Read Time: 20 minutes

Community Connections is a spotlight blog series where we uplight other wonderful organizations and clinicians who align with our values here at Interfaith Bridge Counseling. This month’s feature is Lauren Erikson of Natural Emodiment, PLLC. We hope you enjoy getting to know Lauren and all the amazing opportunities she offers to our fellow mental health community through our video interview below:

[intro music]

Lena McCain: Hey everyone, Lena here from Interfaith Bridge Counseling and I’m coming at you today with a new community resource, where you meet and learn about other therapists in our Colorado community who I love and adore. Today’s guest is a good friend and collague who I’ve gotten to know in the past few years, primarily as the pandemic started. So, Lauren, why don’t you go ahead, introduce yourself, tell us about your practice, the name, etc.

Lauren Pass Erickson: Yeah, thanks Lena. My name is Lauren and I’m a somatic and dance movement psychotherapist in Boulder, Colorado and I’ve been in private practice since the pandemic, since 2020 actually, very interesting time to start. And, yeah I’m doing both in-person and online sessions in my practice. I work primarily with complex trauma, sexuality, with embodiment work, and that’s what I get super excited about!

LAUREN PASS ERIKSON IS A SOMATIC AND DANCE MOVEMENT THERAPIST IN COLORADO WHO OFFERS BOTH IN-PERSON AND TELEHEALTH COUNSELING AS WELL AS GROUP THERAPY FOR ADULTS, INCLUDING PARENTS AND LGBTQIA+ INDIVIDUALS.

LAUREN’S WEBSITE LAUREN’S NEWSLETTER

Lena McCain: Love that, love that! Before we started recording, we were chatting about how much I love somatic and  dance therapy and how big it was for me, um, when I was in grad school - and we’re going to kind of get into those types of details a little bit later. But what I would love of you to kind of share more insight about is, what services do you offer, just up front?

Lauren Pass Erickson: Yeah, absolutely. So I mostly do individual consulting with adults, so most of my clients are at least in their early 20s or up, and I also have like group therapy - short term group therapy opportunities that I do every so often that are closed, like five or six weeks groups on a particular topic, and then outside of the therapy realm a little bit, I also lead dance meditation sessions, which is a really fun and wonderful way to also get connected to your body and your self expression and that kind of thing, and so I do those in just drop-in groups that are online and in person as well.

Lena McCain: Awesome, and you know, you already started to kind of talk about the age that you work with, so I wonder, what really makes an ideal client for you? Like someone who is going to feel nourished, having their needs met, and value the work that they’re doing with you?

Lauren Pass Erickson: Yeah, absolutely - so I think, what I really love working with, is getting people more connected to their bodies, more connected in their relationships especially, and also more connected in their sexuality - and so I really love working with queer and bisexual women, that’s a big passion of mine, I really love working with people who are questioning sexuality and kind of want to explore that more, get more clear about their desires or what they want in relationships. I find I work really well with people who have similar values to me, so usually people who are more social justice oriented, who want to include their identities in how they’re understanding themselves, um, folks who are usually kind of a little bit more aware of, uh, the wider systems that they’re working with and impacting them, um - that’s also something I orient around and so folks who are looking for that, I find that we tend to gel really well together. Um, and also I tend to work really well with creative types, folks who are entrepreneurs or artists or dancers or like to be more expressive in themselves, and also in their therapy, that also tends to be a really good fit.

Lena McCain: Love that, you know the things that stuck out to me were sexuality, working with values, very specific values, match with you, and of course the creativity, and I’m curious, why is that important? Where do you stand on like why that’s important to kind of have that fit? Especially when we’re talking about like, sexuality and values - I think people get turned away when they hear the word “sexuality,” and yet that’s such an important part to who we are as humans, no matter what age you are.

Lauren Pass Erickson: Yeah, well, and I think there’s a link there between like, sexuality and values and creativity, and a lot of it really comes down to, how do we connect with ourselves, like what do we feel in our bodies, in our emotions, what’s important to us, and then we want to translate that out into some kind of self-expression, whether that’s how we express ourselves in a relationship, it could be like, what type of career we want to go into, it could be a sexual desire we want to express, so to me all of that is almost kind of the same, where there’s this infinity loop we could draw between being connected to ourselves internally, and then how do we want to translate that out into the world, and into relationships? 

