Alison Rothman MA CYT, is a Body-Centered Holistic Wellness Coach, Women's Wellness Transformational Retreat Leader, Group Facilitator, Podcast Host, and founder of Embody Life Holistic Wellness, utilizing her decades of study, experience, and first-hand knowledge of the capacity within the human body and spirit to heal.
She provides clients and students with the ability to access their inner resources and release debilitating life patterns in order to reclaim their body, mind, spirit, and heart connection.
Alison is passionate about supporting and empowering women to unwind their nervous systems, make peace with their bodies, and remember who they truly are.
She has survived several highly traumatizing life events including a house fire and a near death experience. Additionally, Alison has navigated divorce and single motherhood for over a decade, utilizing her practices in support of her own embodiment during times of stress and challenge.
She carries with her an embodied understanding of the wisdom and intelligence of the body and brings to her sessions, groups, and writing a deep intimacy with herself, her own process of life experiences, and a passion for supporting and inspiring others in utilizing the magic of everyday living as medicine for growth and healing.
Alison is a specialist and highly adept in working in the realms of trauma, eating disorder and addiction recovery, body image issues, and utilizing holistic wellness practices to attain sustainable and empowered healing.
Alison Rothman, Body-Centered Holistic Wellness Coach
Introduce yourself! Please tell us about you and your life, so we can get to know you better.
I am a 47-year old woman and have been a single mother for the past 11 years. I am a longtime practitioner of yoga and meditation and grew up as a dancer. Movement and the body are my native language. I have been seeped in the realm of holistic natural health and wellness for over two decades. It is who I am.
I live in the mountains of Colorado and nature is my medicine. I love to be outdoors in the natural world as it grounds me and keeps me connected to the Divine in incredible ways. I am a daily meditator and am a tremendous believer in that practice alone in navigating life with balance and ease.
I have also experienced an immense amount of trauma including surviving a house fire, a near-death experience while traveling alone in Mexico, and navigating the horrific court system with the father of my child. My depth of practice and connection to my inner world have carried me through these highly traumatizing experiences and have provided me with a strength and conviction that I do not believe would be possible without them. I am grateful for every experience that I have had and choose to use them all as medicine to fuel my work with others.
I am a transformational leader and change-maker through my words, sharing my story, and holding space for others to drop into their own bodies and hearts and do the same. I feel moved to open up dialogue and to create the platform for authenticity to break down barriers of our shared humanity. I have always gained so much wisdom during my dives into the darkness and that emergence back towards the light. This is, to me, living a spiritually connected and embodied life.
I developed an eating disorder at the age of 7 bringing me into close dialogue and relationship to my body. I grew up as a dancer, my body stuffed into spandex and leotards and thrust onto stages. After struggling through my teen years into early adulthood, I chose to enter a holistic residential treatment center at the ripe age of 23. I was tired of the battle, the dysfunction, and knew deep down that there was so much more to this existence as a woman. It was the most humbling, frightening, liberating, and empowering choice that I have ever made in my life and one that set me on a richer path of healing than I could have ever imagined possible.
Although I had already been a practitioner of yoga and had dabbled in meditation, this was the first experience of a truly holistic healing experience that I had partaken in. The treatment was approached from many angles and included bodywork (energy and touch), acupuncture, movement (both yoga and other conscious movement practices), time in nature, group therapy, individual therapy, art therapy, nutritional therapy, flower essence and herbal therapies, even chanting and working with the throat chakra.
This time involved hard work, unbelievably uncomfortable want to jump-out-of-skin at times and was liberating to my body, my heart, and my soul. I was able to access myself in a way that I never had before. My journey since exiting those months of treatment has involved all of these practices with my own flavor. They have remained foundational to my own growth and unending healing process and are how I approach my work with women.
After leaving treatment, I felt so raw and exposed to my core. I knew that I needed to immerse myself in a supportive community environment. I could not do this alone.
I enrolled in a Holistic Bodywork program in Tucson, Arizona. This year continued the unfolding of my healing path and deepened my connection to my body, my heart, and all of humanity in immeasurable ways. This program was supportive of healing oneself so as to become an attuned healer. To me, this is non-negotiable for those who land in a role of holding space for others. We must do our own work in order to meet others doing theirs.
The Providence Institute was a safe, supportive, loving, honoring, and conscious community welcoming the whole of my ailing and healing Self. I spent most of that year in tears as I was touched and touching others daily, feeling and processing my deepest wounds and held in the pain and conflict that had imbedded in my tissues for decades. I was unraveling and it was a beautiful thing.
When I entered this program, I did not know if I wanted to practice bodywork, I just knew that I needed this connection, this training, and this depth of healing for my own personal journey. Upon graduating, I knew that I needed to. The incredible healing that I received in my immersion through working with the body first in treatment and then at the Providence Institute, I knew in my bones and in every cell of my being needed to be shared.
