I reached a personal low in my life after a season of extreme loss and grief in 2017 & 2018.

       I found myself broken into pieces in a pit of my own creation and I didn't know how to put myself together or get out of the pit. In 2019 I began making sense of the mess and moving forward, letting my faith begin to guide me back into my authentic, feminine energy. In 2020 as the world faced quarantine and the pandemic, I was feeling more dazzling than I ever had before, but I was still a hot mess of unpacked crap I was slowly working through. It was during that season that I learned how to breathe for the first time. It was transformative and it felt like a divinely coordinated experience from beginning to end. This exercise refreshed my spirit.

       As the ugly mess in my spirit began unraveling in 2018 and 2019, I realized very quickly that breathing exercises would have profound impact on my life as a whole. Breathing was always something that I just assumed we all knew how to do and that our bodies just did naturally, until I was a teenager and experienced my first panic attack. I couldn't breathe normally. I became, in that moment, very aware of just how challenging breathing could become at times. I struggled for a very long time with hidden panic attacks, and never really tried to educate myself or heal, I just focused on hiding them. Then I learned about taking ownership over our breathing and focusing on more than just shallow day to day survival breathing, and it helped me to navigate them more openly. I was able to activate entirely new levels in my own healing which was the catalyst for the spiritual awakening that I had coming.

       At first, I just used breathing exercises, like box breathing, to help me calm down, focus on my inhales and exhales, slow my thoughts, and manage my anxiety attacks. The skill greatly benefitted me as I continued to unpack my crap in 2019 and 2020. It was early in 2021 when I discovered breathwork. I discovered somatic healing and how to use these practices to help regulate my nervous system. I took a huge leap out of my comfort zone and signed up for a virtual breathwork session with a healing coach I had discovered through Facebook. It was a free, group session experience so it was low risk in that sense, but it was a virtual group session, and nothing about that felt low risk. I stepped scared in faith. I signed up, I arranged my afternoon to afford the time window for me to be on during the live stream instead of opting for the "safer", recording option. I showed up, and I believe I even engaged in the comments during the live session. All of these things were outside of my comfort zone.

       She went through her introduction and gave us a brief background, less than 10 minutes, and then she dove right into the breathwork and somatic healing of it all. You know, the reason we were there. I respected that she got right to it and didn't feel the need to validate herself or sell her services excessively. It was straight to the healing of it all. It didn't take too long into the process for me to feel like a total weirdo, sitting crisscross applesauce, in front of my computer, fully doubting it all, and as she talked us through an opening visualization, in a matter of seconds I was feeling myself grow more comfortable.  This particular healing session was geared towards fear and being afraid of being seen. After the opening visualization, she got into the teaching. Discussing some of the human experience, nervous system, somatic (body based) healing, and how these things are connected.  Breathwork is just one tool in what can be an arsenal of ways to help regulate your nervous system. Others include, tapping, dancing, shaking, embodiment practices, and even more.

       Today we are just focusing on the breathwork, as we did in this group session, though I personally have experimented with a few others myself. Breathwork was the gateway for me to begin exploring more ways to heal and regulate my nervous system. So, what is breathwork, well lucky you, I'm a great note taker! My healing coach for this session, Lydia McClain, defines it as, "an active form of guided meditation that utilizes conscious, dynamic breath to safely release stuck emotions from the body". She also says:

• Emotions are energy in motion
• Feel to Heal
• It's work, but it works!

~Lydia McClain

        I didn't know what to expect after she finished her lesson and got us laying on the ground to begin the full breathwork exercise. I was a little scared, and I was feeling the anxiety in my nervous system elevate ever so slightly from the calm the introductory visualization had set in motion. She had just given us a brief lesson on how it worked, and it left me unsure. I continued stepping in faith through the process, and even though I had intended to stay crisscross applesauce, I followed suit, cleared barely enough space on my crazy messy, cluttered floor, and I laid down trusting the process.

       Now, for me to go into too much detail about the process or my experience would be unnecessary. They'd be details that wouldn't matter, because it will be different for you.  What I will tell you is that it was unlike anything I had ever experienced. I finished feeling lighter, a little tingly, and incredibly refreshed. I felt capable of being seen and taking up space, things I hadn't felt comfortable doing since I was just a very little girl. After 20-30 minutes of active breathwork, I could understand how it works. I could feel how it works. By the completion of my hour-long group breathwork session, I had experienced how it worked. I couldn't re-explain the how like Lydia did, and my notes were scattered in that section, but this is what I did get:

It helps the body self-heal, by tapping into the nervous system. and helping to release trapped emotions.

This happens because your bloodstream is pumped with oxygen, stabilizing part of your nervous system,

pushing back the part of your brain responsible for thinking, allowing you to fall into a trance-like state

that will allow it to access deeper healing. The increased H2O also means decreased C02 which has

 something to do with PH levels in your body, making you more alkaline and purified from the inside out.

       Whew. All that translates to, lighter. You feel lighter, relaxed, and refreshed. Or at least I did! It was the single best thing I did in the beginning of 2021 to level-up my healing in a dazzling new way! It unlocked and released so much I didn't even realize I was still carrying, subconsciously.  I definitely recommend finding a guide, or a healing coach to encourage you through the process. Lydia was a Divine find for me on Facebook. It comes down to trusting your intuition when you begin this particular part of your quest. Let me know if you decide to give breathwork a try.

~ Live Dazzling

Rebecca Jackson