Elan Freydenson

07/24/2024

I'm excited to land in Oakland, CA in a few hours. I'm back to visit with friends, dance, attend an executive coaching training and reconnect with the place that lovingly Adulted and held me for over two decades.

And I'm leading a Continuum workshop... Existential Pleasure: Moving at the Pace of Love. 💦🐙😋

The workshop is in Berkeley in August 3. Early bird deadline is this Friday.

Some words about it...

Our essence is divine, connected to the greater intelligence of life and ever flowing from the cosmic stream of Love. The felt experience of satiating love, embodied presence, and feeling our connection to all of life happen at a very different rhythm than social media missives. You are invited to be recalibrated by wholeness and bring your frozen, fragmented, and unsure parts home. We will slow down to the pace of nourishment and ride the wave of love. Freshened and cleansed by the waters within and without.

Link to the event in the comments.

03/29/2024

There are thousands of healing modalities out there. All different kinds promising healing, wholeness, and perhaps even an “end” to the healing journey– some vague arrival point where you’ll magically feel happy and good all the time.

Those… are not my jam. I’d like to share with you what my jam is.

Womb Surrounds. The ‘why’ is simple, but the list could go on…

Womb Surrounds are the only environment I have found on my own healing path that has noticed what was missing in my early life, and lovingly given me those qualities and experiences that my body and psyche needed to let go and let God.

When I attended my first Womb Surround as a participant, I was blown away by what I received that I couldn’t possibly fathom before. Adults (the facilitators) modeling healthy bonding & attachment, kindness & trust between each other, warmth and impeccable welcoming of me, a feeling that I was truly wanted and that I belonged, and a profound new awareness that aspects of my birth story had been playing out my entire life, hindering my ability to experience connection, rest, aliveness, pleasure, and all the natural kinds of goodness that emerge from coherent human connection.

Fast forward to today, 25 Womb Surrounds under my belt, TWO rounds of the 2.5 year Castellino Foundations Training (led by the Womb Surround created himself, Ray Castellino) YEARS of therapy and personal work, and now approaching 13 years of working as a coach and facilitator… and I’m not here to tell you that I’m healed and have it all figured out.

I’m here to tell you that from the seat of my soul, I believe in this work. I believe in its capacity to address any and all kinds of Earthly, human challenges because it’s designed to bring massive Love and repair to every aspect of this human journey, starting all the way back at preconception.

I’ve participated in and facilitated Womb Surrounds that have helped people heal:

-Complex early childhood dynamics
-Birth trauma
-Ancestral trauma
-Early life & adult attachment challenges
-Chronic nervous system imbalances
-Sexual abuse or assault trauma
-Twin loss
-Addiction
-Loss of will to be alive / suicidal ideation
-War time trauma (from ancestors or lived experience)
-Boundary & consent violations
-Emotional abuse
-And more…

I would venture to say that there is nothing that is too big, too much, too traumatic that a Womb Surround couldn’t hold. I hope you will join us. ♡

The next opportunity to participate in a Womb Surround with me is May 2nd-5th in Asheville, NC and early bird ends April 2nd! Click here to learn more and sign up:

The safest and most effective form for healing complex trauma from the beginning of life. Transform and integrate your birth, gestation, ancestral and early attachment imprints with somatically attuned and highly experienced practitioners.

02/28/2024

Are you living at the pace of dissatisfaction?

All mammals are designed for pleasure. The sensations of pleasure are here to inform you that you are on the “right” track. It’s a reflection from your nervous system that your body likes the choices you are making.

I’m not talking about intimate pleasure. I mean being able to feel the satisfaction of eating just the right food, in the right amount, with the right people.

The pregnant pause that comes when you find just the right moment of connection, where that experience of aloneness fully fades away. Being soft and present enough to the cool breeze making the hairs on your body stand up. Being slow and permissioned enough to relish in the beauty in front of you, and letting it fill you up without having to navigate feelings of shame or a pressure to be more productive.

If you’re making choices from only your mind, without including all the intelligence that lives in your entire body, then you’re missing out on the strata of information that your body is tracking.

Living in grayscale was okay 40+ years ago, but it’s not the thriving that is actually possible today.

Most of my clients show up with an upper threshold on goodness.

For everyone I know, this threshold was set up for them. Set up by the limits of their mother’s body to experience wellness. Set up by what their father could allow to move through his body. Set up by the messages from culture about how much aliveness and wellness was safe and accepted.

If I lived with the thresholds handed down to me by my immigrant parents, school teachers, and the U.S. culture, I would be depressed as F**K. And I couldn’t do better until I looked at my limits and why they were there.

It’s our survival strategies that keep us from living at the pace of satisfaction.

