Psychedelic Breathing Without Psychedelics (and the journey home)

I wasn’t planning on going. I thought about it momentarily when Brittany mentioned but breath work has always scared me, not to mention 10 hours on a Sunday with strangers. I have no issue smoking 5MEO-DMT spontaneously in Janis Joplin’s old apartment, sitting for hours in psychedelic assisted therapy to visit my subconscious, or drinking ayahuasca — with intention, and the guidance of an incredible healer, but breathing feels almost too, simple. Could it be that easy? 

While there are lots of breath work styles, Holotropic Breathing was developed by Stansilov Grof and his wife in his psychotherapy work after LSD (which he had been using as a psychotherapeutic tool) was made illegal. Grof was committed to helping clients release trauma and heal through accelerated breathing with an intense soundtrack, on mats with eyes closed to enter a non-ordinary state of consciousness. The lengthened sessions allow participants to tap into the psyche and personal wisdom as their own inner healers. 

It sounded interesting but I hesitated, until the ninth inning, literally. I woke up Sunday morning feeling reborn after 11 hours of sleep, (thanks to Magnesium Glycate and Alice functional mushrooms chocolates). Feeling effervescent, I wanted to tackle the things I’d been procrastinating but was conflicted by my shared desire to lean into my fear and go breathe psychedelically. I jumped on the stair master to move myself, stuck thoughts and energy, to Sanskrit mantra and shift my indecision to deciding. En route, my inner knowing spoke loudly, Olivia! Everything We Need is Inside! Perhaps breathing is just another tool to learn myself more intimately. Go! I jumped off, showered quickly, grabbed a mat, eye mask, snacks, sent an email to the guide, “On way! Pay upon arrival!”

I showed up void of expectation, wearing my pink heart sweat pants, a shirt that says “Joie de Vivre,” and my Grandmother Honey’s turquoise ring, I arrived, tardy, obviously but was welcoming lovingly. I put down my things and slipped into the empty seat, smiling. “Right on time,” the host Christine, said welcoming. Right on time. And just on time, the tears started coming. Given the amount of healing I’ve committed to, I’m an open vessel — “deeply feeling.” Christine explained the work, what the 10 hour day would entail and with deep gratitude for showing up, I allowed myself to just open, in trust. That’s the thing with healing — be it, therapy, breath, psychedelics or the rest— you are opening and potentially entering your subconscious. All you have to do is show up and surrender. And I did. “…In the event you’re grieving a loss,” she said and my tears exited. Grief isn’t linear. Ending my relationship left me on a rollercoaster of heartbreak, grief I’ve not yet felt before — even if it was my choice. 

Healing isn’t linear. If I had a dollar for every time I’d heard that or said it, my goodness! And yet, each time I actually honor the depth of its truth, it feels new to me. Healing and grieving, grieving and healing. The ten hour day flew by quickly. It was structured as two, 2.5 hour sessions with a break in between. In pairs, one session we’d sit with the breather and then switch before closing. My only intention was to just be “here” and breathe. I sat first, accompanying my partner as she breathed. If she needed guidance, I offered assistance. I felt her energy strongly — heart, belly, womb … I prayed over her as she brought her heart back home. 

And I was witness to the rest of the room around me, 13 strangers — more men than women marginally. Present in my feelings, the tears kept coming, empathic and witness to the collective pain of others, grieving and growing. Healing. I witnessed hurt people healing and the depth of the pain that we carry. With it, I was reminded that hurt people hurt people. So many of us are in pain: which shows up in fear, anger, sadness, insecurity, anxiety: but the pain so often was never ours, just put on us, or claimed in need of survival. I held space for the pain, albeit heavy, and felt everything. With that idea of pain, I witnessed a group of men holding space for one another in their grief, men caring for one another in their journeys. It was so beautiful to see men supporting each other, and with it acknowledge that even though my trauma has mostly been at the hands of too many men, their actions were a result of their own internal suffering. It sounds silly but, I was able to see men in their pain too. And then something strange happened to me, for the first time in my healing journey, since my September 12, 2020 plant medicine therapy where I first began remembering trauma, I considered forgiving. The thought, “I forgive him,” came up in my body, feeling called to release one of my perpetrators for raping me, thinking, “he must have been in so much pain to have done that to me, to have hurt me, then left me for dead, near lifeless body…”

Freedom is the forgiveness we gift ourselves. I left realizing that I no longer want to carry the pain he put on me, his pain, and with forgiveness I can release what is just too heavy. I’m tired of carrying what was never mine anyway. In that first medicine journey my body shook in shock, terror and disbelief. But I was committed from that day forward to keep going … to keep remembering … to keep releasing … to keep growing. Two years ago on that mat,  I repeated, “No more pain. Just love. No more pain. Just love.” Forgiving creates more space for me to love, to come back into my body that never felt like mine, dancing to the music yesterday, with my breath — I continued coming home to me. 

When it was my turn to breathe, Committed to love, I went in. I revisited parceled parts of me, shame - anger - grief - unworthy, others pain placed on me and I gave myself affirmation as I released. My body shook again for two hours, and I didn’t try and control it or contain it or mute it or otherwise, I just let it do what was needed. The shaking is a release, as I come back into my body. I am my inner healer. As I cut the chords, I said their names, no longer binding them to me. As I breathed I repeated to myself, “I am love, I am worthy, I am trust, I am me,” remembering my personal commitments simultaneously. The love we seek, outside of us, that which we chase or wait for or date for or otherwise, is the love we lack inside. We are all just seeking the love that we haven’t yet found within.

Yesterday I left, proud for showing up, and not giving up … because love is always the way forward. Are you willing to learn you to love you — to look within to honor what shadow pieces you might be hiding? 

I always say, we must face our dark 
Our wounds
Our stories
Our histories
Our pain
Our past
to free our light, to create our dreams, to be the hope we want to see. It starts internally. 

Rumi says “The wound is where the light enters,” He’s right. We have to go into the wound to find out light. 
It takes courage and bravery and resilience and grit void of expectation or timeline because none of this is linear. But now I can tell you with gumption that there is hope on the other side, and always more to discover, within.  In the hero’s journey, good will triumph over evil but only after the hero overcomes adversity which most often involves infectious self doubt. As one of my favorite teacher’s Hagrid says, “In the battle between good vs., evil, good must prevail.” We are our own hero's and we all have a story.

In the event that you are suffering, self sabotaging, grieving, not believing — trust the journey, stop running. Face it, feel it, heal it, keep going. As I’ve shared, it isn’t easy but it doesn’t have to be so hard. As we strengthen, hard gets easier. 

As Ram Das says, “We are all just walking each other home.” Not where we are but who we are, stripped of all the stories, ego and otherwise, without fear, there is Only love. One day, you’ll look back and honor your younger self with pride, knowing you didn’t abandon them, but brought them with you on this journey home, to you. Keep breathing. Everything we need is inside. 
Happy Monday,
Olivia

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For an incredible Holotropic guide, find Christine Calvert.
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