The window is wide open. The clock strikes 5am. Gentle gusts of air fill up the room while meditation music softens the energy, providing ambience and a sense of lightness.
Alexandra Dawson watches the cyclical movement of her diaphragm as she inhales and exhales, her legs extended onto the wall for an at-home lymphatic drainage session.
She reaches for the nearest poem book and flips through the pages, as though it is life itself leading her to the exact information she needs to hear at this very moment — sometimes she shares the ones that resonate with her to her Instagram story; other times, she keeps them to herself.
Clutching a journal and a pen, Dawson makes her way to the kitchen to brew some coffee. Soon, she will sip on her beverage as the paper in front of her becomes a keepsake of her thoughts. It is both an energetic release and her way of mentally preparing for the day.
“The main takeaway is spending time with myself and honoring and connecting to myself before I connect with anything in the external world,” says Dawson of her daily morning routine, which is an intuitive blend of all of her favorite things — journaling, poems, movement, and fresh air.
Dawson began to lean on spirituality during a particularly difficult season of her life. The 26-year-old from Massachusetts was in and out of treatment for a serious eating disorder during the majority of her high school years, and continued post-graduation to work on maintaining her recovery.
Things seemed to be getting better of her for a while; one day, she found herself struggling again with the possibility of relapse. Dawson knew she had to make a crucial decision: either revert back to her old ways and habits, or take a leap of faith and create newer, healthier ones. This period, while trying for Dawson, came with an abundance of insight and revelations.
“I realized quickly that my issue was always a lot deeper,” says Dawson. “It was really never about food. It was about my relationship with myself.”
It was around this point that Dawson found the practice that would change everything. Following a gut instinct that she could not explain – but nonetheless, immediately trusted – Dawson pulled out a yoga mat and started moving her body. She hasn’t stopped since.
The healing sensation was unlike anything she had ever experienced before. It revolutionized her world. She credits this particular moment as the instant where her longstanding struggle with how to honor the calling she knew she had to help others finally made sense: “The second I got on my mat, I was like: “Oh, I have found it.””
In terms of helping others, Dawson has worked tirelessly to do just that. After finding her footing, she felt compelled to reach a bigger audience of people so that she could share what was helping her along, in the hopes that it might be the catalyst for someone else’s healing. It started with her Instagram page and then branched out to a website, and now, a self-run podcast.
“It’s really rewarding when, by just sharing what I’ve been through or how I cope with things now,” says Dawson. “That story can resonate with someone and maybe give them a new perspective, or help them be a little more gentle on themselves.”
Dawson, who calls herself an “embodiment healer,” is just one among countless women in the community of wellness influencers who have used social media to amass a following and subsequently teach people how they can heal themselves, how they can be their own medicine.
This trend has gained prevalence since the pandemic, when quarantine played a major role in the popularization of new age spirituality, tarot cards, and manifestation on social media apps like TikTok.
With the world at home and the majority of people locked into their phones, many people turned to these practices as beacons of hope.
A natural side effect of this time period was that people were forced to slow down and face the hardships in their lives head-on, which is part of the reason wellness influencers like Dawson have been so successful.
As for cultivating her own group of friends and followers on social media, Dawson has taken a non-traditional route, and encourages others to do the same: “Get your mind out of all the rules that there are around how to grow a following, how to do this, how many hashtags to use and just ask yourself like: ‘What would I post if I was my most confident self?’”
Over 20,000 people follow Dawson on Instagram, often expressing love and gratitude for the messages she shares, and for the ways she lets people know that they are not alone.
Growing her business has come with trial and error, but Dawson has learned a lot from allowing herself to make mistakes. One of her biggest lessons so far has to do with confidence, something that she has built from the ground up for herself.
“Confidence only can come from action,” she says. “We can’t worry about what’s the right next step because that will paralyze us, so we just have to take a stab.”
She believes that as an influencer, showing up as you are – in the rawest, most truthful form – and being authentic is what leads other people to find you and connect deeply to what you are doing.
Dawson’s work means everything to her. She is humbled by the fact that she gets to show up for people, especially considering how hard she has worked to get to the place she is in the relationship she has with herself. Her gratitude and inspiration for what she does is unquantifiable.
“It’s such a beautiful and special thing that my own journey of self healing and the battles that I went through, and all the hard times that I experienced that I truly thought I was never going to make through,” says Dawson. “I got to use that as the catalyst for my purpose in this world.”
