My Breathwork Journey: Coming Home to Myself
In the summer of 2015, a medical emergency landed me in the hospital for a week. The diagnosis was acute pancreatitis, but the real truth was harder to face. Years of burnout, working mom guilt, juggling too many roles, and putting everyone else first had finally caught up with me. My body was done waiting for me to listen.
That hospital stay forced me to pause. I started doing what I should have been doing all along. I meditated daily. I journaled. I went to therapy. I received Reiki and acupuncture. I practiced yoga. These healing modalities became my foundation, and I'm grateful for every single one of them. I even co-led a women's group centered around spiritual empowerment. I was doing the work, showing up for myself in ways I never had before.
But three years later, on a June afternoon in the mountains of Vermont, something cracked me wide open.
I was at a yoga and meditation festival with girlfriends when I experienced active breathwork for the first time. My exact words afterward were, "WTF was that and when can I do it again?" as I wiped away tears and massaged my cramping hands. Beautiful Chorus was playing during the session and more moved through me in those 45 minutes than in all the years of healing work I'd been doing.
My body trembled and cramped as energy coursed through it. Tears flowed as the trauma of old wounds surfaced and then left. I felt the warm embrace of my Nonna Santina putting my heart and mind at ease through it all. I saw the face of my dad come to me, filling me with strength. It was sad, it was gut-wrenching, and it was beautiful all at once. It left me longing for more. I knew I had just barely scraped the surface of my healing that afternoon in Stratton, Vermont.
Breathwork was different. It didn't just help me heal. It called me home.
That summer, I signed up for as many virtual sessions as I could, continuing to peel back the layers. Just months later, I took a leap of faith and joined my first level of training in NYC. By the end of that summer, I had completed level one. By the end of the following summer, I had completed my full certification with David Elliot.
I began seeing clients one-on-one in the fall of 2018. By August 2019, at 50 years old, I started leading breathwork circles and became a Reiki practitioner. The ripple effect continued. I trained in trauma-informed practices with the NARM Training Institute, became a Reiki Master Teacher, and studied with Gwen Dittmar in Activation Breathwork. Along the way, I explored meditation and shamanic practices, incorporating Earth-based wisdom into my approach.
The creative channels that opened surprised me most. In the last two years, I've co-authored four books, something I never imagined doing before breathwork cracked me open.
This is why I hold space for others today. Breathwork gave me permission to remember who I was before life told me who to be. It showed me that healing is about peeling back the layers until we recognize the truth underneath.
I guide others on the power of their breath because I know what it's like to feel stuck, overwhelmed, and disconnected. I know what it's like to do all the "right" things and still feel like something is missing. And I know what it's like when you find the thing that cracks you open and lets the light back in.
To say breathwork has transformed my life would be an understatement. I liken it to more of a remembering.
If my story resonates with you, perhaps breathwork is meant to be part of your journey too. Whether you're seeking healing, balance, or simply a moment to reconnect with yourself, breathwork has the potential to shift something you might not even know needs shifting.
You already have everything you need inside of you. Sometimes you just need to breathe to remember.