Full Stop.

Your mother survived the threat from unconscious men by hiding her aliveness deep within (and it’s sadly still happening all around us). Your father learned to keep his joy hidden since he was a young boy because he would get shut down by HIS father and his peers for being bigger and better.

The reasons are specific, nuanced, and unique to your family… and this uniqueness is essential to uncover.

My freedom to be me and as alive as I am today came from being with people who sat with me to learn what my unique way of shutting down was. What was my unique way of staying fast and avoiding the feelings that came when I slowed down?

There are patterns to our survival strategies AND the you in there that is unconsciously holding a survival strategy in place needs attention.

Our social culture, our corporate culture, our media culture, our devices and screens and movies keep us entertained and distracted so we don’t have to be with what is underneath.

I’m sick of accepting this as the status quo. . It’s not the world I want to create and be a part of.

The feelings you feel when you slow down MATTER. The feelings you feel when you are alone are IMPORTANT. The feelings you feel when you stop moving are a clue to calling you deeper...

They need ATTENTION. They need LOVE. They need a space to be felt.

They are there for a really good reason. But, most of us have forgotten or never consciously understood the context of why they are there.

Avoiding those feelings is running the show, and so are our inherited survival strategies, and most of us don’t even know where they come from..

Freedom comes from unburdening. Freedom comes from loving what wasn’t loved. Freedom comes from self-understanding and compassion for what your parents and ancestors did to survive. And freedom comes from getting that you are not them, and you are not living their lives and you no longer have to be like them to belong.

You get to be you.

You, today, in the context of safety, get to thrive.

And you get to feel pleasure.

And you get to move at the pace of life that fills you with the nourishing goodness that your body is capable of producing when it isn’t carrying the burden of the unintegrated past.

It’s your birthright to be free.

Everyone wants it, but most are scared to claim it and do the work it takes to get there.

The rewards of pleasure and peace are there waiting for you all along the way.

Claim your whole self and live at the pace of your satisfaction.

02/16/2024

It was a moment you usually don't want to experience as a business owner: There is no more work to do.

He (my client) doesn't actually need anything more from me.

I felt it and was curious. Could that be true? Does that mean we're done?

The financial-side of my brain was, like "No, reject this experience."

And we kept having moments of just sitting there staring at each other. Then he would share something else about his life that was going great.

We ended early that day. The next session it happened again, so... as I am committed to doing... I spoke and told him what I am noticing.

He was feeling similarly and didn't want to say anything because he really appreciated our time and didn't want it to end.

That session he came in celebrating how differently he showed up with the women in his life, including his mother and sister. His intention for that session was Celebration.

So, I supported him fully in that.

When I start with my coaching clients, we always spend the right amount of time in the beginning getting really clear on the transformation they want. On the changes they want to see in themselves and how they live.

I was compelled during the session to read his original intentions back to him one at a time.

"You want to feel less pain in your system." Check
"You want to have more energy." Check
"You want to follow your creative impulses and give your gifts to the world." Check
"You want to experience deeper love." Check
"You want to feel more free in your life." Check
"You want to attract a very different partner." Check
"You want to be clear on your purpose and live it." Check
"You want to be free of getting hooked in unhealthy ways by women and family in your life." Check

There were a few more I will leave out for confidentiality. (Note, some of the above are modified.)

We sat there, again, for a while staring at each other. Smiling, laughing and feeling celebratory.

Both drawing the same conclusion.

“Wow, you got everything you wanted out of working with me.”

And I sat there, (and still as I write this) in awe of what precise, committed and attuned support can provide.

It's not me. It is an orchestration. It is co-creativity at its finest.

The multidimensional intelligence in me moving with the multidimensional intelligence in him.

Unwind history, with ease and grace... and the power within can surface.

I'm celebrating an ending here for ten+ really awesome reasons.

I love putting my energy on people with the intention to support them. To support their growth. Their ability to feel love. Supporting their best life.

02/01/2024

Men desperately need safe spaces to be held.

With a world full of continuous atrocity mostly led by male bodies...
With newly mixed messages from culture to show up as just the right kind of man...
With the personal and ancestral histories that men are carrying that still haven't been given the chance to unwind...

Men are holding a lot.

I feel it. It's palpable.

Men need a place to find their organic, potent, embodied truth.

I have been quietly celebrating how much I get to witness this in my personal and professional life and with my clients.

In case you missed my recent announcement… After two and a half decades in the tech industry, I stepped away over a year ago. I made the transition to full time somatic therapeutic coaching.

Now I get to be with people. I get to support my clients in their unfolding and transformation. I am working mostly with men right now and I absolutely love it.