Lena McCain: Yes, oh my God, I love that, and I’m also kind of chuckling to myself because I always use the infinity loop, too, in a lot of things I describe, and I’m like oh, that’s how you know you’re a person that I would go see, or recommend people to see, because we’re obviously using the same analogies over here. 

Lauren Pass Erickson: Yes, that like inner, outer, inner outer [Lauren makes gesture of an infinity loop in the air several times], I feel like I’m doing this all the time.

Lena McCain: All the time, right?! I don’t know - I feel like, when I think about therapy, and the way that I approach it, like we’re only stuck in one loop — we’re not doing, I’m not doing my job if I’m just focused on one loop, so we have to have more than one loop, whatever those two loops are describing: sexuality and creativity, self-care, individual identities, all these pieces coming in.

Lauren Pass Erickson: Right, right.

Lena McCain: So I’m curious about… what do you think sets you apart from other therapists? Because we have a pretty big community here in Colorado.

Lauren Pass Erickson: Yeah, I mean I think some of that comes back to what we’re already talking about. So, in somatic, which just means body-centered, for folks that maybe haven’t heard that word before — somatic therapy or dance movement therapy, it’s all very body centered. And so that’s one thing that feels really important to me that’s going to be different from other types of therapy. It’s really bringing everything back to, “what is your experience in your body, in your sensations, how your emotions show up, the physical experiences, how you carry yourself, how you move, that’s really the foundation that I used in my process, and so that’s going to be pretty different than maybe other types of pop therapy, or maybe cognitive approaches, or things like that. So that’s one piece that feels really important to name. And then, I think, again, some of the things we’ve already touched on a little bit, the way that I also bring in the wider societal contexts, and that might be something we’re directly talking about in sessions, or it might just be like, “yes, I’m aware of the things that are happening and impacting my  clients,” even if it’s maybe a subtext. Um, that feels important, and just like the relational piece, too. I tend to be pretty casual, like formality has never been my strong suit, you know, I take my shoes off in my office and we sit on the floor half the time. I want people to feel comfortable in my space, um, yeah I tend to be a little bit more, yeah, casual, or like - myself compared to what you might imagine in a more traditional, you know, setting, where you have the couch and the notepad --

Lena McCain: Yes — 

Lauren Pass Erickson: You know 

Lena McCain: Neither of us - 

Lauren Pass Erickson: Let’s be real, let’s be real in this space, that’s important to me.

Lena McCain: Neither one of us is going to show up in like a three piece suit with our hair slicked back and a pencil going forward, that’s just not how therapy’s going to work. I think we’d both feel pretty tortured. [laughter]

Lauren Pass Erickson: Yeah. [laughter]

Lena McCain: Beautiful, you know, right before we started recording, I had shared that I went to a somatic and dance therapist when I was in grad school, and how important that I found having a relationship with my body was. Primarily because, for me, I’m disabled, and it wasn’t until I got to grad school that I really realized that that was going to come up in my in my therapeutic work — 

Lauren Pass Erickson: Yep.

Lena McCain: And it just makes me think about this important concept that we actual throw to the side, I think, in American society, and that important concept is, “you have a body, and your body is just as important as your mind, because your mind can’t exist without there being a body” right, and I wonder if you could speak a little bit to why it’s so important to have a relationship with your body, when it comes — when you’re coming from a therapeutic perspective, and how that might help somebody. You know, talk therapy’s great but if we’re not actually including the body, we’re missing that big loop.

Lauren Pass Erickson: Yeah, yeah, and I think actually that the relationship is always there, it’s just more like, do we know about It or not, is its intentional or not, is it something that we’re including or not, and you know even we - we tend to do this body/mind split, and I really view it much more as just one system. Our mental experience and our emotional experience and our physical experience, these are all extremely interrelated, and that’s not even just on kind of a… conceptual level, it comes down to like the way that nerves flow through our whole physical system, right like stuff like that, like we can bring this down to a very scientific basis if we want to, as well as the more kind of energetic, spiritual perspective of it. So I really view everything as one system, and so if you’re not including the body, you’re kind of cutting out this huge piece of the system, and again, it - it’s not that that’s ever not there, but we - we tend to disconnect from it, we tend to lose awareness around it, there’s lots of things that can cause dissociation to happen, just you know, letting us kind of focus more on thought pieces and kind of ignore everything else,  then we’re actually losing this huge, huge source of information about ourselves, and how we feel, and what we want, all of that. And so, the process of reconnecting, um, or connecting maybe of a different way, or a way maybe that’s softer, or kinder, or more curious, or something like that, it really just opens up a full range of information that we get to work with that an be really helpful, um, it opens up a whole range of options for how we can ground ourselves, and kind of um stabilize when maybe the outside world is being more chaotic, and there’s a lot of joy and pleasure and really wonderful stuff that we can connect to when we’re connecting with our bodies, too. And that’s also the part I get excited about, because I think a lot of the time when people first start that kind of work, they might notice pain, or discomfort, or emotions that can be really rough, and that’s kind of natural that that gets our attention first, and it might be the loudest, but as we work through that and connect more and more, there’s also that capacity for enjoyment that comes up and we, you know, both of those get to kind of expand at the same time. So, I don’t know if I fully answered your question just there, but… [laughter] that’s what came up.

