Why dorothy

Dorothy didn’t start as a brand idea.
She showed up in a breathwork session.

During Courtney’s first breathwork experience, her grandmother came forward, clear, emotional, unexpected. Her name was Dorothy. The moment cracked something open. Not just memory, but meaning. It opened a deeper conversation about why this work matters so much to us, and why we felt called to build something of our own.

Both of us have been shaped, personally, and through people we love, by mental health struggles. And both of us have felt the same frustration. The system is overwhelming. The solutions are fragmented. Too many people are cycling through resources that never quite help them feel steadier, more connected, or more like themselves.

Dorothy was born from that tension, between what people need and what they’re being offered.

And then we realized something else.

Most of us already know Dorothy.

Not just the name, but the story.

In The Wizard of Oz, Dorothy isn’t on a journey to become someone new. She’s on a journey to remember what she already has.

She believes she needs the Wizard to get her home, only to discover the means were with her all along. Her longing isn’t really for Kansas, it’s for safety, belonging, and steadiness. “There’s no place like home” isn’t about geography. It’s about regulation. About coming back into the body. About returning to yourself.

Dorothy is courageous, not because she’s fearless, but because she keeps going while scared, confused, and tender. She shows us that strength doesn’t require hardening. It can come from staying open.

She doesn’t fix the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, or the Lion. She walks alongside them. Her presence creates enough safety for each of them to access what was already there: intelligence, heart, courage.

And when faced with the Wizard, Dorothy learns to trust her own lived experience. What she feels. What she knows directly.

In the end, Dorothy doesn’t want an escape, she wants to return, integrated, changed by the journey, but fundamentally herself.

That’s what Dorothy stands for.

A return to steadiness.
A return to the body.
A return to what was never missing, just waiting to be remembered.