My journey into breathwork has been as wildly weaving and wandering as my journey through life – perhaps this is why I feel our connection so intimately. From my very first breathwork session back in 2014 with Alchemy of Breath in Bali (smack in the middle of the spiritual smorgasbord of Bali Spirit Fest), I knew in my body there was something big here. That experience took me on my first true supported journey outside of my mind, and into the somatic world of my body and emotional landscape. It opened up an entirely new perspective on how I could see and feel – as though a previous layer of my perception of the world had been blasted away.
Interestingly though, it was not for quite some time after that I returned to connected breathwork. Instead, my life path took me to India later that same year, as I had immersed myself completely in the practice of yoga while in Bali – as I navigated a messy breakup and reconstructing myself after years of feeling my life force insidiously drained through a thoroughly toxic but addictive relationship.
I traveled to Rishikesh to study to become a yoga teacher, after diving headfirst into multiple-times daily practice for about six months. There, I studied the relationship between the body’s postures (asana), pranayama (breath) and meditation – the way all these elements come together to create the right conditions for stillness and inner realization.
I finally began to soften and connect to my body and my inner world after years and years of seeking outwardly and living primarily in my mind. Yoga was my entry, but a conscious connection to the breath – I now understand – was a massive tool in shifting my state and opening the doors to a new chapter of life.
Our breath is such a tender and sacred spirit – our powerful and delicate lifeline to aliveness in this human form. It is quite wild that most of us live rather disconnected from our breath on a daily basis; we are breathing constantly, of course, but usually as an automatic process and not as a conscious, mindful and grateful one.
It makes me wonder if this aversion to noticing the process of our breath is due to distraction and a more cerebral than embodied orientation to living, or if it is due in part to our common aversion to the notion of death in Western society. For our breath is so intimately linked with both life and death – it is the spirit which animates us as we enter this place from our mother’s womb, and it is the last thing that will leave us when it is our time to go.
Indigenous cultures did not carry the same aversion to death that we have in our modern world. They understood and embodied that death is a part of life, but more than that – they understood that death is not an ending, it is a continuation. They honored and devoted themselves into connection with Spirit, with the unseen, with the ancestors and spirits of nature. And nearly all of them had practices and rituals woven into their traditions which incorporated breath as sacred, as a tool, as medicine.
I will speak much more to breath as sacred and as ceremony in another article, but for now – to continue my share on my personal relationship with the breath and the practice of breathwork… I will say that this journey continued weaving itself in the subtle layers from 2014-2019 as I learned more to quiet my mind and to step into healing work as a coach, energy practitioner, and retreat leader over these years.
But it was my journey to Peru – and the five years that ensued – which amplified the role of the breath in my life, and brought me to the doorway of facilitating this sacred work. Without diverting into all of the details of that particular journey, I will simply say that the most profound pathways in my life – Peru, sacred ceremony and breathwork to name a few – have all opened up through a deep soul calling, followed by aligned opportunities to take the next steps. And I believe this is how life works when we are in flow with our soul. How it can work for us all.
Peru called me into her powerful Apus (mountains) and changed me from the inside out. Years of immersing in this potent land, learning to work with plants and connect to Spirit in ceremony, walk with elders and indigenous guides, pray to the fire and the waters and the earth and the wind, learning to humble myself and shed old skins so something new could be revealed… learning to open my life to a beloved one, only to lose them and recognze the grief portal as the exact medicine they were meant to bestow on my life.
My life in Peru was woven with the breath from the very start – beginning with the altitude sickness that hit me three days into my first arrival! Sitting at about 9500 feet, Pisac and the Sacred Valley connect to the heavens (which only amplifies when you actually start climbing the mountains!) While my very first experience did hit me (altitude sickness feels like the worst hangover of your life by the way, cured by copious amounts of coca tea!) – it never hit me again in the same way in the years to come. I learned to walk these mountains, anywhere from 10,000-15,000 feet, oftentimes while carrying backpacks and hiking straight up. If that doesn’t connect you to your breath and your relationship with oxygen, I don’t know what does!
It’s actually quite interesting, because I dont know until actually writing these words now if I ever truly made that connection between my move to Peru and the breath opening up in my life. As with so many things, this chapter opening has been a process woven of so many threads. In ceremony, we use the breath to connect directly to Spirit – offering our sacred energy through a blow of smoke or air, using the breath to clean energy, to sing and offer sound medicine, to whistle to the plants or to hum and soothe a nervous system. So many ways that the breath serves as a bridge directly back to Source – and although it was not breathwork school at the time, my days walking those mountains taught me so much about this medicine living within me.
A side note I’d like to make here: is that our voice is SACRED medicine. Our voice is our channel to Spirit – whether speaking or singing – our voice is power and it is powered by our breath. This vibration that lives within us is literally medicine for us – a simple sound, humm, tone or song can awaken vibrancy, soothe or change a nervous system state, catalyze inspiration and emotion, and so much more. Our words are creators and directly impact our reality. Never forget that with each breath, you have the opportunity to make an impact with your voice – or you have the opportunity to be simply with your breath and the power of silence. Either way, each breath is an incredible, sacred connection back to the power that we are.
I began studying breathwork more formally in 2022 where I studied with the Breath Center and Michael Bryan Baker while still living in Peru – and I began facilitating breath sessions that year. It simply felt natural for me to share different breathing techniques with people in a group setting, and I loved the organic way that we would explore and process together. Then, at the end of 2024, I received a call to deepen my studies specifically in conscious connected breathwork, where I found Breathing Space/Unity Breathwork and signed up for my 400-hour facilitator training. Again – the synchronicities and breadcrumbs all led to the right paths opening, and I honestly now feel the wind beneath my wings with the gift of the breath and incredible community of breathworkers around me.
Sharing this practice, this medicine, this ceremony is a true honor and passion of mine.