Lena McCain: I can feel myself feeling really nourished as I was hearing you speak about it, because it’s true, it’s true, our bodies’ relationship is always there, and I think, that’s one of the things that when people come to work with me, that they are shocked by that we talk about this. That’s one of like, I feel like that’s one of the first fundamentals that I speak about within like the first eight weeks of working together, it’s like, you can’t actually ignore it. You can’t - it’s always there, whether you’re being intentional like you said, or not, is kind of the key about your relationship with your body. And you’re right, it’s such a joy, it brings community, it brings all these pieces, and we can’t operate in the world without it. We just can’t. We wouldn’t be here if our body weren’t.

Lauren Pass Erickson: It’s physically impossible.

Lena McCain: Literally, impossible.

Lauren Pass Erickson: Yeah, yeah.

Lena McCain: So, here at Interfaith Bridge, we offer low-cost, quality therapy services, community enrichment programs, and then groups - and really, kind of our mission is to provide people with a brave, but safer space so that they can work with therapists, and other educators serving teens, tweens, twenty-somethings, and groups of all kinds, and really their exploration of self, spirituality, and multicultural diversity. Those three - those three pieces, at the end there are kind of our, our jam, that’s really where we focus. It’s unfortunate infinity loops only have two loops, but really, for us, if those three pieces aren’t being met, we find that there are kind of a dissonance happening. And so I’m curious, how do you see you and your services and your practice, aligning in function?

Lauren Pass Erickson: Yeah, I think I really include some of the same things that you’re mentioning, and it looks a little bit different in my practice in how it runs, but, I think about - obviously connection to self is kind of what we’re talking about, around the embodiment piece, right, that to me is really foundational and that’s what I tend to focus on in my individual sessions, and then within that, I feel like you could almost do like concentric circles or something, like there’s that sort of individual self-connection, and then there’s the community and groups, and including cultural groups, right like including the multicultural aspects that goes into that next ring, and then also that spiritual sense of like, where do you place yourself in the universe, in the big wide world, and that to me comes up in what we were talking about like around, what are your values, what is important to you, how do we find meaning in… all of this? Um - and so I think all of those really feel quite aligned with how I work with people as well, um, and that’s something I love in the group therapy, options as well, of just giving people that extra chance to communicate with others, and have their experience, but also in the setting where they get to hear what other people are going through, and feel that connection that like, oh yes, I’m not the only person who has this come up, right, and so that feels important too, when people can kind of connect on some of the commonalities.

Lena McCain: 100%, I think one of the ways our — Interfaith Bridge’s values have really shifted in the last few years is just, identifying of it isn’t just about individuals’ healing. Individuals’ healing is, is amazing and it’s often our impress point to starting our path to healing and personal growth. But, there comes a point in that individual healing, where it’s like, if you go back to the infinity loop, you know, example, it’s like it’s going, it’s going, it’s going, and then it needs to funnel somewhere. And I love how you’re talking about community, because that brings us back to community healing, right? It starts to fill that up and the more community healing we have, that way we can do more individual healing, and it just keeps going — 

Lauren Pass Erickson: Yeah.

Lena McCain: You know, that big nourishment piece, because you’re right, we often think we’re alone in the things that we’re going through, but we’re not. And Colorado’s big, it’s a huge place. There are more than enough people who have — who are experiencing what you’re going through. It’s just sometimes hard to find them, or be able to talk to them if you don’t have a container with someone who can help ask those vulnerable questions and get people to touch it, you know

Lauren Pass Erickson: Hmmmm.

Lena McCain: So, let’s talk about identity. Identities are a big part of Interfaith Bridge’s vision, mission, and just theoretical approach. I’m wondering, how do you work with various identities?

