My Breathwork Journey

Maui Wowie

Like any good thing that has happened in my life, it stemmed from a dream. I had an incredibly intense dream about Maui. It was one of the most beautiful moments of my life. I knew I had to go. It was all I could talk about for 2 weeks. I didn't know how I would get there, or what would was waiting for me there- but I felt absolutely sure that I needed to go there as soon as possible. Within 2 weeks and one month before my 20th birthday, I had manifested a free flight and place for stay in Maui for 8 days. Damn.

I had always lived with “if there is a will there is a way” mentality of thinking, which often resulted in my sneaking into concerts, getting free tickets to shows, getting jobs and performance opportunities just because I would put myself out there- but this was the first time I had willed something from the subconscious into the conscious by sheer passion, obnoxious persistence, and speaking about my dream as it was “the best moment of my life” and saying “I don’t know how, but I’m going to get there”.

I felt it and so it was.

No Original Experience

When I arrived in Maui with my best friend, we hitch hiked to the little festival we had managed to finesse tickets for. (Did we get tickets, or did we sneak in and our friends went?) Regardless, we made it in for free. I began meeting a staggering amount of people who said that they had a dream when they were 19 or 20 that they should come to Maui, and then they did, and then they never left. Sometimes I brought up the dream, and then sometimes they brought it up- regardless, it was brought up.

When you start surfing the astral sphere, things start to happen that make you sounds like a pathological liar to the common listener. This is just part of the lore, part of the joke. What’s the fun of having absurd, psychic, profound experiences if people believe you. If people don’t have a hint of suspicion when you tell the stories you tell, maybe you should be a little bit more fantastical in your actions. Open some weird ass doors, and see what happens.

The Womb Room

What better place to enter into to have all of your astral experiences come into fruition than the womb room. There was a “Tibetan Chanting” workshop. I have no idea why this called to me, because this is something that was absolutely not on my radar. I can’t remember if I saw it and was intrigued, or just wandered in and it was happening. This period of my life was not one that was super aware of maps, schedules, or times (I freaking flew standby to get here), so I’m thinking we just wandered in.

The instructor guided us through the chanting process, and said something I will never forget. They asked us to imagine we were hanging from a string that was attached to the top of our back as dangling from the cosmos. This was my first time consciously entering the void space. We started to do the chanting breathwork. My years in musical theater had left my lung capacity long and ready to hold a belt or a chant for a long time.

I felt a buzzing radiate throughout my body, and reader, I was flying. I stopped chanting and I left the fucking planet. This was a substance free period of my life, and it felt like I was out of this world. I felt like my brain and organs had gone through a power washing machine and had been scrubbed down. There was nothing left, and I felt so free and just- fucking pure. Not carrying anything I didn’t want to.

Ayahuasca Boys

After the workshop, we met some people in the class who invited us to their farm after their festival. We were riding standby, and we had already committed to missing a week at college, so fuck it. Let’s go. I slept in a place called “The Temple”, which was just a teepee, and when I went to sleep that night it was dark. When I woke, there was a mural of a gold buddha in the ocean, which was the same scene I saw in my Maui dream. I woke up in tears. Come to find out, the farm was growing and making ayahuasca.

I think most of the time psychadelics do more harm than help, with the consumerist culture we live in, where we get addicted to something for another dopamine hit and download. However, the astral strength that this farm and energy had on me is undeniable. Big energy attracts big energy, and when you let yourself trust fall into something that doesn’t make any sense, but it feels so fucking fire- trust it. trust it. trust it!!

Chant With Your Friends

Returning to Chicago in the middle of winter, and more college that was becoming increasingly apparent I needed to drop out, ( I did end up going back & graduating, but like when your 19 and experience the gravity of the cosmic, why the fuck would you want to stay in school?).

I lived in a house full of rugby women. Very gay, very party, very rowdy. We had 5 women living in a 3 bedroom house. I shared a room with my best friend and co pilot to Maui, and I had another friend paying $100 to live on the couch. When I got back, I knew I needed to share with the couch friend the chanting I had learned. For the next 3 months, we would regularly chant into each others mouths. It wasn’t that weird, but when you chant with someone facing each other, the vibration comes into the other persons mouth. It was fun an invigorating, and at the very least, its always more fun ritually to do things with other people.

Fast forward 10 years, and I realize that I think we opened a thread together through chanting together. She was living in Barcelona and I had this feeling EATING me that someone was pregnant. I started calling people asking who the fuck was pregnant, because I felt it so deeply. She messaged me a couple weeks later saying she was pregnant. I said “I FUCKING KNEW IT”, and I told her the date I was asking everyone I knew if they were pregnant. She said that was the day she found out.

