Early Career and the Onset of Struggles
To understand my journey to becoming a breathwork teacher, I must explain the beginning because my journey is deeply intertwined with my own path to healing. Introducing breathwork into my life marks the true beginning of my recovery, the beginning of a path to living a truly peaceful and powerful life.
At the age of 25, I worked as an overnight retail pharmacist, enduring grueling 110-hour work weeks. Driven by the promise of financial success and material comfort, I pushed myself beyond reasonable limits. To keep up with the intense demands, I relied on medication to process 200-300 prescriptions nightly, often working alone. At the time, I failed to recognize the toll these choices were taking on my mental and physical health until the consequences became too severe to ignore.
By the age of 27, I was confronted with serious health problems: dangerously elevated blood pressure, recurring panic attacks, and swelling in my ankles- a significant concern given my 14-hour shifts on my feet. I vividly remember working a shift while wearing a Holter monitor, desperate to find a physical explanation for my symptoms, hoping to avoid confronting simmering mental health issues. Ultimately, my cardiologist determined that my heart was healthy, aside from a childhood heart murmur, and preemptively diagnosed
me with severe anxiety and panic attacks. He recommended yoga, breathwork, and meditation, but I quickly dismissed these suggestions because they were foreign and unfamiliar. I returned to my demanding schedule, slightly reducing my consumption of coffee, energy drinks, and medication. However social drinking soon became functional alcoholism gradually becoming dysfunctional, but as a young professional, I ignored the warning signs.
Despite the mounting effects of my unhealthy lifestyle which started to include seizures and blackouts at work, I continued to push forward, secretly praying for a permanent escape from my emotional pain. One morning, after a failed suicide attempt, I awoke hungover and realized I could not continue living this way. Physically, emotionally, and psychologically exhausted, I was forced to face the consequences of my alcoholism. With no other options, I entered detox on June 25, 2015, followed by a 30-day treatment program which would mark the beginning of the most challenging period in my life.
The Challenges Continue
After achieving a month of sobriety, I began to experience seizures again, which resulted in chronic migraines, severe twitching, vision loss, and memory problems. I was finally diagnosed with viral encephalitis, juvenile epilepsy, and brain trauma. In a short period, lost my relationship, job, home and my sense of identity. Writing, I see the sorrow and
hopelessness that plagued my younger self, doubting my worthiness for happiness, love, joy, or peace, and questioning my ability to lead a meaningful life. Since that time, I returned to pharmacy time and time again but eventually stopped due to its impact on my anxiety and my spirit. I even spent a year in social work school before quitting due to lack of passion and later became a Louisiana master gardener, immersing myself in learning about herbs and plants—a pursuit that brought me purpose after encephalitis. Desperate to overcome, I was open to anything…I was trying to find hope and the will to keep going.
Seeking Healing and Purpose
By January 2022, I remained sober but far from healed, still battling severe anxiety and ongoing doubt and uncertainty. A panic attack sent me to the hospital, where, once again, a doctor recommended breathwork and meditation. This time, I decided to try a breathing and meditation podcast, and I fell in love. Maybe it was my addictive nature, but I started to practice every morning and every night and it gradually began to make a subtle but noticeable impact. I couldn’t fully explain the effects at the time but in reflection I now realize I was becoming less reactive to my normal triggers. I eventually joined a yoga studio, where I found a sense of release and relief within community, prompting me to consider becoming a yoga teacher. With a background in gymnastics and cheerleading, this transition felt natural. And, in September of 2023, I started yoga teacher training and became captivated by the philosophy of yoga, the spiritual and mental empowerment and the extremely powerful health benefits.
Have you experienced a moment in your life when you knew your life would change forever? Well reading “Breath” by James Nestor was that moment for me—it clarified why and how breathwork was transforming my life. Unlike my prior experience in healthcare, the idea of teaching breathwork felt like genuine healing. My pharmacist training helped me understand the biochemistry involved; breathwork is both an innate and divine science. Through conscious breath manipulation, I began to learn how to influence my body’s biochemical processes.
