Today we’d like to introduce you to Adria Moses.
Hi Adria, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I usually tell people that my work didn’t start in a studio or a classroom; it started in a hospital. I’ve lived with chronic illness since I was 12 years old, and so much of my life has been shaped by learning to navigate pain, uncertainty, and systems that weren’t built for bodies like mine. What began as survival slowly became a practice of listening to my body, reclaiming agency, and finding language for experiences that so many people carry silently.
Over time, that personal journey transformed into my professional path. I became a yoga and somatics educator, a trauma-informed facilitator, and eventually the founder of the School of Radical Healing. Every offering I’ve built, from my immersions to my mentorship programs to my breath work and community work, is rooted in what chronic illness taught me: that the body is both a record of our experiences and a doorway into healing.
My story isn’t linear. It’s been interrupted by flare-ups, hospitalizations, surgeries, and moments where I had to rebuild my life from the ground up. But each return taught me resilience, clarity, and defined purpose. I learned how to hold space because I first had to learn how to hold myself.
Today, I stand where I am because illness forced me to slow down and pay attention to myself, to others, and to the ways we create care in community. My work is an extension of that truth. It’s the triumph of choosing to keep living, creating, and loving, even when the path has been anything but easy.
Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
A smooth road? Not at all. My life has been shaped by two major surgeries: one that came out of nowhere when I was 19, and one I’m preparing for now.
The first was an emergency. One moment, I was a college student trying to push through pain, and the next, I was being rushed into surgery that would leave me on life support. I woke up days later, disoriented, in a body that had been cut open to save me. That experience changed everything: my relationship to my body, to time, to what matters. It taught me early what many people don’t learn until much later: that life is fragile, and that survival can be both a gift and a responsibility.
The second major turning point is happening now. In January, I’ll undergo another complex surgery, and this one will reshape my body and my daily life in permanent ways. I’ll leave with an ostomy, rely on TPN (Total Parental Nutrition), and face a long recovery that disrupts the career and community I’ve poured myself into. There’s fear in that, of course, but there’s also a deep clarity. I’ve spent years teaching about embodiment, presence, and compassion, and now my body is calling me to practice those teachings in real time.
These two surgeries sit like bookends in my life: the first cracked me open; the second is asking me to rebuild with intention. The struggles have been real: the medical trauma, the unpredictability of chronic illness, the challenge of sustaining a career while constantly negotiating what my body can or cannot do.
But each time I’ve been brought to the brink, I’ve come back with a stronger sense of my position here in life. My work, my voice, and my commitment to creating trauma-informed spaces all come from what I’ve lived. I’m still here, still choosing myself, still choosing joy and community, and that, to me, is the triumph.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
My work sits at the intersection of somatics, trauma-informed care, creative education, and community healing. I’m a yoga and somatics educator, a curriculum developer, a writer, and the founder of the School of Radical Healing, a program that teaches people how to create spaces rooted in nervous system awareness, love, and embodied leadership.
What I’m most known for is making healing feel human. I don’t teach from theory alone; I teach from lived experience. Living with Crohn’s disease for 20 years, and surviving two major surgeries that reshaped my body and my life, has given me a sensitivity, a depth, and a perspective that informs everything I create. I understand what it means to live in a body that holds trauma, to navigate systems that overlook complexity, and to still choose joy, movement, and connection.
I specialize in trauma-informed curriculum and embodiment practices that are accessible, culturally aware, and rooted in real-world application. Whether I’m leading a 12-week program, hosting a retreat, designing mentoring structures for studios, or writing, my focus is always the same: helping people return to themselves with gentleness, agency, and presence.
What I’m most proud of is that I built this career during some of the hardest seasons of my life. I built it while recovering from surgeries, while navigating flare-ups, while learning my limits and reimagining what was possible for me. My work is not separate from my illness journey; it is shaped by it. And I think that’s what sets me apart: I don’t just teach resilience and embodiment; I live it every day.
My voice comes from a place of truth, tenderness, and lived authority. I know what it means to lose your sense of home in your body, and I also know what it means to reclaim it. That’s at the heart of everything I do.
Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
Something surprising that most people don’t know about me is how much of my work has been created in the shadows of illness.
People often see the polished programs, the retreats, the teaching, the creativity, but they don’t realize how many of those offerings were built while I was recovering from surgeries, teaching through pain, or navigating medical uncertainty. I’ve written curriculum from hospital beds. I’ve taught classes between infusions. I’ve held space for others on days when my own body felt like a battlefield.
What surprises people most is not the illness itself, but how much beauty and purpose were born alongside it.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.schoolofradicalhealing.com/pilatesandpresence
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adriamoses/
- Other: https://gofund.me/d29cfda29