Lauren Pass Erickson: Yeah, well, first of all, I’ll just kind of name some of my specialties in that area, which I’ve already mentioned a little bit, but I love working with the LGBT community, and so that’s one space where I can really offer some, kind of like specialty focus in my practice. Queer women, nonbinary folk, folks who are bisexual or pansexual, um, that is an area that I’ve put a lot of effort into enhancing my knowledge, and my experience and training. I also identify as a bisexual woman so I have my personal experience that I’m bringing in there, so that’s one identity that I really love to support and focus on, and that I think deserves a lot of specialized attention, you know? Like there’s a lot of places that will be queer-affirming or welcoming, you know, and that’s wonderful, but that’s still different from working with someone who is an expert that really knows the nuances and the ins and outs and some of the things that come up for folks with those identities, so that’s one piece that I’ve really put effort into developing my practice, and something that I love to support specifically. Um, going from that, I mean, I think that integrating all of our identities into the therapeutic process is so important. That’s part of understanding ourselves, that’s part of positioning ourselves in the world, and this is another place where we can com back to that inner/outer loop, right, where I want to know how people are understanding themselves, what identities do they connect to that feel important to them, how does that affect their experience of their body internally, how do they carry themselves when they’re maybe tapping into one identity versus another, and then, what does that look like in community, right, when the challenges come up, when does maybe minority stress or something like that come up, around specific identities. Um, could be like what is relationship to power or resources, right, and so that is also going to really affect how people show up in groups, in society, and in work, and all of that, and so… I just like to get curious about what that is for people, how they understand what sorts of influences they’re aware of as they’re navigating their personal path, you know what are the things they are bumping into around their identities and their place in the world.

Lena McCain: Yeah, our identities are… they have to have voice, right? They are how we organize. If we’re not talking about our bodies, we’re not talking about our identities, and how they relate, how they hold things, how they ignore things, how all of that tends to operate together, we’re actually missing a huge chunk of what’s going to make us feel safer, make us feel braver in the world, too.

Lauren Pass Erickson: Yeah, yeah, and I think another piece of that is I really want to know, which of the identities feel more forward, for the person at the time that we’re working. That feels important, too, you know, I have some queer folks that I work with where they’re like, “I’m gay and that’s fine and I’m working on this other thing,” and it’s helpful that that’s included in this process, and it’s also that something else maybe is the focus, right, um, and then I have other folks where like, that’s the thing that they’re really working with, and that identity’s really forward, and they have questions, and they’re processing, and there’s integration that needs to happen around being queer, and so just as an example, that feels important, too. Like, I’m always tuning into, yes, what are all the identities that someone has, and also which ones are maybe feeling a little bit more important or vibrant or needing more attention at the time, that also feels like an important piece of that process.

Lena McCain: I love that, I love that, especially because, you know, at Interfaith Bridge, we do whiteboards like no other, because we’re all virtual these days, and one of the things we do, is we put those identities out onto a virtual whiteboard, so that we can look at and see which ones - I love that word - which one’s more vibrant than others, and especially when you’re in therapy, because it can be different than what you’re putting out in the world in your everyday life, and that’s a need, right, if there are more identities or more parts of us that are vibrant coming out in therapy, or maybe they are the same, and are there ones that are wishing they were more vibrant, it’s so intricate. But being able to speak to which ones are, which ones aren’t, which ones need more space, which ones can give more space, all of that? Yeah, that’s where I get nervous - I love that.

Lauren Pass Erickson: Yeah. [laughter]

Lena McCain: Okay, so let’s start to wrap up a little, I know you and I could talk all day, but, my last question is, how do you make your services accessible? That’s such a huge part of Interfaith Bridge, and people always think it’s just finances, but that’s not true. Accessibility is a huge spectrum, so how do you, how do you navigate that? What do you bring to the table so to speak?

