My Dad was Right

When I was 16 my Dad told me that I could get higher practicing breathwork than any psychedelic that I was experimenting with. I told him he didn't know what he was talking about, and went back to what I was doing. 

So today I wanted to share about the summit I took part in so that you can enjoy all of the benefits.

The irony doesn't escape me that I'm a breathwork facilitator and coach today. It took me over 20 years, a failed marriage, and strong desire towards inner work to get curious and realize that he was right.

Since getting curious and beginning to explore, my breathwork practice has gone through several distinct seasons.

At first it supported my integration and my search to go inward. I wanted to drop as deep as possible - to connect with the medicine space - to get outside of time and my thinking mind, discover places within my sober mind that REALLY reminded me of the world that I connected to during my ayahuasca ceremonies or a high-dose mushroom experience.

Breathwork was a way for me to spend more time in those spaces, to familiarize myself and explore. I didn’t have a lot of instruction at this point beyond Wim Hof youtube videos and my own intuition. I was probably a little reckless, but I wanted to see how far the rabbit hole went.

The next season came during my NeuroDynamic facilitator training. My practice became more disciplined and I discovered different directions I could take my journeys into.

Breathing with my teachers taught me respect for this medicine and how important integration was. They taught me about the holotropic principles - that the things that trigger me are a projection, activated by energy stuck in my body that I could release during breathwork, or at the very least have awareness of and be curious about rather than reactive.

Breathing with my classmate Jonny Miller taught me that I could slow down and reduce the velocity of my breath without reducing the potency (which is still something that I still teach to my clients).

Learning about the potentials of what breathwork could do helped me to experiment and resource myself for healing. I practiced breathwork along with inner child and shadow work, I used breathwork to explore and release rage from my divorce as well as the pain I experienced during the divorce of my parents.

I went from a curious seeker to an initiate. I remember feeling awe at how much there was to learn.

My current season is as a practitioner. I am a teacher and a student. Breathing with Conni Biesalski (who is coming up this week on the podcast for a second amazing conversation) added functional breathing to my practice that has helped me regulate and completely transform my nervous system.

If you've been following me for a while you may have heard me explain breathwork in 3 categories - awareness, functional, and transformational. Adding daily functional breathwork along side my already established daily awareness practices has been a key change, and it's hard to put into words how much that's positively impacted my work and my approach to the work.

When I do my own transformational practice monthly, I have very little expectation - I can breathe and just BE. I don’t approach with intention, as much as having confidence that I will receive whatever I need. I allow myself to be surprised and go with the flow, remaining open to what my breath teaches me on and off the mat.

The way I approach my work as a coach is more holistic - I'm still offering transformational sessions, but with private clients I'm teaching the full spectrum of breathwork and how to use it to connect deeper to yourself and your body rather than just escaping into other dimensions. How to incorporate different styles and modalities to build clarity and awareness. How to regulate the nervous system with the breath and work with it to build resilience and the threshold for stress.

I piloted this breathwork coaching earlier this year and the response was overwhelmingly positive. Participants reported more emotional control and somatic awareness as well as an increase to calm experienced and connection to their nervous system. One client even reported that the coaching program helped them build and launch their business (which was an unexpected surprise)!

I'll be doing a soft launch of this program (officially) in early 2023, but if you'd like early access you can set up a call now.

So long story short, I guess my Dad was right. And I think about that conversation with him often - with a lot of gratitude. I've been able to transform a lot from that angry, confused, disregulated and depressed 16 year old. I got the opportunity to hold space and facilitate a breathwork session for him this year and that was an amazing full circle moment - and a story for another day.

With blessings,
Jonathan