My Introduction to the Power of Breathwork

“How dare you make me feel this way. I can’t handle this. You can, you’re dead. You need to take this from me,” I pled.

What surfaced was overwhelming. I hadn’t seen him in years, I last conversed with him a year ago, and I’m sitting here with blinding rage thinking of all the woulda/coulda/shouldas and I was MAD. Mad at his lack of effort, mad at myself for feeling anything for him in this moment, mad I wasn’t treated like a queen in our relationship, mad at everything that had to do with him.

In 2021, my former love was killed. We had a rocky on again/off again relationship over the span of 5 years. I expected him to return, like he always did, and I would’ve taken him back hoping things had changed and he’d be different this time around. But he never returned. He never came back for me and I was too proud to reach out to him.

The last time we spoke was via text 356 days prior to his death. He text me out of the blue telling me he’s been thinking of me. I had taken that opportunity to ask why he never came back, why he never tried. And the response was typical for him. He assumed that since I snapped at him all those years ago that I was forever done with his bullshit. The result of that conversation was had he known I would’ve taken him back, he would’ve tried. Typical…fucking…response. Too busy incorrectly assuming what I was thinking and feeling and never willing to take a chance. And that’s how the conversation was left.

I didn’t feel like I could handle what surfaced and it surprised the hell out of me. I had no idea I was holding on to all of this shit. I had accepted how we ended, I had moved on. It had been 7 years. So where was all of this coming from? When he died, the thoughts that arose from within were “those kids should be mine”, “I should be his grieving widow”, “he might still be alive if he were with me”. Did I truly believe any of that? Of course not. Over the years I realized he wasn’t the one for me. But there was so much emotion around these thoughts. It was a lot to hold on to. And what did my brain start doing? It began giving me evidence that his death wouldn’t affect my life in any way, shape or form. I never saw him and I rarely talked to him, so how does his death change my life? It doesn’t. But I realized by letting the rational brain to take over and attempt to protect me, I was swallowing my feelings, which is how I was in this emotional mess in the first place.

Two months prior I had become a certified yoga teacher and had some new tools to try and assist me through this process, so decided to give breathwork a try. I searched the internet for a breathwork style for anger that resonated and found a short practice that seemed doable. It was about 15 minutes of active breaths with movement. The go-to song I picked to assist me was Age of Machine by Greta Van Fleet. I played it twice in a row as I breathed, slapped my thighs, tapped my chest, stomped and grunted. “Oh God, the feeling, We need some healing” it played. I, I need some healing. I yelled out my thoughts, without censoring, and let the anger flow through me. When the song began for the second time, I kneeled before my couch that I had placed multiple pillows on and began to punch the crap out of them and scream into them so the neighbors wouldn’t hear me and interrupt my process. For the last 30 seconds of the song, I punched into physical exhaustion.

You know what I noticed? I wasn’t crying anymore. I was all cried out. I felt lighter. Emotionally, I felt neutral. For how overwhelming the anger felt, I was shocked by the sense of peace I was feeling after breathing and expressing. How long would this feeling last?

I committed to this practice for 30 days to see what would happen. Each day new thoughts would arise, which brought more levels of anger and emotion. But the peaceful and light feeling continued to show up after the practice. The thoughts were less emotionally charged day by day. The anger transformed to grief which transformed to love. It was an absolute fascinating process to experience and witness within myself. After the 30 days, I was no longer a hot button on the topic of him. I could be in a conversation about him without getting emotional.

Is that really what it takes? Feeling your feelings, allowing your thoughts to take center stage for a moment without censoring, even if you don’t believe them to be true, and letting yourself express in a contained and safe manner? I discovered, yes. Yes it is.

Does everyone know about this? They don’t. It was from this experience I became passionate about bringing this powerful and transformational work into the world.

To this day, I can sense when he’s checking in on me. Sadness comes every now and then, but it’s not intense and doesn’t stay long. Around the anniversary of his death, I don’t sleep the best for about a week or two. Instead of fighting it, I’m gentle with myself. But overall this process has had a lasting effect on me and has shown me an emotion needs to have the opportunity to be completed so it doesn’t stick around or surface later. It’s freeing.

This year I finally deleted his number from my contacts and our last text conversation. I’m not erasing him, but I’m also not holding on to a distant memory either. Everyone experiences their grief differently, but it is possible to make it to the other side of what feels consuming. I’m living proof.