Lauren Pass Erickson: Well, I’ll try to talk about that on a few different levels, because there’s a few different thing that that word can mean, depending on the person, and their identities and what they’re - what they’re working with. So, for me, I do offer a group and workshops and I mentioned like dance meditation sessions and things like that that are a little bit more financially accessible for folks because they’re in more of a group or kind of a one-off setting, so that’s one thing I like to offer if you’re wanting to, um, kind of try out somatic stuff, or connect with your body a little bit more, that individual therapy doesn’t feel like something that’s financially accessible, so those are some great options that I have going pretty frequently. Um, again, there’s a whole range of accessibility we could talk about in terms of physical experiences and things like that. One, like, super simple one that I’ll name is that I do have online and in-person sessions, um, that feels important for a lot of reasons around like, transportation, and if people are able to show up into my office or not, right, so that’s, even though I’m doing more and more in-person sessions these days, I’m definitely keeping the online component as an option for folks who want or need it. The other piece that’s important to me, especially in individual sessions, is the fact that it is really customized for people, and that I’m always tuning into like, what’s going to work for this specific person. I like to give people a lot of options in what we’re doing and how we’re working together, so that it’s really customized for what’s going to make sense for an individual and their experience and their bodies. Um, as you mentioned, there’s a lot of assumptions that, “oh I have a disability, or I have pain, or I can’t move in this specific way, or I can’t like, dance, the way that you’ve - whatever concept you have of what that might look like, right, and so somatic therapy can’t be for me,” or “dance therapy can’t be for me,” right, and that is so not true. And one of the - one of the specific things I want to explain around that, is that when I’m working with people, and their bodies, it’s really about your connection to yourself. It’s about awareness of what your body feels like, and the internal sensations, what kind of movements feel organic, or natural, or authentic to you, and that could be something super super small. It could be just working with breath. It could be just working with, “what’s my relationship to some of the experiences I’m having” So, when people hear like, “dance” or “movement,” they kind of tend to think about things that are maybe bigger or, like, jumping across the room, or something that’s more extreme, right, and it doesn’t have to look like the at all, actually. It’s more about, what is your specific relationship with your body, how do you inhabit this form that you have, and that, I think, applies to anyone. As we were talking about earlier, anyone who has a body, this is going to be a relevant question, and there’s going to be some really juicy stuff around what that connection looks like for you specifically. And that’s really what I’m going for, so I’m not teaching choreography,, I’m not asking people to do specific movements, I’m not saying, oh, you’re suppose to be moving this way and you’re not, all of that is like, “nope, nope, that’s not what’s happening here, this is about you and how you’re connecting to yourself.”

Lena McCain: Yeah, that’s the thing. Ugh, I love that. I’m getting chills about that. Because our bodies do, they naturally move, it’s not like, we’re just sitting there. Even if it doesn’t look like we’re moving, our body is operating on a really intense level all the time. It’s pushing energy, it’s move - organs are operating, right, everything’s going, right, everything’s going. Our mind, people don’t like to think about it, but our brain is a literal organ. It’s not just sitting there and thinking, it’s got so much going on that’s operating, and that movement is so crucial, so crucial. I love talking about accessibility in that way.
Lauren Pass Erickson: Yeah.

Lena McCain: So, Lauren, thanks for hanging out with me. How can people find you? They’ve watched this video, they’ve gotten my stamp of approval. How can people find you and connect with you?

Lauren Pass Erickson: Yeah, so my website is naturalembodiment.org, and that’s where I have all the information about all the things, if you want to go check out, you know, what I’m doing, and services and stuff, that’s all there, um, all of my contact information is there as well, but just to say it out loud here, too, email is lauren@naturalembodiment.org, that’s a great way to get in touch with me. If you go onto my website, there’s also links to book a free video consultation call, and that’s honestly the quickest way just to get straight into my calendar, and then we’ll have a time to talk and connect and see if we might be good fit, or see what you’re interested in. So email’s great, the free consultation links if you want to just schedule straight there. That’s another way that’s really great to get in touch with me. Um, and yeah, I think that’s probably the easiest.

Lena McCain: Wonderful! Alright, everyone, we are going to log off, but I will make sure that Laurent’s contact info is also listed below, including how to find her newsletter. She sends out really fun, yummy tidbits and all her happenings each month, so all of that will be below, and if you have any questions, feel free to reach out to either one of us.

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I hope you all enjoyed listening to this video interview as much as I did recording it.

Until next time.

About Our Author | Lena McCain MA, LPC. 0017723

Lena McCain is our Founder here at Interfaith Bridge Counseling, where she continues her support as our Clinical Director. She also holds a Master of Arts degree in Clinical Mental Health: Mindfulness-Based Transpersonal Counseling Psychology from Naropa University.

Lena’s drive and passions lie in the realm of community building and youth collaboration, which she has spent the last 12 years studying with an emphasis on one’s exploration of personal growth, community healing, and multicultural values. Lena’s expertise in these areas and the therapeutic field acts as a reminder to our community, teens, and young adults that they are not alone in their experience of life.