments someone could have. A moment of complete honesty. I was trading my very essence because when you think that if you show up being a specific "kind of person," then the love and acceptance that you wish to feel will finally be yours. Not exactly.

I was exhausted into my soul.

It takes so much energy because you are always longing, chasing, depleting, hoping, proving, scared, people-pleasing, less than, starving, loathing.

This is not living.

THIS STATE IS NOT LIVING!

This is not living, says the quiet whisper inside your chest.

I've noticed for a really long time that we outsource what is actually ours to own, not because we don’t want to know but because we honestly have not been taught how to get there from where we are.

What it’s not asking you to do is look at yourself. Develop your own sense of self. Develop your own true North Star kind of love for yourself. Open up pathways of listening and care.

This is the real “dirty talk,” the one that really will move you right down where it counts.

That’s what my courses are about. Come back to yourself. Come back to your body. Learn to see, like really see.

Move from there.

I only ever open very limited spaces in my courses because these are intimate explorations to meeting yourself.

8 June 2024 is the next one. Tease and Transform Masterclass. Grab your tickets in my bio or drop me a DM, and I’ll send the link right over.

26/02/2024

From reclaiming your inner sensual creature to becoming the first member of your Tribe of One, this journey is about finding your way back home to yourself. Are you ready to come home? 💃✨

12/12/2023

30/10/2023

What a beautiful experience of getting to move with you! Thank you for the opportunity 🤗💖

29/10/2023

After the first step has been taken, there is no looking back, one must keep on stepping- Author unknown.

Moments before my first solo performance as Cleo Darling, nerves were visible. But I made a choice and I crossed the threshold.

Stepping onto the stage as a burlesque performer for the very first time can be compared to an Initiation ceremony. It marks the rite of passage and acts as the transformation catalyst from one phase of life to another.  

The fear experienced in this sacred and symbolic moment isn't meant to be harmful or debilitating. Instead, it's a means of breaking through the boundaries of the old self, challenging preconceptions, and propelling individuals into a new state of being.

This moment pushes performers to step beyond their comfort zones, confront their insecurities, and embrace their newfound identity openly. The first performance becomes a powerful threshold between the old self and the new artist.  

Mastering the art of working with one's fear can be a game changer, not just on stage but also in all aspects of life.

28/10/2023

The Hero's Journey is evolving to embrace .

Discover why the classic narrative no longer suffices, and how transforms the path to self-realization.

Embrace for a profound journey of being your True Self.