Musings

Let’s be real: the name isn’t particularly revealing. The first time I saw breathwork listed as a healing modality alongside reiki, hypnosis, and acupuncture, my first thought was, “why would I pay someone to breathe? I’ve been breathing just fine for 30 years, thanks.” But, over the course of my 8 month love affair with breathwork, I have come to appreciate the stark simplicity of the name: you breathe. It works. That’s all you need.

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I came to breathwork as part of a broader process of trying to reclaim my own health. Years of insomnia along with increasingly severe digestive issues had led me to the unavoidable conclusion that I was dealing with more than something that could be easily diagnosed and fixed by Western medicine. As I began to take seriously the idea that my disturbed sleep and gut were both physical manifestations of an emotional and spiritual imbalance, I started getting more and more creative in my treatment approach. I tried acupuncture, swallowed strange Chinese herbs, cleaned up my diet,  and tried endless meditation apps. It helped, but I continued to struggle. One day, in the midst of an especially severe insomnia streak, I came across this article. In that moment, desperation was greater than my fear of paying a woo-woo Brooklyn shaman to teach me how to breathe. I booked myself a session and promptly began to panic. What the hell had I just done?

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My first exposure to breathwork was unlike anything I had experienced before. The healer instructed me in the (surprisingly simple) breathing pattern – a sharp inhale to the belly, a second sharp inhale to the high chest, and a forceful exhale, all through the mouth – had me lie down on a massage table, and we were off. Within five minutes, I was feeling physical sensations I had no idea even existed. It felt like electricity was shooting through my arms and legs, my face felt numb and paralyzed, and my hands, by some involuntary force, clenched the crystals that had been placed in them so tightly, I thought they would shatter. I cried, I shook, I screamed, not because I was thinking about my feelings but because I was actually (finally) feeing them. The sensations were extremely intense, bordering on uncomfortable and yet I knew, on a deeply intuitive level, that it was safe for me to feel all of it.

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When I staggered off the table 45 minutes later, I knew that I had just experienced an enormous transformation. It felt like an inner door had been opened to parts of myself I never knew existed. I also knew, on some deep level, that, if I went though that door, there was no going back.

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8 months later, I’m writing this as a certified Breathwork practitioner. It all happened so fast, and so intensely, I’m still staring at my new life in awe and disbelief.

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In a world full of healing modalities that offer slow, steady progress, breathwork stands out for its ability to achieve unusually rapid results. Colleagues have described it as “soul exfoliation” or “power blasting.” breathwork pierces through the layers of resistance, limiting beliefs, and facades that we usually hide behind and shines a laser beam on our true self. While doing this magic breathing, I have begun to heal things that I never dreamed were available for healing – everything from my disastrous sleep situation, to acute trauma, to deep-seated family issues. As a complement to years of therapy, where I dissected painful memories and analyzed past behavior patterns, breathwork allowed me to move that emotional gunk OUT of my body and make space for something new.

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In the simplest terms, the active breathing is designed to distract the thinking mind, allowing breathers to really inhabit their bodies and feel raw emotions without the baggage of the stories we usually attach to them. Our bodies have so much to teach us, if we let them. Our hearts, too. Breathwork is all about reuniting what we so often divide up to try to survive the assaults of the world we live in.

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Like all forms of true healing, breathwork is not easy. It exposes all the parts of ourselves we try to hide from, brings us face to face with our resistance to change, and requires total vulnerability and honesty. It is, as the name suggests, work. But it is the most rewarding work I have ever done. It has led me to feel truly at home in my own body, allowed me to become much more literate in my own emotions, and opened me to whole new worlds of joy, authenticity, and fulfillment. In other words: it’s the real deal.