A Mid-Summer's Sharing.
The Practice That Helped Me Survive Success
For years, I mostly ran on three hours of sleep. I was juggling eighty-hour work weeks, a business, and an undergraduate program I was doing full-time. I fell asleep at the wheel twice - the second time scared me enough that I got an apartment at a Uni hall, purely to be able to sleep for a couple of hours between work and school.
Add grieving a younger sibling. I was there doing it, and in hindsight, I couldn't tell you how.
I could craft a supervisor's speech while battling fatigue. Hold space for others without knowing how emotionally threadbare I was. Push through exhaustion to the point I was vibrating with tiredness because... that's what high-functioning women do, right?
I was breaking stereotypes and being a pioneer and a businesswoman and a scholar, and I was so disconnected from my physical body and my emotions, I might not have known them in the street. Dysregulation, thy name was A.
Truly, I'm grateful and a little surprised that I survived.
Somehow, in between all the things, I restarted a yoga practice. I made space in the morning to move and to breathe. That's probably what saved me. You can't think your way out of a dysregulated nervous system.
Over time, I built a breathwork practice. And over more time realised that the truth of my life is that I breathe, therefore I am. (Descartes was so wrong.)
Returning to my centre came quietly. In the breath. Clarity came slowly, almost imperceptibly.
Now I know to turn to the breath. I know that the truth holds, even when it feels like the centre surely cannot. I trust the breath enough to breathe. Rumi names God as the "Breath in the Breath", and in turbulence, when I've put the full might of my mind up against the thing and still feel fully confused, I return to this knowing. I breathe.
Just now, many things feel uncertain. And I've felt rather helpless. So I made something to share. (Not a casserole. Though, as I think about it, Dutch dinners - the idea, not the actual menu, sounds just the thing, so I'm intending to have sharing dinners soon.)
From me to you:
The 3-Day Breath Breakthrough
A free, body-first breathwork series designed for high-achieving, emotionally sensitive folks needing a little breathing room.
If you're navigating burnout, perimenopause, the slow ache of overextension, grief, job loss, some other hard pass, or you’re finding that it's hard to human right now, I hope this is of service.
In three short sessions, you’ll learn how to:
Interrupt stress and spiralling in under 3 minutes
Restore sustainable energy without pushing
Build a breath ritual that fits your actual life
No apps. No fluff. No woo.
No spiritual dogma. No bypass.
No need to believe...
Only (just?) your breath and the possibility of a smidgen of space.
If you need this too:
It's yours.
Click here to begin the 3-Day Breath Breakthrough
I hope it gives you a moment of real exhale.