Check Out Ashlea Dillard’s Story

Today we’d like to introduce you to Ashlea Dillard.

Hi Ashlea , we’re thrilled to have a chance to learn your story today. So, before we get into specifics, maybe you can briefly walk us through how you got to where you are today?
For as long as I can remember, my life revolved around service.

For nearly a decade, I worked as a firefighter and paramedic in Colorado. I showed up on people’s worst days—when everything felt urgent, broken, or beyond control. I learned how to stay calm in chaos, how to move toward danger, how to carry what others couldn’t. But what no one really prepares you for is what happens after the call ends—the way the weight lingers, the way identity quietly fuses to the uniform, the way you learn to keep going even when something inside you is asking to slow down.

I loved that work. It shaped me. And it also changed me.

Over time, I began to notice something beneath the adrenaline and the pride of service—an accumulation of grief, stress, and unspoken loss. Not just in the people I served, but in myself and my colleagues. I saw how trauma doesn’t always announce itself loudly. Sometimes it settles in quietly, showing up as disconnection, exhaustion, or the feeling that you no longer recognize who you are outside of what you do.

That was the beginning of a shift.

A mentor early in my fire career once told me I had a gift for walking alongside people in hard moments. At the time, I didn’t think much of it. But those words stayed with me. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, my path began to change. What started as curiosity turned into education, and education turned into a calling. I stepped away from public safety—not because I stopped caring, but because I realized I could serve in a different way.
Becoming a therapist wasn’t just a career change. It was an identity reckoning.

I call this season of my life “The Great Dismantling.”

It’s been the process of letting go of who I thought I was supposed to be—peeling back layers of conditioning, armor, and limiting beliefs—and learning to listen to what was true underneath. It’s been humbling, painful at times, and deeply liberating. Through my own healing journey, especially through hypnosis and depth-oriented work, I experienced what it means to reconnect with myself—not the version shaped by survival or expectation, but the one rooted in presence and self-trust.

That experience changed everything.

Today, as a Licensed Professional Counselor and Certified Clinical & Transpersonal Hypnotherapist, I work with first responders, military members, veterans, their spouses, and people from all walks of life. I sit with those navigating trauma, identity loss, and the quiet question of Who am I now? My work goes beyond symptom relief. It’s about helping people release what no longer serves them and remember who they were before the world asked them to become someone else.

Alongside my clinical work through Ashlea Dillard Therapy, I created Sit Around the Fire—a podcast and community born from the belief that healing happens in shared space. Around the fire, stories are told, truth is spoken, and no one has to carry their experience alone. It’s a return to something ancient and deeply human.
This work is personal for me. It’s how I give back to the community that shaped me. It’s how I honor my own transformation. And it’s why I feel called to share my story—not because I have it all figured out, but because I know what it’s like to lose yourself and find your way back.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: healing doesn’t require perfection. It only asks for honesty, courage, and the willingness to begin again.

We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Leaving my career in public safety was one of the hardest and most defining decisions of my life.

It was a stable, respected, and highly sought-after profession—one I had worked years to earn. Walking away meant letting go of security, identity, and a version of myself that many people believed I should hold onto. A lot of people thought I was making a mistake. Some were confused. Others were convinced I was throwing away everything I had worked for. And at times, I wondered if they were right.

Being a woman in a male-dominated industry added another layer to that decision. I had learned how to be strong, capable, and resilient in environments where you often have to prove yourself just to belong. That strength shaped me—but it also came with a cost. Over time, I realized that survival and alignment aren’t the same thing. I could do the job well and still feel something inside me asking for a different way of being.

Choosing to leave meant trusting myself in a way I never had before. It meant listening to a deeper knowing—one that told me my mission was to ease suffering and to walk alongside others in their healing. This wasn’t just a career pivot; it was a commitment to my dharma. Going all in required faith, courage, and a willingness to be misunderstood.

Starting my own business has been one of the greatest adventures of my life. It has stretched me in every direction—emotionally, spiritually, and practically. There were moments of fear and self-doubt, moments where I questioned whether I was capable or worthy of leading in this way. And yet, each step forward strengthened my trust in myself and my belief in the work I do.

Launching my podcast, Sit Around the Fire, required another layer of vulnerability. Getting behind the microphone meant confronting the fear of being seen and heard, of saying the wrong thing, of being judged. I had to let go of worrying about what people might think and choose my own voice instead. That choice—to speak honestly and show up as I am—has been one of the most liberating parts of this journey.

