Yoga and Breathwork Meditation

Before :: “Oh yes, I know all about Breathwork, I’ve done it many many times.” - a student before coming to my Breathwork workshops.

After :: “what just happened!? I’ve never done anything like that before in my life” - the same student after coming to my Breathwork Workshops.

This isn’t me patting myself on the back for having fabulous workshops, (though of course I am biased and do believe they are fabulous), no this is simply a common perspective.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard, “yes, I do breathwork in my yoga class.” Or “that’s what my yoga teacher teaches us, breathwork while doing the poses”. Though I of course have no idea what it is your yoga teacher teaches, I can say, the lineage of Breathwork I teach is not the same type of breath that is taught while in your yoga class.

It’s confusing, I know, all the different types of Breathwork classes that exist, and I certainly don’t expect anyone except an expert in the field to really know the difference. I do find it humorous however how often we lump breathwork and meditation in with the category of yoga. It’s like lumping a spinning class in with soccer and saying, “yeah, I’ve done soccer before because I sweat in my spin class and that happens in soccer too.”

First and foremost, let me be very clear, I am not a yoga teacher. I cannot speak about the yoga poses, or even the history of yoga in any educated form except from the perspective of a yoga student who's been practicing yoga for the last 20 years. Yes, that means I have some experience, that means as a student I can speak to how my body practices yoga, how the yogic poses feel for me over the years, but I have not studied it. That feels like an important distinction because in today’s world of courses so easily accessible, of coaches acting as therapists, of hairstylists giving Full Moon haircuts, something has been lost. The art of mastery.

Don’t get me wrong I am in no way discrediting individuals who are professionals and have the expertise to create something that will help another. I believe deeply in coaches, just as much as I do in therapists, and I believe in psychics as much as I do mindset, or mental health support. I also believe in hairstylists creating a Full Moon haircut offering as a way to help you release, shed and call in the new. (How creative is that by the way?)

We need you all. There are a lot of people in this world who need help and we could all use support. There is a lot of healing work to do, and we need all of you who are willing to be on each other's support team to become an emotionally healthier society.

Can you imagine it!? If everyone of us could have a team of people on your side at every turn helping you learn about nutrition, about health, about wellness. We could all use people helping us emotionally and psychologically process hardships, pains, past traumas rather than medically spending so much of our time, energy and money on the science of it all, or in solving the problem, we need to keep connecting to the root. 

What I don’t agree with is when the hairstylist who has not studied astrology, who has not practiced the work, but who has read other people’s posts about astrology, then calls themself an astrologer, or a Moon Expert. Or when a soccer player takes a spin class, and decides they’re a spin instructor. Or when a yoga teacher has not studied Breathwork decides to teach a workshop on Breathwork. Or even when a Breathwork Meditation teacher claims to be a yoga teacher.

Go out and follow your passions. Be a yoga teacher AND a breathwork teacher. Be a spin instructor AND a soccer player, but study it first. Believe you are enough as you are, with the titles you have. You are enough as a mother, a daughter, a sister, a brother, a nibling. You are enough as a yoga teacher, as a hairstylist, as a soccer player. You are enough without a single one of your accomplishments.

There is space for everyone to be a teacher in the field they want to be in, but give yourself permission to be a student before claiming to be a master.

We are all students of life, that is what makes us teachers. What separates the great teachers from the okay ones however, are the ones that are forever willing to be a student. To recognize that by being a student you become a teacher and by never putting down the will to learn, your wisdom grows. This is true mastery. This is what I miss about the meaning teachers used to hold. Mastery takes time. It takes expertise. It takes study, and it’s okay that you’re not a master. I’m not sure I’ll ever be a master in anything, but you better damn well believe I’m never going to stop trying. You want to be a master yoga teacher, go for it! Study. Teach. Practice. But most of all, LEARN. Be willing to be a student of life and I promise you, your mastery evolves as it’s meant to. When you learn to be a student of life, and you feel the wisdom of the student become your superpowers as a teacher, that my dear friends is the closest experience I’ve ever had to realizing I’m both a Master of my practice; and therefore, means I’m right back at the beginning of my journey of being a student.