Below are brief introductions to the folks on our core team. Our offerings are also intertwined with ever-widening circles of collaborators from interconnected disciplines including neurobiology, bodywork, functional nutrition, acupuncture, performing arts, community organizing, and environmental justice.
The following is a list of the foundational ethics (which are both abstractions that help us cultivate a generative interiority and practices that we do our best to commit to and integrate into our daily rituals, relationships, and pursuits).
Part of Somatic Re-orienting is the process of developing a relationship to language that allows for deeper communication with self/others while simultaneously loosening our (learned) control over words, allowing ourselves and everyone else more grace as we think aloud, meander through new meaning, and offer our lived experience to our definitions, letting them be alive things that grow as we do. Thinking is part of somatic experiencing: we think with our minds which are created by our bodies.
If you feel called to do so, pull your journal out and explore your working definitions for any/all of these terms; we’ll have plenty of chats about them together when we meet:
(re)orientation
(re)wilding + nature
imagination
somatics + coherent breath
joy + delight
curiosity
attention + awe
practice + ritual
bodymind + spirit
dissonance + equanimity
Our Team
Emily Thornton, LCSW, MSW, E-CYT-200
Founder and psychotherapist; yoga/meditation instructor; writer; non-ordinary-states of consciousness guide
Hi! I’m Emily. Breathe First is my creation, dreamt up with the help of a dear friend and collaborator who you’ll learn more about below…I am, first and foremost, a witness, a soul in a body in the process of witnessing (which, per Ross Gay, is a kind of poetics, and also per Ross, reporting on etymology as he so often and so delightfully does, poetics comes from poesis which means, get ready for it…making). From the time I could hold a pen, or crayon, I’ve been writing things down, nearly every day, in multiple, vaguely organized notebooks to keep track of the things I see, feel, wonder, hope, or imagine.
My deep love of reading, travel, music, and meandering through a forest or along a waterfront are among the most fundamental aspects of my identity in the incomparable ways they make me feel, how they fortify me to keep going, and the ways they draw me back to the wildness that is our birthright, our destiny, and our most sacred responsibility. I didn’t make the connection until reading Ross Gay’s forward for a lovely book called How to Love the World, but my instinctive tendency to watch, to attune, to be in the joy of witnessing, was/is my foundation for making….for making art, for making meaning, for making connection.
Every being has within them their part of the unending fabric of the cosmos. We are inextricably linked with each other, with every lifeform, with the past, the present, and the future as we move through the spiral of non-linear time. Maybe, for some of you, this sounds too abstract or convoluted but it’s all actually just fact, and the corresponding faith, of physics and astronomy and physiology. We don’t yet have good mainstream conversations about this but these disciplines (and every discipline in its way) are the smaller pieces of what we’re talking about when we try to talk about human psychology. For too long this work has been segregated from our actual daily lives, from the lives of the rest of the world, and from the histories and mysteries that, for better and worse, make us who we are and shape how we think (which leads to how we feel).
There is a more effective way forward where we are more deeply connected to ourselves and, therefore, to each other and to the earth. No one I’ve ever met has wanted to spend their life kicking the can down the road or biding their time until there’s no more of it left. We want our lives to have depth and awe and resilience and tenderness and reserves of the stuff that’s required for growth. I don’t have all the answers but I’ve collected, and dreamt up, some very good questions along the way; together, we’ll explore these and/or whatever inquires are most essential to you.
Change happens slowly but in deliberate ways. We need some simple (but not always easy) foundational elements to move ourselves from where we are to where we dream of being. I’m walking the same paths as you and the only difference is that I might see things a little differently or have seen something you haven’t. As I continue to bear witness, and make sense of what I see, I am also in this eco-integration journey, whereby I continually alchemize my findings and offer them, for whatever they’re worth, to you.
All I ask is that you come as curious and as present as you can. I will meet you wherever you are. From there, we’re off….
I look forward to our collaborations,
with love, Emily
***
Presently, I work with individuals and groups, offering one-on-one therapy, workshops, trainings, discussion forums, hikes, prep/integration for non-ordinary states, asana classes, guided meditation, and support for creative expression in whatever form you can dream up.
Kelsey Merdian
Certified Mediation and Hypnosis Guide; Clinical Psychotherapist-in-Training
Kelsey is a trained meditation and hypnosis guide currently completing a Masters Degree in Mental Health Counseling. Her vibrant spirit and years of globetrotting make her offerings the most delightful combination of intentional, informed, and fun. Rooted in a humanistic approach, Kelsey’s guidance is aimed at exploring where you are in your path, identifying opportunities to grow, let go, and integrate. In all of her sessions, she offers warm and collaborative support to help you move toward what you seek as you also develop the capacity to be with, or even find peace with, what is. Willing to draw on her own personal ups & downs, and infused by her love of music, writing, and adventure, Kelsey is an ideal collaborator for anyone in need of a kind, open, and insightful partner in their journey towards more wholeness.