The Turning Point

I remember the moment well. I had gone for my daily walk along the dry bed of the Rillito River. On the path beside me, bikes passed. Someone was walking their dog and I was focusing on my breath, admiring the Saguaros and Palo Verde trees in bloom.

I was about to begin a 6 month certification to become a Neurodynamic breathwork facilitator. Something that I had jumped into without much conscious thought.

Everything about it had felt so aligned and so right:

-the single experience I had with the breathwork,

-the philosophy about going deep into my psyche,

- and the fact my experience felt like everything I had been trying to figure out on my own, so that I could start a breathwork business.

Everything had felt perfect, as if what I was trying to manifest had leapt out of my mind and into reality. Here was a training program that I could follow instead of struggling to figure out how to do everything on my own. How amazing!

And now, as I was getting ready to begin, a realization hit me so hard that I literally stopped in my tracks on the trail. Something overwhelming and ominous began to sink in.

Part of the program was doing this breathwork at least once a week. This breathwork that's like having a psychedelic journey.

Once a week.

For the next six months.

What had I gotten myself into?

If someone had come along and said “I want you to have a major psychedelic trip once a week for the next six months”, I don’t think I would sign up for that!

All of a sudden it didn't seem like a good idea.

I was still processing several ayahuasca ceremonies and mushroom journeys - the word integration was still new to me. Everything was changing so fast that I was beginning to get how important integration was and how much I actually needed to practice it. And now, I’m going to be doing a breathwork journey once a week?

I remember taking a deep breath. Realizing that this was something big I was getting myself into, that would create a huge amount of change and major shifts in my life. And that I should take it seriously, just as seriously as if I was taking psychedelics every week.

As overwhelming as that sounded as I thought about it, that was basically what I had signed up for. Even though it felt really scary, somewhere inside I knew this was the way. I wanted to get the most I could out of the next 6 months, because I didn’t believe that turning back or changing course was an option.

What I didn’t have the language for on that walk, was that I had just accepted the most important principles in transformational work - applicable regardless whether you’re using an entheogen, breathwork, meditation or chanting, sweating, dancing or any other ancient form of entering an altered state for change and growth.

These principles would be one of the first things I learned about as I began my training program, and something I have the opportunity to practice everyday.

The first principle is to trust the process. You don’t get the treasure outside of the cave - you’ve got to head in, regardless of the darkness, doubt and hesitation.

Trusting the process is the first step in crossing the threshold into a bigger world. Because when you decide to trust the process you begin to open to something deep inside yourself.

In breathwork we call this your inner guiding intelligence, but you could also call it your higher self, your intuition or even your soul. Your inner intelligence guides you towards what you need: sometimes thats healing, sometimes it's connection to purpose and source - consciously and unconsciously, in every aspect of life.

Each time you enter the expanded state - with breathwork, meditation, psychedelics or otherwise, that connection gets stronger. The beacon gets brighter and the trust continues to grow.

Entering that breathwork training was me trusting my process. It has led me into a path of service and given me frameworks and tools to help myself as well as to support others through my breathwork and coaching offerings.

None of this was the outcome of thinking - it’s all a matter of trust. In fact if I had relied on thinking I probably would have changed my mind and found an excuse to talk my way out of it that day on the trail. Trusting the process is not a linear path with a clear ending, it’s something that I breathe into every day. It’s literally happening as I write this email to you.

Stepping into that trust was a turning point where I really started to take my journeys and my integration process seriously and where I began to truly open up to the process of change and trusting myself and the intuition inside me.

Trusting the process, and other valuable principles that my study and experience with breathwork and plant medicine have taught me are the topic of my upcoming free workshop How to Breathe: Breathwork and Psychedelics, which you can rsvp for here. I’d love for you to join live, and anyone that signs up will get access to the replay.

With blessings,

Jonathan