Well! It's been a minute since I actually sat down and wrote anything on this page.
A lot has happened in the last year and a half. One of the biggest things to happen in my professional life has been adding Breathwork Facilitation into my repertoire.
Breathwork has had a profound impact on my personal growth, my health and overall well-being. It's an amazing tool to add into your daily life to help with stress, chronic pain, and healing the body from those "issues in your tissues" (helping you release stuck and stored traumas and emotions)
I plan to share more here in the future about breathwork and it's many benefits plus some tools you can use but before I do that I'd like to share how my breathwork journey started.
I've been practicing yoga for a number of years and pranayama (breathing) is a large part of any yoga practice but my first experience with a more intense and transformational breathwork was back what I was 24 years old. I went to a retreat called "Wizard". This was a T. Harv Eker retreat, the fellow who wrote The Millionaire Mind. At this retreat we did all kinds of crazy things to help us breakthrough our patterns and limiting beliefs. One of the last nights was when we did a breathwork session. I had no idea what to expect. There were 100 or more of us laying down on the floor in a big conference room. We were partnered up with another participant and we were to help each other. One would breathe while the other coached and of course there was the main facilitator guiding the whole experience. My partner was the first to breathe as I encouraged her to keep going. As she was breathing I could tell some things were happening and emotions were beginning to surface.
When it was my turn I lay down on my blanket closed my eyes and got ready to breathe. It was work! It felt weird and a little uncomfortable to breathe this way but as I continued to breathe I too could feel things starting to bubble to the surface. My mom happened to be at this retreat as a volunteer having experienced it for herself a few months prior. She's very intuitive and noticed that my hands kept grasping at the blanket I was on. She came over to me and whispered in my ear that it looked like I was hanging on to something, perhaps some anger. My partner and my mom helped me to sit up and I was given a pillow to hit. And hit I did! I beat that pillow and yelled until I started laughing hysterically. It was such a release!
After that I lay back down and the facilitator guided us through a meditation. During this meditation I had a vision of a woman with dark curly hair watching over me and an overwhelming feeling of love and compassion coming from her. (I was told by a psychic at a later date that this woman was my guide and this psychic described her appearance perfectly without me having said anything!). It was quite the experience to say the least. After that I felt such joy! I felt lighter, like literally lighter in my body and this feeling stayed for weeks after.
Once I returned home I wanted more of this feeling. I thought this was the ticket! But I couldn't find anyone who knew about breathwork or who could coach me through another breakthrough session.
It was a few years before I was able to find someone to guide me in a session like the one I had experienced. This time it was virtually because this person I found was in British Columbia. The session I experienced with her was different from my previous one but no less profound. Then a few more years later I was introduced to Elemental Rhythm Breathwork and I fell in love. With myself and with this style of breathwork. I was at another retreat, Sacred Souls (worth checking out if you are in Ontario, these women are amazing!) where on Saturday night we paired heart opening cacao and plant medicine with an Elemental Rhythm Breakthrough Experience and breakthrough I did!
This time it took only one round of breathing before the flood gates opened up. I cried so deep and for so long. The release I experienced here was of grief, what exactly that grief was from, I'm not entirely sure, you don't always know or need to know what it is you are letting go of. During the meditation this time I again felt an overwhelming sense of love, but this time it wasn't coming from something external, it was coming from myself. It was not something I had ever really experienced in my 38 years of life. A feeling of "I got you" and "I love you" coming from me to me.
I didn't feel quite as light and joyful after this session, in fact I felt quite exhausted the next day. The integration after this session took more time and some journaling but it still has been one of my most transformational breathwork experiences. It's the one that led me to get my certification to facilitate others through similar journeys.
Since then I've done a lot more breathwork and not always massive transformational sessions. Sometimes just 10 minutes in the morning to help me get my day started on the right foot. That's the beauty of breathwork. You can use all kinds of different breathing to help you increase your energy and start your day, or use it to turn on your parasympathetic nervous system to help you lower your stress to rest and recover.
Breathwork is an amazing tool to change your life. If you are looking for some support and interested in experiencing a breakthrough session I'd love to chat. Please reach out. I offer in person and online so you can be anywhere in the world and still practice breathwork.
Until next time, many blessings to you!