The Invitation
The places in us that have not yet been lived do not disappear.
They wait. They surface in our relationships, our longings, our symptoms - in the quiet ache that something essential has not yet found its way into form.
A capacity is being asked of us - to stay with ourselves as life intensifies, rather than bracing against it or leaving our center.
There comes a point - often more than once - when the ways we've learned to navigate life begin to feel insufficient. Not because we haven't grown, but because something deeper is asking to be met.
Most of us were never taught how to meet ourselves, purely, innocently, directly as we are. We learned instead to manage, analyze, push through, bypass - or go numb. And eventually, these strategies reach their limit. We feel it. Something in us knows.
What begins to reveal itself is something simpler:
The capacity to be with our direct, immediate, most intimate experience - in the body, through the heart, in real time.
The difficult feelings, the hard seasons, the moments of intensity - the worn out habits that still hold on - these are not obstacles. They are the path.
When we learn to meet what is arising with presence, something shifts. What once overwhelmed us begins to open us.
The places we've been most afraid to enter often hold the potency of
who we actually are.
This is where fulfillment lives. Not in transcending our history, but in allowing what has been syphoned into pieces to come home. Not in decoding our patterns, but in letting them soften within a field large enough to hold the unwinding - in the body, in relationship, all the way through.
And in that opening, something integrates. A steadiness grows. An aliveness that doesn't depend on circumstances.
This is what Intimate Ground offers: a space to slow down, to settle, and to return to a more honest, more inhabitable relationship with your inner life.
Not as a project. Not as self-improvement.
As a homecoming.
It is our birthright.
There’s a lot of focus on improving yourself—becoming more healed, more regulated, more evolved.
This isn’t that.
This work isn’t about becoming someone else or creating a better version of you.
It’s about learning how to stay with yourself—intimately, honestly, as you are.
In this space, you’ll begin to discover:
☀️ That your reactions are not the problem—they’re intelligent responses to learn and grow from.
This work draws from somatic integration practices, psycho-biology, embodied non-dual awareness, parts work and more — but at its core, it’s not about methods.
It’s about relationship.
You sense that the ways you’ve learned to cope through efforting, insight, or even spiritual practice—
aren’t truly nourishing you.
You may feel a quiet (or not-so-quiet) exhaustion from trying to work on yourself… without experiencing the depth of change you long for.
This is not about self-improvement.
And it’s not about becoming more “spiritual.”
It’s about learning how to stay— with what’s true, what’s tender and what’s alive, asking to be met within you.
☀️ Exhaustion and Fatigue: Chronic tiredness or feeling drained despite adequate rest, often due to the nervous system being stuck in fight, flight, fawn or freeze mode.
☀️ Emotional Dysregulation: Frequent outbursts of anger, sadness, or frustration, or feeling numb and detached from emotions.
☀️ Disconnection and Difficulty Focusing: Feeling foggy, detached, or dissociated, with challenges concentrating or staying present.
☀️ Physical Symptoms: Chronic tension headaches, digestive issues, muscle tightness, immune disorders or persistent pain linked to unprocessed stress or trauma.
These are not signs that something is wrong with you. And they don’t mean that the work you’ve done hasn’t mattered.
There may be places within you that didn’t have the conditions they needed to fully develop.
Places that learned to adapt, protect, or freeze in time.
Not because they are broken— but because they were never fully met.
These places don’t need to be fixed.
They need the right conditions to soften… to thaw… to come back into breath, into movement and simultaneously into a stillness that you can truly rest in.
This work is about learning how to meet these places differently:With compassion.
With patience.
With a willingness to stay.
☀️ A wider, more resilient emotional range
☀️ A deeper attunement to your own needs and truth
☀️ Clearer boundaries without losing connection
☀️ The capacity to be in relationship without abandoning yourself
Arriving at the Threshold We're Standing In
Core Capacity: Staying present without needing to know—metabolizing experience through feeling, rather than seeking resolutions from the past.
Developmental Core Needs: will be introduced
Ajaya Sommers, RCST is a somatic practitioner, teacher, author, and founder of Core Embodiment® — a body-centered path of psycho-spiritual integration rooted in thirty years of clinical practice, teaching, and lived inquiry.
Her work lives at the intersection of nervous system science, developmental trauma, and the contemplative dimensions of embodied awakening. She works with the whole person — supporting people in developing the capacity to stay present with their own experience, metabolize what life brings, and live from a more grounded, authentic, and integrated sense of self.
Ajaya is the creator of Core Embodiment® — a somatic discovery process that integrates embodiment practices, perceptual inquiry, and the deeper principles of psycho-spiritual development into a coherent and living path.
She is a certified Biodynamic Craniosacral Integration Teacher, a NARM Practitioner (Neuro-Affective Relational Model), and an Authorized Continuum Teacher. Her work is also deeply informed by Buddhist Psychology and her ongoing study within the Jennifer Welwood Sangha as a path of discovering one's inherent capacity for liberation.
Over the past three decades, Ajaya has facilitated conscious evolution in thousands of people's lives through professional training programs, retreats, and live and online group offerings. She has presented at the SAND Conference, Esalen Institute, IONS, the Purpose Summit, and the Association for Transpersonal Psychology Conference, and has taught throughout the US and Europe since 2012.
Over these 8 weeks, we will engage in 8
(2 hour sessions) + a private 60 min
one:one Session with Ajaya is included in which you’ll have the space to:
Unwind old patterns of fear, overwhelm, and disconnection.
Awaken your body’s wisdom using breath, sound, touch and movement.
Reclaim pleasure and vitality as pathways to healing.
Discover how to self-regulate in a very empowering and accessible way.
Cultivate resilience to navigate the complexities of our modern world.
Format: 8 live online sessions (recordings available).
Duration: 2 hours (ish) per session.
Tuesday 10am-12pm PST : September 1, 8,15,22, Oct 6,13,20,27
( no class Sept. 29)
"Fantastic learning and workshop “Taking Refuge”. If you are a therapist, Doctor, healer, transformational educator or health care provider looking to self-improve - the teachings Ajaya has will serve you well. Not only for your professional toolbelt but for your own self-actualization.
A wealth of information and many pieces are laid out throughout the process and all tied together at the end to bring it all home. After decades of sitting across from others in my practice I believe this is what I’ve been looking for. Don’t miss this chance and treat yourself to a wonderful learning and adventure."
Nick Gargala B.S., M.S.S.W., Ed.
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