Next up, and in no particular order:

 

Family relationships
I believe in deep, meaningful relationships with people.

Breathwork has helped me to be braver in fostering these deeper connections with existing friends and to seek them out with new friends.

Over time I realised that my relationships with some family members weren’t as open or as deep as I’d have liked them to be. Breathwork helps me to open up to these family members more more and to create space for them to do the same – yes, it sometimes (often) feels clumsy and lopsided and I get a tight feeling in my belly but I’m trying. And they are trying too. Bit by bit.

 

Creativity
I used to write when I was younger: stories, bad poetry and song lyrics or just dumping my thoughts into a diary. Then gradually I stopped. A painful experience where a “friend” helped themselves to the contents of my dairy one afternoon started me down the path of not wanting to write in case anyone ever read it. Also, I was starting to struggle with anxiety and depression and and the idea of writing down my thoughts scared me – once I’d written it, it was real and I couldn’t hide from my feelings anymore.

Starting breathwork helped to re-open that channel again. I often scribble down something directly after breathing or intentionally make time to sit and let the words flow onto the page for a while. Sometimes I write for an audience, often I don’t.

My ability to do creative thinking has come back online again – Once a child with an amazing and vivid imagination, I grew into a narrower way of thinking (undoubtedly wider societal forces of what is “acceptable” were also influential in this change.) Breathwork has helped me to believe in change and possibility again, to think “yeah, but what if…..”

 

Welcome to the Collective
This one is, for me, a gift that keeps on giving.

Realising that we are all connected – people, animals, the earth, the Universe – has helped me to understand that there really is no “Us V’s Them”, and that there is only “We.” We often only see a slither of someone else and their life, so to judge them on that moment, that interaction isn’t really fair at all. Realising that we are all part of the Collective and that, if you dig deep enough, we all want similar things: Safety, love and happiness.

Huge.

 

Self Trust
Breathwork helped me to realise that I really didn’t trust myself. Or my body.
This wasn’t a quick and easy realisation for me, it’s a gradual and continual practice to heal. Sometimes I feel I’m making progress, other times I don’t but I’m sticking with it.

 

Intuition
As with my creativity, this was something I used to use a LOT when I was a kid and then used less of as I got older.

As I got deeper into breathwork I realised that I’d started tuning out my intuition. I’d also started confusing it with the anxiety voice.

Breathwork helps me to connect back in to my intuition – to make a quieter space so I can hear it more clearly.

 

Being seen and heard
The fact that I am even writing for an audience, let alone having a website is all down to breathwork. I don’t mean in a “If I didn’t train to be a Breathwork Facilitator I wouldn’t need a website” way, I mean that it has helped me to find and use my voice. Is it scary being seen and heard in public? Yes. Am I doing it anyway because if feels “right”? Yup, absolutely.

Realising I have deep wounds around being seen and heard has meant that I can start to heal them, this post, this website, offering my services to the world, that’s all part of the healing too.

 

Breathwork has helped me find more of myself.
I think there’s still more to go and I’m excited to find it.