A few months later, we were talking and she started to tell me about a dream she had. It was the same dream I had. It was in a basement of my old church where I had “Baby’s First Exorcism”. I was in the lobby, and I looked into a room where there where people. I knew I couldn’t go in there because there was someone that I didn't want to see. Turns out my chanting friend was in the room, getting convinced by the devil to leave out the back door. This was the first time I had knowingly dream walked before.

I cannot deny the power that lies in practicing this esoteric shit with other people. You create a bond and power that is nearly impossible to gain the same amount of power then if you are practicing by yourself.

Breathe Away Anxiety Attacks

Let’s fast forward to 2019- the worst year of my life. I was divorced and became estranged from my parents within the first month of the year. I began having panic attacks, which was something new to me. My therapist said that he didn’t think I needed any medication, as this sort of reaction was normal for the amount of change and stress I was going through.

I began doing a Youtube Kundalini breathwork meditation everyday. It was on of the only things that would calm me down, and take the physical pain away from my chest, and slow down my breathing to feel like I was alive. I did this breathwork almost everyday for about 6 months, and then I haven’t had a panic attack since.

Even though I didn’t really do breathwork for almost 9 years, it was there when I needed it. It was waiting to cradle me when I felt myself slipping away. When everything that was keeping me- me, turned out to be a lie, and the grand reinvention of self became an identity crisis. Who was I without the main people in my life that I loved? I had to breathe to figure it out. I had to breathe to find myself hidden in between the constructs of who I thought I was, how other people perceived me, and who I wanted to become.

I did not breathe with an intention to envision my best self, or any type of manifestation. I was breathing to get my body back, to get my appetite back, to grieve, to be supported, and to feel like my heart wasn’t going to leave its body as I was brought to my knees gasping for air.

Breathwork Quest

A couple years later, I went through this incredible deep dive of self exploration after pursuing the 12 weeks of “The Artist Way” by Julie Cameron. One of the prompts for one of the weeks challenges is to take yourself on a weekend getaway. I went to the hot springs. During this 12 week period, I could feel my intuition absolutely spiking, and I felt so connected to everything around me.

I went to my favorite hot springs, and brought a book. I was sitting next to these twins who were reading books about occultism. It felt like destiny. They were there with their grandpa. I knew I wanted to talk to him immediately. He was talking about how there’s are hundreds of other chakras, and how they spin different ways. It was very interesting, and it felt like such a treat to eavesdrop.

I knew I wanted to talk to him, but I didn’t know how. Luckily, he started talking to me. And I said I liked what he was saying about the chakras system. He started talking about breathwork, and I said I struggled to really get into a steady breathwork practice. He suggested the mothers breath- which was 7 inhale, hold for 1, and 7 exhale.

In true vision quest vision, he said “practice this, and then the next instructions will find you”. This is my favorite way to be spoken to. I love to be given a whimsical task, and then led on a cosmic goose chase ending who knows where.

The Mothers Breath

About 6 months after this encounter, I was dog sitting for a friend and I became friends with a man who came to do the cleaning. He was telling me about his spiritual journey, and walking on coals with Tony Robbins in the 90’s, all sorts of wild stuff that only comes from bravery and age.

I was telling him about my experience with synchronicities, and how I felt I wanted to get into breathwork. I told him the story about the man at the hot spring. He told me he studied with the man that coined the term “mothers breath” Rashad Feild. He then gave me 3 books that he insisted I needed.

He explained Feild’s work to me, and the time they spent together. I had never heard of Rashad Feild, or “The Mothers Breath” before. True to the cryptic message from the man at the hot springs, I was given the next step after practicing “The Mothers Breath”.

Kundalini Awakening

3 months after I was given these books, I encountered the “next step”, in my breathwork journey. A whole ass Kundalini Awakening. I go into it in depth here. I love writing these events chronologically like this, because 6 months before my Kundalini Awakening a total stranger told me the steps to follow in my breathwork journey. This absolutely helped crack open and prepare my body for such a massive intake of energy.

After the honeymoon stage of Kundalini Awakening wears off, it was about 6 months for me, I started teaching breathwork sessions 1:1 and in group settings. I felt this deeply in my being that this was something that could manifest for other people as well. Using a combination of methods that have whimsically landed in my lap over the course of nearly 15 years, I have found what I am supposed to do.

When you are deep in a breathwork session you are unable to think. One thing I craved in my crisis phase and now entering my expansion phase- is that it is easy for me to rationalize things or philosophize things, but the real power is when I can feel the the peace, tranquility, power, and magnetism in my body and synthesize it from there.

Here is a breathwork visualization freebie to “brainwash yourself” for the next 7 days: brainwash yourself

If you are looking for something more intense, cracked open, and fucking ALIVE- I’m offering 1:1 sessions here through the 2 week regenerate program.