Ashley Ludman

In 2019, Ashley Ludman, Founder and Creative Director of the Body of Breath, sat in front of the Pacific Ocean meditating into experiences that she has been using for herself and with her students for the past couple of decades. The images of the record and its grooves, the rings of the tree’s core, the spider’s web and convergence points, the map of the eye and the human finger prints inspired her to see the more clearly into the grooves that fuel life.

The images and meanings began unfolding as she cultivated the method of the Body of Breath. Based in adaptive and progressive breathwork practices, the method fuses tantric philosophy, nervous system repatterning, movement inquiry and contemplative journaling into an accessible practice for anyone wanting to use breathwork as a tool for transformation.

Sitting in contemplation at what felt like the edge of her world, watching the never ending waves that changed the shoreline on a daily basis, inspired her to formalize the method that has evolved for her since 2004.

Ashley’s unique way of offering this practice to her community is rooted in her personal healing work through decades of experience with breathwork, energy medicine, Yoga therapy, bodywork and expressive arts. Her background as an occupational therapist and studies in clinical counseling contribute to the way that she supports her clients through a therapeutic process of using breathwork to meet the moment where it is.

As an adoptee, her initial interest in healing of her sacred grooves were supported through breathwork and plant medicine. After finding her biological connections in 2021 as a result of DNA testing, she is even more curious about epigenetic and biological patterns and how breathwork can facilitate ancestral healing.

Ashley has lived in Nosara, Costa Rica since 2010 and is completing a memoir of her unexpected healing journey into the world of psychedelics and plant medicine.