Why I believe breath is the most powerful medicine I know
I didn't come to breathwork through a workshop or a recommendation.
I came to it through necessity. And I have to say a shout-out to my friend Hannah, who introduced me to this modality!
Like many of you reading this, my path of awakening was not linear. It came in waves. It came in moments of deep remembering followed by long seasons of integration. I was already walking a spiritual path; in fact, I was deep into my shamanic training when I stepped into breathwork as a breather. I was already in the ceremony, already in service in various ways. But there was something about the breath that undid me in a way nothing else had. It was a bridge between my shamanic work and my own personal healing, and I just knew I had to learn the modality.
The first time I experienced conscious connected breathwork, I understood something in my body that I had been trying to understand in my mind for years. It was the Spring of 2018, and I was on the cusp of making a deep decision about a serious surgery I needed that I was putting off - that first breath gave me all the answers. 1) I called my surgeon the next day and finally said yes, and 2 weeks later I signed up for my first ( of three!) breathwork certifications!
Post surgery, 3 months into my first breathwork training. I had my left fallopian tube and ovary removed, and endometriosis was burned off my uterus, bladder, and bowel, consequently on sick leave for 9 weeks. This was the beginning of a deep ceremony.
Post surgery, 3 months into my first breathwork training. I had my left fallopian tube and ovary removed, and endometriosis was burned off my uterus, bladder, and bowel, consequently on sick leave for 9 weeks. This was the beginning of a deep ceremony.
The breath doesn't negotiate. It doesn't wait for you to be ready. It moves through every door you've kept closed, and it does so with a tenderness that is almost unbearable.
I have sat with plant medicine. I have walked with shamanic traditions for over 10 years. I have trained in modalities that I deeply respect and continue to carry. And still, breath remains the medicine I return to again and again. I believe that the breath truly is the FIRST medicine.
Not because it is the most dramatic or the most mystical, but because it is the most available, and we are born with it. It lives inside you. It has never left you. And when you learn to work with it consciously, it becomes a portal to the deepest layers of yourself.
This is why I became a breathwork practitioner.
And this is why, when I discovered Seven Directions Breathwork and the depth of their training, I knew I had found the school I wanted to be part of, building here in North America. I am beyond proud to offer the North American branch of this training.
Not every breathwork training is equal. And I say that not to diminish, but because it matters. When you are holding space for another human being's nervous system, their trauma, and their opening, the container you've been trained to create matters enormously.
The ethics you carry matter.
The depth of your own personal work matters.
Seven Directions was built on exactly that understanding.
This is why I am proud to be the lead North American trainer. Not because of a title, but because I believe in what we are building together, cohort by cohort, facilitator by facilitator.
If you've been feeling the pull of breathwork, as a personal practice, as a path of becoming, or as a medicine you feel called to offer others, I invite you to stay close over the coming weeks.
The younger Rebecca, in training, post-surgery inviting you to walk this path with her!
x Rebecca
P.S. I'm curious whether you have had a breathwork experience that stayed with you? Something that shifted something? Tell me about it. These conversations are some of my favorites.
Head over to our website to learn more!
