Dance, Freedom and the Courage to Choose Yourself | Charline’s Story

Some people enter a room quietly. Others bring an energy that is immediately felt.

That is Charline.

I first came to know her through dance. Before I knew the story behind her joy, I noticed the freedom in the way she moved. She did not appear to be dancing for approval or attention. She danced because something within her needed to come alive. Her energy was joyful, sensual and unapologetically her own.

Only through our conversation did I begin to understand what that freedom represented.

At 27, following the end of a long-term relationship, Charline returned to her father’s home in France and asked herself a simple but confronting question: “What are you going to do now?”

She had always wanted to travel, but the opportunity had remained beyond her reach. When a friend suggested New Zealand, something within her responded. Her family encouraged her to remain closer to home—to choose somewhere familiar, such as Spain or Italy—but Charline knew she needed to travel farther.

This was not simply a journey to another country. It was a journey toward herself.

She arrived in Aotearoa New Zealand alone, with limited English and little knowledge of the country or its culture. She struggled to communicate, encountered people who did not always have the patience to understand her and found it difficult to secure work during winter. Yet every night, she studied English independently, writing down new words and continuing even when the experience felt isolating.

Courage, in Charline’s story, is not the absence of fear. It is the decision to keep moving while fear is still present.

Again and again, she told herself: “Just go.”

That willingness to go opened her life to unexpected forms of connection. Through WWOOFing, she met Lynn, who became like a Kiwi grandmother to her. During a solo road trip, she met a man living in his van and surviving by selling watermelons on the beach. Although he had very little, he gave Charline $50 and asked her to enjoy her journey through New Zealand.

She tried to refuse, knowing that he needed the money himself. But he insisted.

For Charline, this moment revealed something beautiful about humanity: true kindness does not always come from those who possess the most. Sometimes it comes from people who understand what it means to have little and still choose to give.

Her grandmothers also remain deeply present in the woman she is becoming. One had dreamed of going to Paris to work but never found the courage to leave. When Charline announced that she was moving to New Zealand, her grandmother gave her the permission she had perhaps never given herself: “Go, Charline.”

Charline carries the love, sacrifices and unrealised dreams of the women who came before her—not as a burden, but as an invitation to live more freely. She wants to honour them by refusing to surrender her own life to fear.

“For my grandmothers and the strong women in my family, I will never give up. I will shine. And if I’m too bright for you, just look away.”

That sentence captures something essential about her.

Charline knows what it means to lose herself in a relationship. She remembers placing another person’s needs and desires before her own and becoming quiet about experiences that should never have been accepted as normal. Her freedom today was not given to her. It emerged through the difficult process of recognising that love should never require someone to disappear.

Her message is not that we should stop loving others. It is that we should not abandon ourselves while doing so.

Whether the relationship involves a partner, friend or family member, Charline believes we must remain attentive to our own energy. She feels the emotions of others deeply and has learned to notice when a connection leaves her drained. Protecting herself does not mean becoming cold. It means understanding that sensitivity requires boundaries.

Dance has become one of the clearest expressions of this reclaimed freedom.

When Charline shares a dance video, she is not performing for the attention of men. She is enjoying her body, her energy and the happiness of seeing herself move. Dancing is not an invitation for someone else to define her. It is her way of celebrating herself.

As a gay man who also enjoys dancing in heels, I understood her immediately. The sensuality of dance does not always exist for an audience. Sometimes it is simply the pleasure of feeling fully alive within your own body.

This is why Charline’s presence affected me before I knew her story. During one of the most difficult periods of my own life, I would see her dancing and be reminded that joy did not have to be earned. She showed me that I could stop criticising every movement and simply allow myself to enjoy the moment.

The essence of Charline is not merely bravery, confidence or positivity. It is her determination to remain alive to herself.

She is someone who was frightened and went anyway. Someone who once lost herself in love and chose herself again. Someone who carries her grandmothers’ encouragement across generations. Someone who recognises kindness in a stranger and family in a person she has only recently met. Someone who dances not to be desired, but to experience the joy of being entirely her own.

Charline’s life is still unfolding. She does not pretend to have arrived at a final version of herself. She understands that finding yourself is not something you complete once. It is a choice you continue making every day.

Perhaps that is the most beautiful part of who she is.

Charline did not travel to the other side of the world because she already knew who she was. She came because she was willing to discover who she could become.

Full Podcast: Dance, Freedom and the Courage to Choose Yourself | Charline’s Story