A little about me

Hello, I’m Dawn Ermert.

My journey into this work did not begin as a career path. It began as a desperate search to save my own life.

For as long as I can remember, I carried pain inside of me not just emotional pain, but physical pain too. Chronic tension, body aches, anxiety, fear, hypervigilance… my nervous system never truly felt safe. I experienced childhood trauma, sexual abuse, and years of living disconnected from myself and my body. Eventually, I made a promise to myself that I would do whatever it took to heal.

I threw myself into my mental health journey completely. Therapy, hypnotherapy, brainspotting, plant medicine, spiritual healing if there was even a possibility it could help me heal, I explored it. I was determined to understand why I felt the way I did and why my brain seemed trapped in survival mode no matter how hard I tried to move forward.

 Years later, I was still in the thick of my mental health struggles experiencing flashbacks nearly daily, living in a constant state of hypervigilance, and suffering from severe chronic body pain. During that time, I was attending massage therapy school and began receiving regular bodywork myself. Over time, I started noticing something profound.. the flashbacks began lessening, my body started relaxing, and the pain I had carried for so many years slowly began easing. 

That experience completely changed the direction of my life. I became OBSESSED with understanding why touch, safety, and the nervous system could impact mental health so profoundly. I dove into everything I could find about trauma, the brain, the body, and nervous system regulation. What I discovered changed everything. Trauma lives within the body, and when the nervous system finally feels safe enough, the mind and body can begin processing and releasing what has been trapped for years.

That understanding became the foundation of Return to Self Somatics.

Over time, I blended trauma-informed bodywork, somatic mindfulness, nervous system regulation, inner child healing, parts work, and the wisdom I gathered throughout my own healing journey into the work I now teach and share with others today. Along that path, I became a Licensed Massage Therapist (LMT), Reiki Master Teacher (RMT), Somatic Experiencing Practitioner (SEP), and Certified Spiritual Life Coach not simply because I wanted certifications, but because I was deeply committed to understanding healing from every angle possible.

This work is so much more than bodywork to me. It is deeply personal because it gave me my life back.

I know what it feels like to live in darkness and believe there is no way out. I know pain. I know suffering. But that is no longer my reality.

Nowadays, life is much different.

Yes, I still carry the memories, but they no longer rule my life the way they once did. I love my life. I am married to the man I have been in love with since we were 17 years old. The man who stood beside me through every chapter of my healing journey and reminded me there was hope even when I could not see it myself.

Together, we have a beautiful, sweet, and funny little girl named Kate who is constantly showing us new ways to experience this life. From traveling the world swimming in underwater caves to quiet evenings together on the back porch or singing and dancing like nobody is watching we are truly living now and I'm no longer just surviving.

My healing journey allowed me to become the woman, mother, wife, and healer I was always meant to be, and now I have the honor of helping guide others toward that same possibility within themselves.