Griffen Jeffries
About
Griffen Jeffries is a bodyworker and facilitator who brings deep listening and integrity to all aspects of the work he does. He honors both the inherent wisdom of our bodies to heal, and the power and necessity of support from others. Griffen draws on diverse training to partner with people in healing – including different amounts of talking, movement, and hands-on work. He is trained and primarily does a kind of bodywork called Craniosacral therapy, and talk-oriented work based in Somatic Experiencing.
Craniosacral therapy is a gentle touch approach that works with the craniosacral system including the bones (particularly in the head and back), muscles and other tissues, nervous system, and rhythms in the body to bring relaxation, support release of held trauma, and decrease pain. This work is all clothes on and done on a massage table.
Somatic Experiencing is a framework for working with shifting how trauma is held in our nervous systems and can be applied through different modalities. Griffen brings this framework to bodywork he offers, and also supports people through talk to increase their access to the wisdom of their bodies, support growing capacity to be with a full range of life energy, emotion and sensation, and support shifting of stuck energy.
Griffen also has some training in general somatic work, myofascial work, and some forms of talk therapy and Integral Somatic Psychotherapy.
Griffen does a variety of collective/group facilitation work, with a particular focus on Theater of the Oppressed work. Facilitation experience includes anti-oppression workshops, workshops and weekend intensives focused on uprooting white supremacy with other white folks, bringing body-based techniques to racial justice work, workshops focused around gender, and facilitating internal organizational development processes.
Griffen arrived at this work through his own healing journey including ongoing re-connection to body. He continues to deepen and expand his understanding and awareness of the many ways systems of oppression reside in, around, and between our bodies – and how this work can be part of resisting, surviving, fighting, and shifting those systems and creating, remembering, strengthening, and sustaining other ways of being. He brings his experiences and identities as a queer and trans person of European descent and works to be accountable and in authentic solidarity towards liberation and healing for all – individually and collectively.
Offerings, Rates & Appointments
$80-180 sliding scale (you place yourself) for 90 minute in person sessions or 75 minute long distance sessions. Sometimes open to barter or trade arrangements. Please reach out if money is a barrier.
To schedule an appointment or inquire further about group facilitation, please email griffen.jeffries@gmail.com or text 612.385.7229. Please also reach out if you would like to connect by phone or email before deciding whether you would like to schedule.
More Info
Somatic work and Craniosacral Therapy
I first experienced Craniosacral therapy and bodywork in 2010. Since then it has been a powerful source of healing and transformation for me, and I completed initial craniosacral training and began my practice offering bodywork in 2014. Craniosacral comes from a lineage originating in western europe that includes osteopathy and cranial osteopathy and before that Scottish bone setting that was a western european indigenous practice. I have done craniosacral training with the following schools: Milne Institute, Upledger Institute, and Stillpoint. I have also done trainings in various other modalities doing somatic (body-based) work and talk therapy techniques that come out of western european based lineages.
I recently completed the 3 year training program in Somatic Experiencing- which is a theoretical framework for shifting trauma that comes out of western scientific and therapeutic work. I now do a significant amount of work through talk-based techniques that focus on working with the body.
I focus on meeting people where they are at, partnering with each person’s own inherent healing wisdom. That is also the approach of sessions – finding what makes sense for you in the mix of possibilities of talk and silence and touch and movement.
Theater of the Oppressed
I was introduced to Theater of the Oppressed through a workshop that I ended up attending through chance circumstance in 2007. I was both drawn to and immensely challenged by this work that involved accessing the wisdom of our physical bodies, working collectively towards change within a group setting, and healing. Since that initial workshop series I have learned TO through powerful experiences from many people including an internship with Jan Mandell at Central High School, and various workshops including with Hector Aristizábal and with the original creator of TO, Augusto Boal. Boal began creating TO in collaboration with many groups and people in Brazil in the 1960’s. He continued this work throughout his time in political exile in Europe and until he died in 2009. Since then TO has spread throughout the world and continues to change and grow in line with one of its core concepts of “multiplication” as a way for the work to spread and serve those in the work to shift oppression.