Following my encephalitis and seizures (seizure-free since 2016), I continued to struggle with memory and vision, but it seemed to be improving. Reading “Breath” made me realize I had been healing myself through breathwork. My memory and eyesight improved, and panic attacks vanished—even when my beloved Jackson passed away.
Becoming a Breathwork Teacher
It was during this period of teacher training that I obtained a breathwork certification, eager to begin (even more so than teaching asana). However, I soon sustained a severe spinal injury during teacher training, rendering me unable to walk, control my bladder, use my fingers or practice breathwork. The setback was devastating and at 40 the seed of hopelessness and despair was starting to break open. I was truly scared for my life, however after emergency spinal surgery, I was able to walk the very next day, and my spiritual perspective changed profoundly. I resolved to serve as a vessel for spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical transformation and thus my purpose was firmly established.
What I love about breathwork is that it enables the manipulation of the autonomic nervous system, allowing for a conscious shift from the sympathetic (fight or flight) state to the parasympathetic (rest and digest) state. This transition lowers blood pressure, heart rate, anxiety, and stress hormones, while improving sleep quality and overall well-being. Since my surgery, I have lost 20 pounds and maintained the loss, benefiting from breathwork’s positive effects on metabolism and digestion. My blood pressure and anxiety are now managed, my temperament is balanced, and my emotional regulation is stronger than ever.
As a product of generational, childhood and adulthood trauma, learning to release and process my emotions was terrifying. I had lived my whole life trying to avoid them but through breathwork and meditation I can release them every day if I choose. Through breathwork and meditation, I can observe my thoughts and feelings, study them and find the root cause so that I can live as my true self every day of my life. Choosing breathwork and meditation feels like taking my power back from those that tried to break me, it feels like finally being in the driver seat of my own life.
Finding the courage to connect with my true self, I am no longer just surviving—I am thriving, living on purpose and living with hope. Breathwork has fostered my physical, mental, and spiritual awareness, empowering me to operate at higher levels of consciousness and embrace courage, acceptance, love, kindness, joy, and, above all, peace.
The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali advises against selfishness, but suggest that if you must be selfish, be selfish with your peace. I value my peace and maintain clarity of mind through my practice, understanding that a clear mind is vital for transcending fears and doubts that keep me stuck in a victimhood mindset. I protect my peace by setting boundaries, living my spiritual principles like acceptance and always being a student of life where I live with the current, not against it.
Sharing Breathwork and Inspiring Others
Six months after my spinal surgery, I taught my first breathwork and meditation class. Fourteen months later, I am teaching breathwork, meditation, and yoga movement across the city as well as being a spiritual life and yoga coach. Having finally moved beyond the lower levels of consciousness described by Dr. David Hawkins in “Transcending the Levels of Consciousness”—shame, guilt, fear, anger, grief, apathy, desire, and pride. I live on purpose and with purpose; To reduce suffering and increase consciousness, to heal others, to support others on their path of transcendence by providing them with the skills to live wisely and with intention. The keys to living a powerful life are nurturing supportive relationships, having a purpose and leaving a legacy that makes the world a better place even if you may not live to see.
I surrender to the fact that challenging circumstances will arise in life, that is inevitable but if I live in a state of courage (it is not the absence of fear but the willingness to overcome it) and acceptance (not passivity) I can transcend those obstacles. Thanks to my breathwork and meditation practice, I love who I am, I love what I do, and I love how I do it. I could have never cultivated such self-love and self-compassion without breathwork and meditation and especially without the courage and willingness to do it differently. My hope in this life is that you never give up on yourself or lose hope and faith in the possibility of who you can become because the power is within you.
You can find me weekly at The Mind Body Collective every Saturday at 9:30 AM, Oakdale Park on Wednesdays at 6pm and monthly at Yes, Yoga. I will also be offering a special yoga series called “Finding the Garden Within,” at Galvez Garden in St. Roch every Friday in November at 10am.
Only in community can we heal and stay healed, so I hope to see you soon and, in the meantime, protect your peace.