The seed of my bigger mission during this lifetime was planted and it began with working on people’s bodies and supporting them in releasing stagnant emotions, painful experiences, and unearthing their life force.
That year also led me to deepen my yoga practice with consistency, an incredible local community, and an amazing and inspiring teacher. My relationship to my body was altered and enlivened during my hours at the yoga studio. I was in a deep inquiry and exploration, and my mat met me right there. Every single time.
Feeling peace and ease in my body, the expansion and openness of my heart, and the stirring of liveliness of my buried soul became my fuel to keep going. To continue my own work so as to hold others in theirs.
That was 26 years ago.
The next step of my journey brought me back to Colorado through following a dream of mine to immerse in these practices of yoga and meditation by living in a yoga ashram. Although this stint was not at all what I expected, it did lead me to residence in Boulder, Colorado where I have lived for the past 19 years.
Upon landing in Boulder, I found myself engulfed in a community that used dance, movement, and creative expression as a rite of passage. It felt as though I had come home during that first dance experience and I knew that this was the next piece of the puzzle in my healing and in my offering.
I danced, cried, created, and immersed myself in somatic therapies. I dug deep into residual wounds and traumas that remained in my body, heart, and soul. I released and liberated myself in ways that were incredibly powerful surrounded by fellow soul seekers doing their own piece of the dance.
I learned the art of holding space for groups, the importance of gathering with women in conscious connection, and how to truly liberate myself and others from the societally imposed limitations of being human, in a human body, living a human experience.
These years rocked my soul, soothed my heart, and opened up my body. I carry this time with me deep within in my own facilitation of groups.
I became a single mother when my son was only a year old (he is now 13!) after an abusive and tumultuous brief marriage. Single motherhood has taught me immeasurable lessons about embodiment, presence, struggle, pain, oneness, isolation, joy, and celebration. The true polarities of humanity and how to remain embodied throughout the waves. Becoming a mother alone was not an easeful or organic process for me on the whole and truly put my practices into action.
I found myself in the throes of post-partum depression, coupled with severe isolation, sleep deprivation, and a challenging young one. Despite living in an affluent and resourced community, I was alone in every sense of the word. Those years brought me to my knees and remain a blur. My depth of practice penetrated my cells and carried me through that difficult time. They were all in me even though it was difficult to access them in many moments.
Motherhood has been an endless opportunity for me to put into action the culmination of my decades of holistic practices all wrapped up together.
I am grateful to have a wide array of tools in my tool belt to meet all of what life presents, as there is more…
In January of 2016, while in midst of navigating my then 1st graders challenges in his school environment, we returned home to our house on fire. I will never forget that moment and nor will he. The moments, days, and weeks that followed that event provided me with the opportunity to feel what it feels like to be truly supported by community. A piece of me was healed through this experience after so many years of being on my own with my young one. The community rallied with a vengeance and I am still in awe of how it all unfolded. Those that showed up during that time have forever been imprinted in my heart and live in my soul.
My mat became my solace once again as my home was smoke invested and my belongings unusable. I spent countless hours on my mat crying, moving my body in ways that were supportive, opening, and also deeply holding and containing. This was my first real experience of tapping into my practice to navigate high trauma. What I found time and time again was magic. I had adapted my practice to meet me exactly where I was. My nervous system could not handle vigorous practice, I could no longer attend classes as it was too overwhelming and stimulating for me, and I knew that I needed to be with myself and everything that was surfacing.
I tended to the whole of me during this time in a way that I had never before. I drew on all of my tools that I had been cultivating all of those years and attuned to myself in a way that was truly embodied, honoring, and healing.
In midst of this event my son was struggling in school and I found myself in a yearlong advocacy of him with the school district and the professionals that were educating him. It was grueling, yet I had so much more of myself to bring to the battle. My practices were my foundation and I was able to rise up and meet the tension with a sense of power, conviction, and mama bear wisdom that was needed.
As my son found his way in his new school environment with amazing caregivers and I was able to exhale for the first time in his educational life I was taken to court by my son’s father. I saw and experienced first-hand the dysfunction and abuse of the court system as I was placed on the stand and humiliated and degraded by a male attorney with no respect for women or mothers. This was echoed by a judge and my life was turned upside down. Those 3 hours on the stand, the unnecessary attack on who I was as a woman and a mother had a tremendously traumatizing effect on me. I experienced how trauma can embed in our tissues as I exited the premises in midst of this intentional denunciation.