At the heart of everything I do is the belief that we heal together. Healing is not a solo act—it’s relational, communal, and deeply human. I see this reflected in every person I work with. Each client brings their story, their courage, and their willingness to begin again. Being invited into that space is an honor and a blessing, and without fail, the work ends up blessing me too.

This path has asked me to release certainty, choose trust, and continually return to what feels true. And each time I do, I’m reminded that when we follow what’s aligned—when we choose meaning over approval—we don’t lose ourselves. We find ourselves.

As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
My work sits at the intersection of depth, science, and lived experience. At its core, what I do is help people end suffering—not by managing symptoms forever, but by getting to the root of what’s holding them back and creating real, lasting change.

I specialize in trauma processing, nervous system regulation, emotional regulation, and identity-level transformation. Clients often come to me when they’ve “done therapy” before but still feel stuck—when they understand their patterns intellectually, yet their body and nervous system haven’t caught up. I work with people who want more than coping skills; they want freedom.

Some of the areas I’m best known for include trauma recovery, stress and anxiety reduction, improving relationships, ending unwanted behaviors, sleep support, pain and physical discomfort management, and what I call life mastery—supporting growth across relationships, mental and physical health, career, finances, and overall alignment. My work is especially meaningful for people navigating identity transitions, chronic stress, internal conflict, or a sense that they’ve outgrown who they used to be.

What sets my work apart is that therapy isn’t something I see as a short-term fix—it’s a way of life. I approach therapy as a form of maintenance and expansion, not just crisis intervention. Just like we care for our physical health consistently, tending to our inner world allows us to live with more presence, agency, and self-trust over time.

I use a highly integrative approach that blends traditional psychotherapy with depth-oriented and somatic modalities. This includes clinical and transpersonal hypnosis, which allows us to quiet the conscious mind and access the deeper layers where patterns, beliefs, and emotional imprints live. From there, we can work with hypnotic programming to shift habits and belief systems at the subconscious level.

I also incorporate eye movement therapy to help create new neural pathways, neuro-somatic therapy to support safety and resilience in the body, parts therapy to resolve internal conflicts, regression hypnosis to heal experiences at their source, and breathwork to release stored emotion and tension. For some clients, I offer ketamine-assisted psychotherapy, which—when used intentionally and clinically—can accelerate healing by increasing neuroplasticity and opening access to deeper emotional insight. Vibroacoustic therapy is another powerful tool I use to support nervous system regulation, relaxation, sleep, and expanded states of awareness through sound and vibration.

The common thread across all of these approaches is neurosomatic intelligence—the understanding that trauma, stress, and emotional wounds live not only in the mind, but also in the body and nervous system. When we work with all of these layers together, healing becomes more natural, sustainable, and empowering.
Sessions with me are fully personalized. We begin with what you’re experiencing emotionally and physically, what your nervous system is holding, and what you want your life to feel like moving forward. From there, we may work with somatic regulation tools, cognitive approaches like CBT, ACT, EFT, nervous system re-patterning, or identity and behavioral integration—always in service of who you’re becoming, not just who you’ve been.
What I’m most proud of is the depth of trust my clients bring into the room and the transformations that unfold when people feel truly seen and safe. I’m honored to do this work, and I’m continually humbled by how reciprocal it is—how often my clients’ courage and honesty end up changing me too.

At the heart of everything I do is the belief that healing is not something we do alone. We heal in relationship. We heal in safety. And when the mind and body are finally working together, change stops feeling like effort—and starts feeling like coming home.

Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
For me, taking risks is all about trusting in yourself. It really comes down to opening up yourself to the potential of who you really are. Sometimes we forget about truly powerful we are, and how we are co-creators of our own reality. I have seen this play out in my life time and time again. That when I choose to believe in myself, I mean really believe in myself, so many doors and possibilities open up. On the other side, I would say that we must also be willing to let it go and let the universe work out the details.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.ashleadillard.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/sitaroundthefirepodcast
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/Sit-Around-the-Fire/61578594632344/
• LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/ashlea-dillard-b45634110/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/sitaroundthefirepodcast
• Other: https://www.sitaroundthefire.org

Image Credits
Sarah Jane Photography
Chelsea Smith Imagery
Code10Photos