As Claude Valinsky tells it, for as long as she could remember, she maintained a calm demeanor to mask her severe distress. On the outside, she was “cool as a cucumber,” while inside she felt an “absolute hell.” If triggered by jealousy, her internal dialogue burned with “very intrusive, ‘I will kill you and her’ thoughts.” The best way she could explain these intense anxieties was astrology: “I always boiled it down to ‘I’m a Scorpio, sorry. I’m psycho, this is it.’”
Because she hid this inner chaos so well, her mother saw her as the “perfect child.” Throughout her childhood years in Montreal and later Arizona, Claude followed all the rules. She was raised Catholic and participated in First Communion. She didn’t drink or do drugs, never snuck out, and spent her free time studying. When she was eight years old, a new passion entered her world, one that would quickly take center stage. Her mother originally enrolled her in dance classes to help her learn English, but Claude quickly fell in love with the art form.
That dedication hit a wall at age 13, when her family relocated to Arkansas. Finding that the local dance scene lagged far behind her skill level, a bored Claude stepped away from the studio to play soccer for two years. But her true passion reignited during a trip to Janet Jackson’s Velvet Rope Tour. Watching backup dancer Jenna Dewan move with effortless technical precision and hard-hitting energy, Claude was spellbound. She decided her professional career right then and there: “I wanna do that. I just wanna do that!”
Re-energized, Claude threw herself back into training, keeping dance as the main focus of her life throughout her teenage years and into college. Yet, even as intense studio work and her studies kept her grounded day-to-day, her persistent internal unrest began surfacing in new ways. She found herself increasingly consumed by profound questions: “What are we? What is God? What is all of this?” Hoping spiritual truth might finally quiet the under-the-surface anxieties she had carried for years, she began searching for a path. She tried attending Mormon services, but the environment “didn’t hit” and “felt weird.” Visits to Southern Baptist and Black churches with friends left her feeling similarly unfulfilled, and even studying religion in college left her empty-handed.
Though she gave her studies her best effort at the University of Central Arkansas, she couldn’t ignore the reality of her situation: she was only there to satisfy her father’s mandate that she attend college. It was painfully clear that Conway, Arkansas, was no place to launch a professional dance career. She finally had a heart-to-heart with her father, pleading, “Dad, you have to let me go to LA. I just wanna dance.” Despite his first reaction, “You’re going where and doing what?” her honesty paid off. He agreed to let her go—on the single condition that she get accepted into a structured training program. She was one step closer to her dream.
True to her word, shortly after arriving in Los Angeles in August 2002, Claude headed straight to the Edge Performing Arts Center for a scholarship audition. She competed against 200 other dancers, showing her versatility across ballet, jazz, hip-hop, and more. Her years of discipline paid off: Claude was one of just 20 dancers selected for Edge’s grueling, 40-hour-a-week, yearlong program. Beyond physical training, Edge immersed performers in the business side of the industry—an experience Claude described as “apprenticing to be a professional dancer.” During those intense 12 months, professional work was off-limits. Instead, the focus was entirely on “audition etiquette, headshots, and agents—and getting rid of any weird habits you learned at your local dance studio. They’re just fine-tuning you as a dancer.”
Graduating from a professional program was one thing; turning a year of intense learning and discipline into a dance career was another. Claude was warned by others, “You probably won’t make it in the industry for one or two years.” But Claude had come too far and worked too hard to accept that timeline. She booked her first professional gig in just three weeks—a rapid success she attributed directly to her mindset: “I knew it wasn’t gonna take me two years to break into the industry. I refused to make that my reality.”
Her professionalism and confidence served her well as her reputation as an accomplished performer grew. She made a name for herself on bigger and bigger stages, alongside bigger and bigger stars. Her versatility allowed her to bridge two distinct worlds of commercial performance: the meticulous, high-precision choreography demanded by Pop and R&B heavyweights like Chris Brown, Jennifer Lopez, and The Pussycat Dolls, and the raw energy of live-band tours with rock and pop-punk acts like Blink-182, Avril Lavigne, and The Jonas Brothers.
Claude leaned into the high-octane life of a professional dancer while carefully avoiding its dangerous pitfalls. She maintained a “pretty tame” lifestyle, steering clear of the drinking, drugs, and party culture that derailed so many of her peers. Yet while her confidence on stage was undeniable, her romantic life remained haunted by old ghosts. Driven by the same irrational jealousy that had bedeviled her since childhood, the thought of dating stirred deep apprehension. She still couldn’t make sense of where these anxieties came from, so she cast around for something to blame: Her upbringing? Her mother? Her father? Bad boyfriends? Unable to find an answer, she resolved to simply live with the noise.
By her early thirties, Claude’s career was flourishing. Focused on expanding her resume and industry standing, she kept romance strictly at arm’s length. That defense mechanism held strong until Noah re-entered her life. Years earlier, when Noah was a heavy partier, Claude had been far from impressed. But upon reconnecting, she found a transformed man—and a kindred spirit. Both were dedicated, up-and-coming dancers who had turned their passion into a living. Professionally, they had made it.
As her former stance of “never, ever, ever” softened to “now you are someone I can be with,” Claude agreed to let her guard down. Yet opening her heart wasn’t that simple. Noah’s outgoing, magnetic personality—the very thing that drew her in—quickly began triggering deep-seated anxieties. When casual texts from female acquaintances popped up on his phone, Claude reached a breaking point: “Girls would just be like, ‘Hey, Noah.’ ‘Hey, Daddy.’ ‘Hey, handsome.’ And I’d be like, ‘Why is this happening?’” The protective walls she had built around her career gave way to an overwhelming tide of insecurity: “I was all of a sudden very jealous, psychotically jealous.”