Some of you have experienced my work in Womb Surrounds, Continuum workshops or other group and personal contexts. Though I continue to offer these, my current focus has turned to support transformation in one-on-one containers over a committed time period.

🔥 When a man knows he has a place to show up where he will be received unconditionally, he opens.
🔥 When he understands how different parts of himself are showing up, he takes in a more accurate sense of self.
🔥 When the context of how he came to be this way is presenced and received, he can unwind.
🔥 When he knows that he will be lovingly tracked over time, week after week, month after month, Life catalyzes experiences and resources to support his evolution.
🔥 When the innate forces in him that drive him towards integration and greater alignment are supported, he can shed burdens and step into attuned self-leadership.

I know *I* feel great when I am in attuned self-leadership. I know women who feel great around men who embody this.

Here is my ask: I am opening up my schedule to support five more clients in a committed container of 4 months or longer.

If you know a man (or anyone of any gender) that your instincts feel would benefit from being held in this way by me, please take a moment to tag them or refer them to me.

You can find a link to my Somatic Therapeutic Coaching container in the comments.

01/29/2024

Do you have an accurate understanding of who you are?

We think we do, but we don’t totally understand how blindspots work or why they are there.

In this snippet of the Jaclyn Explores Science, Somatics and Social Change podcast, I talk about why and the limits of our own self-understanding. There are so many parts inside of you.

01/23/2024

I've always supported people.

Whether it was running the computer lab in high school or designing interfaces for people.

I worked in IT for 18 years, fixing computer problems, but being much more interested in making my client's lives function optimally.

I've been on a trajectory that has been, well… destined.

Today I am proud to announce that I am fully in (more on this below).

One thing I struggled with in the IT industry was the lack of relationality. There I was fixing computers where I much preferred to be going deep with people. My coworkers and clients were kind in the day-to-day surface conversations, but it wasn’t the right environment for us to get to the depth that I knew I could offer and longed to experience.

I was grateful for the money I was earning, because it allowed me to get SO MUCH F***KING therapy.

I attended trainings, workshops, retreats, received weekly acupuncture, skilled bodywork, and multiple 1:1 therapy sessions in different modalities. If you’ve heard of it, I’ve probably tried it.

I had the incredible fortune to step into spaces multiple times a week where the depth, complexity, and pain of my inner experience was invited.

It was addictive in the healthiest way. Finally, hidden parts were getting seen. I was being felt by another. My body was touched in a caring way that every mammal deserves.

The pains I lived with my whole life that I didn't understand were changing. Tears were streaming. My body was softening.

My connection to the divine was becoming clearer and my desire to be alive was flourishing.

Fundamentally, I was growing. A LOT. FAST. On every level.

My corporate client would regularly remark that each time he saw me, I looked younger.

Yes, I was aging, and my radiant spirit was freer than ever.

--

But I was still living a double life. You could call it resisting, you could call it ripening. It just wasn’t time…

Until now.

I stopped doing IT work in 2022.

Now, I support humans with a lifetime-in-the-making body of work that has culminated in my Somatic Therapy Coaching practice.

That's right… it’s transformation, all the time. 🥳 🙌 🦋

The transition hasn’t been easy, AND, it has already brought me immense joy to support my clients to flourish, come alive, break out of patterns, step into inner leadership, and to transform their relationships and careers into their fullest potential.

I am blown away by the response to my practice that I’ve been met with. Now I'm helping others soften, feel met, cry and yes, even age in reverse, just like I was (and still am 👶).

So make like a baby and head out to my website and explore working with me to live the life you were born for.

12/22/2023

Sometimes what we want most from our family holiday time is for something new and different to happen. Especially in social dynamics between relatives.

No, I don’t have an easy fix (short of sending them my way for somatic coaching–please don’t, unless they really want to grow & change 🤣).

BUT, I do have something fun and engaging you can do with them. I recommend the Dynamic Squeeze. 🍋🪗 Dynamic squeeze is a somatic exercise that requires at least three people. In large groups, you can form triads and do it all at the same time (sitting or standing). Who doesn’t like a good squeeze? Well… maybe that Uncle who's not in his body. We won’t know until we try!

So make it into a game.

A simple game. See if you can do it in a way that produces a natural smile.

That’s it. Just go for a smile (bonus if you get a laugh or a “wow, that’s nice, please don’t stop.”)

Here is a snippet of a video interview where I describe the Dynamic Squeeze (also called Dynamic Creative Opposition). Watch it. Learn it. Bring something new to your Christmas and NY events.

Secret tip you don’t have to tell anyone: it’s a way to get more into your body in the moment.

Enjoy!

–

Thanks Prema for the great interview and edit.

