Soulride Psychotherapy
128 W. 14th St. Suite B-7 Durango, CO 81301
970.404.3030
AARON THOMAS
Somatic Therapy • Trauma informed Psychotherapist
Relational & Communication Work
The Form Changed. The Question Didn't.
How three decades of bodywork, yoga, and meditation shape the way I work as a somatic psychotherapist.
I came to psychotherapy the long way around.
From 1996 to 2019, I worked as a massage therapist. I taught yoga from 1998 to 2019 and meditation from 2016 to 2020. When people ask about my background, I usually name the clinical approaches I trained in later: Hakomi, Somatic Experiencing, EMDR, parts work, and attachment theory.
Those trainings matter. But they gave language and structure to something I had already been learning for a long time.
Looking back, what appeared to be several different careers was also one sustained inquiry pursued through different forms:
What actually helps a person become more present, more honest, and more capable of change?
. Those matter. But they gave language to something I had already been learning for a long time.
Looking back, what appeared to be several different careers was also one sustained inquiry pursued through different forms.
The container determined what was possible
Each of those practices contains a genuine path. But what the surrounding agreement permitted was usually much narrower than what the practice contained.
People came to the massage table for relief. Sometimes something else was clearly present: tension, emotion, old protection; and there was nowhere for it to go, because that wasn't what they'd come for. Yoga was the same: the tradition contains a whole path; most students wanted to move better. Meditation came closer.
None of that was wrong. Relief is a good reason to get on a table. But I kept looking, without quite knowing I was looking for, a room whose stated purpose matched the questions I wanted to explore responsibly.
Finding the room
The first time I walked into a Hakomi weekend, I understood something I hadn't been able to name for twenty years. Psychotherapy was the first professional setting I'd entered whose explicit purpose was to work under the hood.
Clients don't arrive ready to go deep. But by walking in, they've agreed that what's underneath the problem belongs in the conversation. That agreement is the doorway.
I brought into that room a way of paying attention already shaped by decades of working with bodies, movement, breath, and contact. So when we work, I'm listening to what you say — and also noticing where you brace, soften, reach, disappear. I don't treat those signals as proof or tell you what they mean. I bring them into our shared curiosity.
And One More Thing
Every practice I've trained in taught me the same limit. A session can open something real. But lasting change comes from what a person practices and integrates beyond the room.
I can help create the conditions for change. I can't do the change for anyone.
Book a Free 20-Minute Consultation
A chance to ask questions, hear more about how I work, and decide together whether the fit feels right.