Hi, my name is Asa Dean, so glad you dropped by! I’d like to share a little bit about my history and my world in hopes of letting you get a feel for me and my work.
I was born in Atlanta towards the end of the 80s. My father was a musician and my mother tended to me and my brother and sister and then later worked as a teacher. My childhood had plenty of food, physical safety and even awesome camping trips. It also had its fair share of addiction, mental illness, and the emotional and relational distress that comes with inter-generational trauma and neglect. Two weeks after I was born at home (go mom!) I was taken to the hospital for an emergency heart surgery due to my aorta being pinched shut. The surgery went great and I continue to have a capable & adventurous body. That procedure along with the anesthetics and extended stay in the hospital also likely primed my nervous system to deal with the stresses of life by defaulting towards more freezing or shutting-down kinds of responses.
Hi, My name is Asa Dean
and this is The Body Befriended
Growing up I found freedom in moving my body. I loved to ride anything with wheels including unicycles, I played sports and explored acrobatics. Possibly my greatest support in my youth came at a summer camp in the Appalachian mountains of North Carolina where I experienced a sense of belonging that remains a resource to this day. Some of my latent emotional and relational challenges came forward in my late teens and early twenties as several of my friends died early tragic deaths. I was ill equipped both inside and outside to navigate these losses. For a number of years I used drugs to cope with the intangible feelings of shame, anger and grief that I had never learned how to acknowledge, let alone be with in any sort of healing way.
In my mid-twenties I moved to Hawaii. Not only did I begin my education in massage and the somatic healing arts, I also left the routines and relationships that had been forming & limiting my life until then. This was a great move. I ended up spending several years associated with that school and developing relationships with some remarkable therapists and teachers that continue to inform the work that I do today.
The breath-taking aliveness of Hawaii led me to pursue more experiences with the wilderness and the resilience and vitality that can be found there. For three years I facilitated rites-of-passage trips and worked in wilderness therapy with youth and young adults in crisis. While seeing the significant benefits that can occur with this work, it also became clear that many individuals dealing with complex or long-standing challenges also needed support to reconnect to their bodies and the difficulties and healing opportunities that reside there.
This insight as well as the unique somatic education of the massage school led me to pursue more advanced education with programs like the Somatic Experiencing (SE) Institute, NARM, DaRE, and other leading-edge teachers in the trauma healing field. My work brings the bodily and relational wisdom of these methodologies along with the deep belonging & resilience available from the natural world to create an honest space where my clients get to meet more of themselves - the miraculous, beautiful and capable as well as the scared, fragmented and overwhelmed.
The following are a few principles that guide my work with clients as well as living in general:
→ Our body/mind self is hardwired to move towards healing and wholeness
→ Our symptoms of distress are often caused by what were originally intelligent strategies to solve very real problems we encountered in our past
→ Working here in the present moment allows access to the most effective and genuine transformations
You can read more about my healing philosophy here:
One of my greatest joys lives in 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. I currently live in the desert Southwest of Durango Colorado and work with clients locally and globally online. Please be in touch for a free consultation.
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