In this video you will learn a fun and simple somatic grounding technique that supports in deepening connection and feeling more embodied. This exercise is g...

12/14/2023

Intimate Comfort.

Feels like what we need in the dark of the darkest months of the year.

To be seen, to be felt, and to feel close in a way that allows us to let down into a satiating feeling of comfort.

Or being loved in a way that lets you be fully vulnerable, open, relaxed, and safe.

Or where you rest back into God’s lap, knowing that all of you is known and all your connection needs will be met with the sweetest attunement and care.

'Intimate Comfort' came through as I was Zooming with Cathy Courtenay, planning our Embodied Connection workshop.

If we are going to gather as a group at this time of year, let us at least touch this place, if not fully arrive there.

I need this, and I want to offer this.

Asheville Ewok Village (as my friend Robyn dearly coined this part of Appalachia), you are invited to come join us on Saturday.

Details in the comments below.

Sending warm cozies your way.

May you land in some Intimate Comfort this winter, this coming year, and for eternity.

12/04/2023

If you’ve been following my work for a while, you’ve probably heard me talk about the importance of differentiating our history from the present. We have our ancestral, familial, and cultural conditioning, and we have our essence, our blueprint, and our greater intention guiding us– always.

The work is about parsing through the layers. First is awareness. In my 1 on 1 coaching practice, I help my clients become aware of the energies, emotions, and dynamics that pre-existed them. This paves the way for our Soul and psyche to remember who we were (and still are) before incarnating into the inheritance of our ancestry and parents. Then comes the honoring.

Thanking those survival strategies that kept our ancestors and younger selves alive and got us where we are today. We then get to receive the gifts of these strategies (and the essence within the strategy) without being unconsciously sabotaged by them or held back from what we want for ourselves now. Then comes the integration. We court more and more of our essence to live, rooted in our bodies. We let go of the history we’ve carried in our bodies with kindness and reverence.

What I want to remind you today is that all of this takes practice and is a practice. Taking this path is a calling. Living this path is a devotion to freedom.

So let’s practice this path together.

Christina and I are overjoyed to offer this online practice space to you in our upcoming workshop called Integrating Early Life.

Join us from the coziness of your own home on Friday, December 15th from 1pm-4:30pm EST.

In this workshop, you will:
- Learn the 8 Principles of Highly Functional Groups & Families
- Learn effective somatic practices for self-regulation
- Experience a coherent field of holding and attunement
- 2 - 4 attendees will get about 20 minutes of somatic therapeutic coaching in support of an intention they have in their life with group witness
- Meet other like-minded Souls
- Discover something new about yourself

Investment: $45
Pre-registration required (16 participants max)
Sign up link: https://elanfreydenson.as.me/ELIwChristina

See you on Zoom.

08/16/2023

I had less than two hours with the group. There were 18 who chose to participate. The class was part of a larger collective of individuals at Embodied Intimacy's Summer Camp, ready to explore embodiment and connection.

"How many of you have done Continuum before?"

No one raised their hand. 🙅‍♂️🙅‍♀️

I love challenges. How can I create a safe container with new people so that their bodies and nervous systems feel safe enough to receive and experience something new?

I started with four of the Eight Principles of Highly Functional Groups. I immediately reminded them that they don't know what their bodies are for.

"If you approach your body with an agenda of what it should feel, what it should do, or how it should meet your Ego's expectations, you have already put it in a tiny domesticated 📦." 🚫

"Your tongue is pre-vertebral tissue. Your tongue is as open as your spine and vice versa. It longs to be undomesticated and has its own knowing."

(Emilie Conrad, the original channel of Continuum Movement, would say 🗣️ this regularly).

I taught my first "Ignite the Oral Cosmos & Inhabit Your Lo******ng Lips" back in 2016. This is one of my favorite ways to spark an erotic evolution in how humans kiss, give and receive nourishment, and experience the power of their mouth and the whole urogenital & digestive system.

It's not hard. The tongue and inner serpent long to be free. 🐍 🗝️

After I taught the sequence and some basics of the practice, I sent participants into the experience... "Slow down. Do less. Welcome everything." 🐢

And so it went. Three people experienced or***ms (without any stimulation and fully clothed). One went into a birthing sequence. One cleared some somatic history from being inappropriately touched as a baby.

Others left the class open, tender, and with sensitized taste buds.

Dinner was next. 🍽️ I sat down, and Carl said, "Whip out your phone, you're about to get a testimonial."

Here it is...

--

The next options to experience this work and related Continuum offerings are in person on Sept 2/3 in Boulder, CO. Link: Rewild Your Tongue in the comments. 🔗

My virtual Continuous Nourishment series is starting soon. Link also in the comments. 🔗