unearth®
“I don’t think anyone can grow unless they’re loved exactly as they are now; appreciated for what they are, rather than what they will be.”
Practice
Listen. Learn more about the practice on the unearthed life® podcast.
Participate. Attend an unearth® class in Greenwood Village. For the class schedule, visit unearthedlife.com.
Invite. Share the practice with someone who could benefit from this practice of care.
K.C. Ledgerwood is a Licensed Professional Counselor and has worked in community mental health and trauma-informed work since 2011. Her background in mental health, alongside her history in teaching fitness, provided the foundations of a personal practice she developed. The somatic practice was first shared with friends, then formed into classes she began teaching in 2021.
“unearth® is an active, contemplative practice intended to help people return home to themselves. It rests in the belief that the One who made the body is available to be encountered from the inside out.” K.C. shares with joyous passion. She continues with a humble authority, “Utilizing gentle and active movement patterns, music, poetry, and scripture, the practice of unearth® is designed to excavate and give language for the body to speak what often does not have words. The result is a quarry of material that is then able to be felt, witnessed, and integrated.”
“The practice of unearth® was birthed out of a personal season of grief and curiosity. As a counselor and fitness instructor, I saw up close the longing within human hearts for transformational change. I also observed how difficult it was for transformation to become embodied.” At the core of the practice for K.C. is the central question, “How do people move from thinking and knowing to changing?” “The body needs to have a place at the table,” K.C. says with a deep conviction. “Our bodies have so much to say.”
She shares vulnerably, “In my own story, this was the case. I had journeyed through the discovery of new insights, processed emotions, and even changed core beliefs, but my practical life did not reflect these hard-fought revelations. My body needed a way to speak and come into alignment with these realizations. It required my body to be invited to the conversation for lasting transformation to occur.”
K.C. offers an integrated explanation of the science of the practice. “unearth® uses evidence-based methods that support the God-given systems in the body. The arc of the class begins with physical activation through neuro muscular patterning that awaken unexpressed feelings, thoughts, and sensations. It then offers intermittent contraction/release of muscles, enabling the body to speak and surrender unexpressed sentiments.” She continues with care, “after each activation, moments of pause are given, quieting the nervous system and allowing new stirrings to land. The peak of class draws on joint compression and bilateral stimulation opening neural pathways and supporting integration. The arc gently descends into core stability patterns designed to cultivate a sense of safety and calm, concluding with stillness and breath.” The outcomes of the practice K.C. has witnessed include: the unlocking of vital narratives held in the body, the experiential understanding of the goodness of our body, and the reconnection of the body with faith.
“Greater than the reliability of the science, however, is the reliability of the One who made and loves the body. The practice rests in the belief that the One who made the body is available to be encountered from the inside out.” K.C. expresses her embodied faith. “I’ve come to call it ‘Bodily Hospitality™,’ a coming home to ourselves, with secure identity and belonging.” She freely moves between sound theology and secure psychology. “This safeguarding reflects what clinical psychologists describe as a “secure base,” a place you can return to freely—where you are gathered in, reassured, and held. It is this home that ultimately cultivates long-term transformation.”
K.C. developed unearth®as an embodied practice to give and receive care. “At the heart of unearth® is a simple mission: to help people come home to themselves, so they can be fully present in their lives and love their people wholeheartedly.”
Thank you to K.C. Ledgerwood for her contribution to the article and the creation of an embodied practice of Bodily Hospitality™.