She tried to play it cool until she simply couldn’t contain it any longer. What began as a tense conversation quickly boiled over into a full-blown confrontation. Claude exploded. They traded words, defenses went up, and for a moment, the relationship hung in the balance. But instead of walking away or matching her anger, Noah paused and shifted tactics — steering the argument away from a battle and toward compassion. Lowering his voice, he offered a single phrase that cut through the noise and gave Claude a glimmer of hope: “I wanna show you something.”
Curiosity cut through her anger. She had watched Noah transform his own life, and if whatever he was about to share caused that change, she was willing to listen. Noah pulled out a book and began breaking down the eight dynamics—a core Scientology principle he had recently been studying. As he walked her through the concepts, her attention sharpened. The ideas clicked, offering possible answers to questions she had carried for years: “That makes sense,” she admitted. Sensing her softening, Noah offered a gentle nudge: “I think you should go into the church and talk to someone.” Her interest was piqued, but her doubts persisted: “Listen, I’ve gone to many churches. If I feel weird, I’m leaving.”
A few days later, Claude – her mind racing with questions – was sitting across from a staff member named Heather inside the Church of Scientology of Los Angeles. Claude opened up about her life, how she ended up in the church, and her lifelong, crippling jealousy. Listening intently, Heather pulled out a copy of Dianetics and pointed to a page detailing the reactive mind – the part of the mind that records and plays back painful experiences in a way that can influence your reactions, decisions, and emotions – long after the original event. Claude read in silence. She got to the end of the page and a realization took root: “Oh, my gosh! There is an answer for this problem that I have that I can’t control, and I’m gonna kill it. I’m gonna get rid of this thing.” In that moment, the weight began to lift: “It was almost like I was healed in that moment.”
Eager to move from theory to action, Claude enrolled in the Dianetics seminar to experience the process firsthand. Sitting across from a partner who guided her back through past traumas, she felt the emotional charge draining from memories that had haunted her for decades. Where panic and jealousy once lived, relief took over: “I loved getting to go back and revisit these incidents that had been traumatic for me and have them turn into a memory that I could simply look back on and go, ‘Oh, that happened,’ as opposed to feeling deep emotion about it. It no longer has this control over me and my emotions. It was like, ‘Oh, that’s just a memory now.’”
That taste of freedom left her hungry for more. Energized by the shift, she turned to Heather with urgency: “I love this, but is there a super-speedy way to do it?” Heather introduced her to The Bridge – a visual chart that guides the individual from their first awareness of Scientology to each higher state. Claude looked over the chart and its step-by-step path that she could follow to move up to the state of Clear and get rid of her reactive mind. Looking at the chart, Claude saw a clear path forward. Her next step was the Purification Rundown, a regimen designed to cleanse the body of toxins and lingering chemicals—the essential first step on her journey to total clarity. After completing that rundown, she quickly moved through the subsequent levels. She diligently walked the path up The Bridge, experiencing gradual spiritual improvement with each step, until she achieved the state of Clear and, most notably, ended her lifelong torment: “I was not ever, ever, ever jealous again.”
During her journey up the Bridge, she developed a deeper sense of personal responsibility. She began to recognize her own role in various situations instead of adopting a victim mindset. She would ask herself, “What did I do to create this situation, and how can I avoid recreating it?” She realized she always has some responsibility for why situations occur in her life. This new, broadened perspective and heightened sense of responsibility also brought her greater happiness, fueling her desire for more out of life: “There’s a sense of responsibility that you gain as you go up the Bridge.” Eventually, she married Noah, and soon after, motherhood followed with a son named Nova.
But as Claude reached the advanced Operating Thetan levels of the Bridge, her sense of responsibility expanded far beyond her immediate family. During her sessions, a persistent voice kept ringing: “That place needs help. That place needs help. Who’s gonna help them?” She no longer saw her spiritual progress as a solo journey; she felt a profound duty to help others and support the organization that had transformed her life. The defining moment came right after a session in Los Angeles, when someone approached her about a new project focused on children’s courses. Recognizing it as the exact moment to step up for the next generation, Claude didn’t hesitate. She signed her staff contract on the spot—locking in her commitment before returning home to Vegas so there was no turning back.
Today, Claude leads a life that blends what she is most passionate about: dancing, family, and Scientology. She and Noah work at the Church of Scientology of Las Vegas, where she oversees staff training, communication, and ethics. Inspired by others doing similar church outreach – Andy Holmes in San Francisco and Gunnar Scharf in Minneapolis – she started creating popular social media videos to tell the story of Scientology and share her perspective. She incorporates her background as a dancer into her content – sometimes dancing while talking about Scientology – proving that dance and her faith can blend perfectly.
When asked about her favorite L. Ron Hubbard quote, she has an immediate answer that reflects her aggressive approach to life: “A man is as sane as he believes himself to be dangerous to his environment.” When asked why, she explained, “Your environment most of the time will try to cave you in or convince you that it is dangerous. So how dangerous, in the best possible way, can you be to your environment and be cause over it? That’s what Scientology does. It makes you dangerous and cause.”
That unrelenting urge to impact the world around her is what continues to drive everything she does. For Claude, sitting on the sidelines has never been an option: “I’m only as free as you’re free. Truly. I’m only as good as you’re good, so there’s a big job to do to get everyone on the same boat. I am not just gonna sit back and watch people self-destruct or watch the planet self-destruct.” Guided by an uncompromising will and a deep drive for the greater good, she approaches her mission with zero apology: “You gotta be kind of like a gangster about it.”
Colin Taufer
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