I spent the next 6 months reeling from this event and learned how to be with myself and tend to my body and my heart in a kind, compassionate, and attentive way. I was in a deep despair over this occurrence and it gave me the fertile ground to deepen in my own healing and embodiment as I met myself in the darkness in a very new way. I had a child to take care of and a newfound motivation and inspiration to utilize all of my practices in a way that could honor what I had been through, hold me, and also keep the energy moving. I dove deeply into my meditation practice, I walked in nature, I cooked good food, and I wrote down my hearts expressions.
I poured myself into my healing and found my way through the darkness in a sustainable and integrated way. The ripples of that experience remained with me and provided me with many moments of putting my practices into action. I am grateful for that time of diving deep as I gained even more perspective and appreciation for myself and my capacity to heal as well as an immense amount of compassion for women everywhere whom have been under the same cruel microscope.
As I found my way back to the surface and gathered my breath, my 43rd birthday arrived. I chose to go to Mexico on a solo adventure, which I had done many times prior. Without going into elaborate detail I found myself in a space of not knowing whether or not I was going to live or die. I was witness to a hit by the Mexican drug cartel where 5 people were murdered. I was protected by a local who helped me to hide while this event occurred.
The moments of not knowing if you are going to die are terrifying but are also incredibly grounding. You are given perspective and a profound sense of peace. Although I did not know if my physical body would be ok, I actually knew that everything was ok. No regrets, no remorse, only prayers of peace.
Those moments of not knowing if I was going to live or die woke me up to the essence of who I am.
There was no time to panic, cry, regret, mourn... it was just me with me.
It was a time of connection that I had never experienced before and one that I have continuously referenced as I have returned.
I felt more alive in that moment of pending death than I ever have before.
I returned home from Mexico with a fire lit under me and a deep inner knowing of not only who I am but also the impact that I want to have on those I am blessed to cross paths with.
Life has gone on since then and I remain forever altered by that moment of truly not knowing if I would board that plane back home or not. My appreciation for being alive and my conviction to spread light in this world desperately in need of it has been magnified.
With each seemingly derailing event that has occurred in my life, I have gained a new level of strength. My inner muscles of perseverance have been carved. It has required consistent and diligent practice of returning to myself, my truth, my heart, my body, and my mission for my lifetime. I feel a responsibility to utilize the medicine and wisdom that I have gleaned over these decades to support and educate other women seekers.
My mission during my remaining years, recognizing that we simply have no idea when our time will come, is to live awake. To continually appreciate all of life and how it is unfolding, to open my heart to those I am blessed to cross paths with, to make a positive difference in as many lives as I am able to, to stay true to myself upright in who I am, to embrace the aging process with grace, and to become even more skilled at riding the waves of this human existence… living from my heart and deeply connected to my soul.
What is your business name and how do you help your clients?
My business is called Embody Life and I am a Body-Centered Holistic Wellness Coach and Group and Retreat Facilitator. My business name was birthed from my strong belief that life is the most potent platform for practice, for our spiritual quest, and for our deepest experience of embodiment. We cannot do our personal work and keep it separate from our lives, there must be a blending and an application into our day-to-day, moment-by-moment experience of being a human.
I have decades of experience both personally and professionally in the realm of the healing arts and holistic health and wellness. My work is focused on supporting women to heal sustainably through various holistic and embodied based practices. Different methods and modalities are appropriate for various times in one’s life as well as in the many layers of our healing.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to sustainable, holistic, and embodied healing. I bring into my sessions a wide array of tools to meet clients wherever they are along their path.
I am committed to supporting women in creating boundless regeneration in their lives. My methodology is not a quick fix. It is not about putting a bandaid on the issues. It is about digging deep inside and doing the work to enrich self-awareness, unwind the body and nervous system, repattern habitual ways of living and being, cultivating a willingness to look at oneself consistently and reverently, and finding the courage to step out of your comfort zone. It takes diligence and commitment to oneself to heal in this way.
When we approach our healing from a holistic place, coming at it from every angle possible, we create the landing pad for sustainable and embodied healing. We are changed on a cellular level and in order to sustain these changes we must meet ourselves from an ever-evolving place. We have the opportunity to truly embody our lives in every moment.
Our world is set up in such a way that keeps us spinning in patterns and cycles of existence – some of which perhaps do not serve. I support women how to live an embodied life…no matter what is going on within and around them.
What is living an embodied life?
To be embodied is to feel deeply connected to the truth of who you are in body, in your heart, in your spirit, and in your soul. It is a felt sense, an experience of oneness, of wholeness. It does not depend on how you look or your state of being or your life circumstances.
It is an experience of deep presence in oneself – no matter what is going on in and around you. It is a deep peace with yourself in midst of the swirls of life. It is a reference point and an access point – a way of living and being in connection right into the heart of who you are. It is not something that you attain and remain there.
