Slow down a second. Hi. How are you feeling as you read this?
How are you breathing?
Humor me. Pay a little attention for just a minute.
Are you breathing through your nose or your mouth?
Are you breathing slowly or quickly?
Are your breaths shallow or deep?
When was the last time you stopped and paid attention to your breath?
Like many people in modern society, I have spent most of my life breathing shallowly and through my mouth, never connecting to my breath or giving it much thought.
My life took a random turn when Dreamboat attended a transformational Breathwork event in early 2023, and encouraged me to follow the work of local speaker Dr Espen.
I ended up seated in the crowd at one of his three-day events a year later and was fortunate enough to be offered a free place in his four-month program shortly afterwards.
Espen three-day event, February 2024.
I shared some of that story on Instagram, which you can still find in my Highlights Reel. I love personal development and consuming other teachers’ work – learning through their perspective and framing.
But what I loved in particular about this personal development was the emphasis on Breathwork – with a new technique taught every two weeks of the program. (Eight in total).
Participants were strongly encouraged to commit to a daily Breathwork practice for the four-month duration, and I kept that commitment.
The start of my Breathwork journey – March 2024.
Since then, I’ve tried and experimented with Espen’s practices, learned from Dreamboat as he underwent a Breathwork coaching certification, had my experience to date flipped on its head at a festival I attended, lengthened my practice and adopted more of a ‘Wim Hof’ style, and finally took everything I knew and started playing around with a style that suits me – finally confident that I know more about myself, my breath and my needs than someone not living in my body.
I’ve wanted to write this email for a long time. It’s technically number eight in my ten-part series of the most profound changes I’ve made to become the most peaceful and joyful version of myself.
I didn’t know what was stopping me. Why was I stalling on getting this one damn email out?
The answer came to me during yoga over the weekend. I’ve been scared to take up space in this ‘world’—the world at large, yes, but also the male-dominated world of somatics, breathwork, coaching, and ‘success’.
I’ve thought I needed to be more successful, have more external proof of my success, and be pristine in my appearance, habits and work ethic.
I haven’t studied Breathwork, and I don’t have any formal qualifications. I don’t know any of the lingo, and I haven’t practised deep in the Himalayas under the guidance of Buddhist monks. This is not something I have studied in books.
But I’ve since realised that how I do things is better than learning through books.
I became a top chef by teaching myself, defying the rules and unapologetically showing up in the world.
I became a professional photographer by teaching myself, defying the rules and unapologetically showing up in the world.
I showed up and just did it. Becoming Australia’s First Professional Instagrammer as a self-taught photographer.
I became Australia’s First Professional Instagrammer by teaching myself, defying the rules and unapologetically showing up in the world.
I even became a CEO by, you guessed it, teaching myself, defying the rules and unapologetically showing up in the world.
Since my 2022 burnout/ existential crisis/ course correction, I have forgotten how powerful I already am. And that shit is about to change.
Because, whilst I haven’t read the history of Breathwork in Sanskrit, what I have done is sat deeply in the practice day after day, in dripping wet swimmers, on the beach observing myself.
I sit on the beach and I do the thing. 2025.
I’ve cumulatively put in at least 150 hours of intentional Breathwork practice, even as that voice in my head whispered, “People are looking at you. You look stupid. You’re not even doing it properly. People who have done Breathwork will think you’re an idiot if they see you.”
Or worse, the daily one of, “Maybe you don’t need to do Breathwork today.”
I’ve passed out through hyperventilation. (Caught it on camera, too.)
I’ve breathed with bad technique.
I’ve breathed so aggressively that a kindly couple came over to make sure I wasn’t having a seizure.
For a period of about four months, I experienced violent tremors throughout the practice, stored trauma escaping my body.
And by sitting with all of this, I’ve found myself with Breathwork.
Every day, whether it’s raining or windy, whether I have heaps on or clingy children, whether I’m in a low or a high mood, I do this practice and come home to myself.
But what does that mean?
