THE BODY BEFRIENDED
Asa Dean
Somatic Experiencing Practitioner
trauma healing & nervous system care for
people who want to do more than just talk about it
Are you struggling to return to a positive and resilient baseline? Feeling easily overwhelmed?
Maybe things that were once simple have you feeling like you're stuck in fight or flight, or too shutdown to even deal with life?
If you can't talk or understand your way out of it and your usual ways of shifting or coping aren't working - its time to tune into your body's wisdom.
Your nervous system is likely stuck in 'threat mode' - normally an exceptionally helpful feature of our biology but when left 'on' it turns our lives (and our bodies) into a battleground.
While methods like talk therapy and other forms of mental understanding are useful for certain issues, they don't get to the core of things when our self-protective system gets hijacked.
Resetting your nervous system to a place of resiliency and vitality requires working directly with your physiology - with our bodies. This is what we're all about at The Body Befriended.
Are you ready to transform stress into vitality? To move out of hopelessness and overwhelm into possibility and pleasure? To find a new normal and see life and yourself with new eyes?
I'd love to help you feel better while uncovering the innate strength and wisdom your body possesses.
I help people inhabit and befriend their bodies by compassionately guiding them to release accumulated stress and trauma, and teaching people how to build resiliency in their nervous system. This work does not require reliving past experiences - it is grounded in the fundamental biological architecture of mammals and is an innate part to how we have lived, survived and healed for thousands of years. Humans and other domesticated animals are the only creatures who experience trauma as a lasting experience; the wild/unadulterated self inside of each of us knows the way home. Learn more about Somatic Experiencing®.
BODY BASED HEALING
Somatics
The Greek word 'soma' refers to the body. In modern therapeutic references the word comes with a connotation of intelligence. I like to think of the soma as the vast intelligence that lives in and animates our bodies. While this intelligence often lives just beneath the surface of our everyday awareness (doing things like keeping our heart beating in a reasonable range, digesting our food, and keeping us upright in gravity) we can also access it by learning to pay attention to our bodies in particular ways. This ability, sometimes referred to as embodiment, is helpful in many ways and is also a necessary part of healing from certain woundings and traumas that life deals us. In our work together we will increase your ability to experience both pleasant and unpleasant feelings, thereby giving you access to more of life. We will also help the automatic reactions that sometimes run the show to come around less often.
Sensation
Do you know what eating, going to the bathroom, quality kissing, and healing trauma all have in common? That's right, sensation. Success with each of these processes relies on our ability to recognize certain messages that take the form of specific sensations. From the grumblings of your belly or the butterfly-like magnetism around a new love to the relief of a freshly emptied bladder, sensations are our bodies' way of telling us that something needs our attention or is changing. Similarly the lingering effects of overwhelming or traumatic experiences from our past often make themselves known by their intrusive demands for attention. This includes things like tension, quick reactions, environmental or dietary sensitivities, pain, empty or collapsed feelings, and other difficult experiences. The good news is that just like an exhale follows an inhale our bodies know how to release the stored stress when we learn to give them the sort of attention they need.
My belief is in the blood and flesh as being wiser than the intellect.
-D.H. Lawrence
Working together will support you to:
Free yourself from the lingering effects of accumulated stress & trauma
Develop new tools to help maintain a regulated nervous system
Identify your boundaries and their situational nature
Hear and understand the language of your body
More accurately identify your needs and desires
Expand your capacity for more pleasure and connection
Become more resilient to the challenges that life inevitably brings
While we will be talking, this is not talk therapy. I won't be trying to fix you nor give you 'the answers.' We won't be bypassing your pain and we also won't be bulldozing into the center of it either.
We will be working together as equals exploring and rewiring how your physiology shapes your experience. We will harness your innate strengths and nurture places that need support.
If you bring forth that which is within you,
Then that which is within you
Will be your Salvation.
If you do not bring forth that which is within you,
Then that which is within you
Will destroy you.
-The Gnostic Gospels
Meet Asa
One of my greatest joys is helping people transform experiences of suffering into those of possibility and belonging. Getting to witness the vulnerability, magic, and even humor that occurs along the way is the icing on the cake.
My own life began as I was born at home in Atlanta, Georgia. Within two weeks I was admitted to the hospital for an emergency heart surgery, which apparently was a success! My life has included addiction, close encounters with death at early ages, and the shame and confusion of growing up in a family and culture that represses, over- and under-sexualizes bodies, and otherwise attempts to cut us off from our selves.
I have found teachers in mountains and oceans, in meditation halls and plants, and in exceptional psychotherapists, bodyworkers and clients. I graduated from the Pacific Center for Awareness and Bodywork in 2015 where I later returned to teach. I have also completed Dr. Peter Levine's 3-year Somatic Experiencing training, a psycho-biological methodology for resolving the effects of accumulated stress and trauma. I practice massage therapy, wilderness therapy and facilitate rights of passage. I incorporate elements of all of these as well as other somatic methodologies into my work with clients.
I live in Durango, Colorado where I like to play in the snow and sun. Be in touch for a free consultation to see if we may be a good match for working together.
What People Are Saying
"Asa is an incredible human being with a massive heart and so much wisdom about the body. His presence gave me a sense of safety that I had never experienced before with another human being. His softness combined with knowledge made it really easy for me to trust him. I found profound healing through my work with Asa and keep on finding deeper healing with him by my side."
- Celeste González
Love & Leadership Mentor - www.devoteeoftheheart.com/linktree
"Asa created a nourishing and flexible container which felt safe to experience and experiment with some of the many parts of my psyche. When exploring these parts, they would be welcomed by Asa and met with a brilliant balance of inquisitive uninhibited play and rooted grounded awareness. Having my vulnerability witnessed and held with such patience and grace has been extremely helpful in the rewiring of my nervous system. I would confidently recommend this creative healing experience to anyone. I feel immense gratitude for the gifts and teachings I have received in these sessions."
- Stephanie Thomas
"Asa is a healer of great integrity. In his own way, he creates a space that is infused with a stabilizing force of compassion, attunement, and safety that naturally invites one into their journey of healing. His experience is apparent in the expression of his intuitive insight, adaptability, skillful touch and professional manner. Asa provided me with resources, tools, and guidance to feel empowered and engaged in the direct experience of my body and tapping into the wisdom it holds."
- Dariya Quenneville
Founder of Finding Polaris - www.findingpolaris.org
"I have experienced Asa to be as adventurous as he is compassionate, as fun-loving as he is reverent, and as hilarious as he is wise and thoughtful. I have vast amounts of respect and admiration for the ways Asa is both dignified and humble in exchanging real time, relational feedback. He is someone with whom I can trust my deepest secrets and share my deepest fears. He is someone in whose boldness I can trust in difficult conversations and whose softness I would trust caring for my children."
- Michael Polon
GET IN TOUCH
Want support with your journey of trauma healing or to learn more about Somatic Experiencing?
I'd love to hear from you...