It is a constant dance and inquiry and ebbs and flows with the waves of life. It is an experience of deep inner connection and can feel like a warm blanket and calm in midst of the storm.
Feeling embodied and connected to your embodiment has so much to do with embracing exactly where you are. Cultivating the capacity to remain present in the face of adversity, connected to your breath, and allowing the bodies sensations to just be there. It could involve movement and it could involve stillness. It comes and goes and over time and with practice lingers for longer stints of time.
It is a gateway to the depths of your soul.
I offer my work in various platforms including: Women’s Wellness Retreats (my next one is coming up in July at the amazing Joyful Journey Hot Springs in the San Luis Valley of Colorado, One-On-One Body-Centered Holistic Coaching Sessions, and Sacred Women’s Circles
I create and hold the space for women to unwind their systems and access the truth of who they are. I provide them with the space to rest into themselves so as to access their inner wisdom and innate capacity to heal. I offer practical tools and resources for my clients to access in their everyday lives to do their healing work. When we let our systems unwind and settle, we have the opportunity to remember our aliveness and our inner-connection. We remember that we are not alone and that despite all that we may have endured in our lives that we are strong and can choose to live from an upright and empowered place.
I truly believe that we cannot create outer change without creating inner change. I would love to share a bit more about Body-Centered Holistic Wellness Coaching:
Through a combination of Somatic Therapy, Body Awareness, Mindfulness, and a variety of other Holistic Modalities, together, we will create the platform for new pathways of growth and possibility.
Reclaim your connection with your body, your mind, your heart, your spirit, and your soul and feel whole.
Transform your state of being by cultivating the capacity to live connected to your truest Self
Learn how to respond, rather than react to life.
Interrupt the story and reclaim your power.
Find greater ease and peace in your life.
Empower oneself to gain greater confidence.
Release the grasp of addictions and addictive patterns.
Open to richer and more fulfilling relationships.
Build the capacity to be comfortable in stillness.
Tap into a deep sense of inner calm that translates into your day-to-day life.
Gain the skills and resources to remain embodied and connected to yourself in midst of the natural swirls of human life.
What kind of audience do you target your business towards?
I work primarily with women ranging in age from early 20s through 50s. I tend to draw in women who are in transition, who are needing to unwind from addictive ways of living and being, who are questioning their purpose for their lives, who are struggling in their relationships, those who are seeking to create a deeper connection to their true self. From college-aged seeking to midlife awakening.
What are your current goals for your business?
I honestly want to be of service and support to as many women as I possibly can be. These times have been so hard on so many and I have the skills to usher humanity through this portal. To me, as practitioners, it is about showing up with brave authenticity, asking for help and support when needed, and creating safe platforms for those we are blessed to work with to land on. Who inspires you to be the best that you can be?
Hands down, my 13-year old son! We have been on quite the journey together for these past 11 and ½ years alone together. Motherhood has been the ultimate spiritual path of awakening for me and my boy, Kai, teaches me every single day how to continuously evolve into the most aligned and authentic version of myself. Although we had some very rough years, I would not trade this path for anything. We are bonded in the most incredible of ways and I am infinitely grateful for the wisdom that exudes from him daily.
What is your work inspired by?
I struggled for so many years, really lived in the darkness of life for far too long. I learned so much during those years of challenge and am beyond inspired to relieve the suffering of humanity in any way that I possibly can. I believe that I was gifted the life experiences that I was so that I could be of embodied service to women near and far along their own individual journey. I understand in my bones how to emerge from the darkness into the light and, that alone is my greatest inspiration for my work. If I can alleviate one women’s suffering, help them to feel the light within, and take steps towards their own empowerment in their true selves… then I feel as though my work is successful.
Tell us about your greatest career achievement so far.
Birthing my business, Embody Life, while juggling single motherhood with a special needs kiddo, chipping away at a Masters Degree, working, and keeping everyone sane and healthy was no small feat and something that I am exceptionally proud of!
If you could change one thing about your industry, what would it be and why?
Admittedly, I struggle with wellness professionals declaring that they are “experts”. Our wellness is so individual and it is impossible to be an expert in wellness across the board. We all have had our own unique journeys and paths of healing and what works for one does not necessarily work for another.
I am always skeptical when someone says that they are an expert in the realm of health and wellness as it is impossible to know every nuance of our complex human systems. We can, as professionals, offer our expertise in various fields of health and wellness, yet to declare that we are an expert is a bold statement that does not feel aligned to me. I wish there was a bit more humbleness, openness, and curiosity in this field rather than competitiveness and ego.
I offer a free 20-minute Clarity Call if you are interested in working together. Please go to this link to schedule.
I look forward to connecting with you!