On a surface level, Breathwork is an excellent tool for nervous system regulation. Through my Awareness Journal practice I’ve come to identify that humans are basically walking nervous systems on legs. SO MUCH of our state is determined by our nervous system – and many of us spend a disproportionate amount of time in an activated, fight-or-flight state.
(Funny side story, when I first started Acupuncture in 2020, my therapist diagnosed adrenal fatigue and told me he was going to put a few needles in to tame my nervous system. He said I would probably feel a bit stoned, and not to plan anything for the afternoon. He said I might have forgotten how being in the Parasympathetic Nervous System feels. He wasn’t wrong! I was so grounded and peaced out that day that I did, in fact, feel stoned. We are NOT supposed to be activated and frenzied 24/7.)
So, every day, when I do Breathwork, I come back into Parasympathetic if I wasn’t already. For the rest of the day, I notice how much less sensitive my nervous system is and how much easier it is to regulate if I get overstimulated.
That, alone, is worth 25 minutes of my time.
But the practice goes a lot deeper than that for me.
Breathwork slows down my thoughts. Most humans have up to 60,000 thoughts a day, most of which are repetitive and negative.
I use my Awareness Journal practice to identify my morning thoughts and stop them from derailing my day. I use Breathwork to slow down the relentless barrage of thoughts that pop into my brain daily.
Here’s how it goes >
Round 1 – think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think etc.
Round 1 Breathholds – think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think, PEACE.
Round 2 – think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think, think, PEACE.
Round 2 Breathholds – think, think, think, PEACE, communicate with spirit.
Round 3 – think, think, think, think, think, PEACE.
Round 3 Breathholds – think, PEACE, communicate with spirit.
Two things happen that aren’t thinking. The first is that I slow the thoughts enough, even stop them for micro-moments, so that I can cease to be a thinking mind in a human body, and instead, I become the deep peace, stillness, and solidity that lies in the body underneath the thoughts.
This happens every time, without fail. Sometimes in the first round, sometimes right at the very end of the third. But it always happens.
The second is that I communicate with spirit. This might sound crazy woo-woo, but let me frame it differently.
Inside the peace I find, I receive messages and communicate with my higher self – my soul. I find clarity, certainty, answers, downloads, ideas, and connection.
The idea for the Awareness Journal, albeit before I started my Breathwork practice, came from this place, as did most of the ideas I’ve had for emails I’ve sent, stories I’ve shared and my profound certainty around how to spend my time.
It doesn’t matter where my nervous system is, what emotions I’m experiencing, where I’m at in my cycle, what atrocities are happening in the world, what unfavourable circumstances I have in my life, or how I feel; underneath all of those layers is peace and certainty.
Not thought about. FELT. In the very depths of my body.
Peace.
That is why I sit on the beach in wet swimmers every day and breathe for 25 minutes.
This is the third or fourth time I’ve made a solid start on it, only to discard my words and walk away.
But I’m done with staying small. One thing you can always trust when you read my words is that I don’t learn and parrot other teachings. I experience all that the human experience has to offer and share my own perspectives.
I will talk more about Breathwork on my Instagram in the coming days and include it in my Awareness Journal package, which I hope to release in the next two weeks or so.
I hope my shares encourage you to pay more attention to what your breath can teach you. Nobody lives in your body except you. Nobody can tell you what will work for your body except you. Don’t be scared to go in there and play around. Your soul is yearning for it.
I love you,
Lauren
P.S. If you’ve missed the earlier posts in this series, you can catch up by searching for the titles. I’ve so far written about water (“How to Change Your Life”, personal care (“Be a sexy, smelly animal”), fasting (“Fasting: Punishment or Reward”), sleep (“Giving myself a fighting chance”), movement (“Oops, I accidentally didn’t exercise for ten years”), personal development (“Put Yourself in Rooms That Will Make You Question Yourselves”), and food (“Hungry and Depressed”).
NB/ The Awareness Journal has since launched and is on sale until the 23rd of April, 2025. Check it out here.
**Originally published to my email database on the 17th of February, 2025**
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