Standing all alone you can barely light a match, but together we can burn this place down.

My dive into breathwork began with just that, diving into breathwork. It became my main focus, obviously. I had just invested in an apprenticeship, that’s what I was there for. I was excited not only to learn how it worked, but to dive deeper into my own practice. I had already had a couple mind-bending experiences with breathwork on my own. The technique I had been introduced to with this apprenticeship, however, was taking me to levels I didn’t know existed. I slowly began to unearth these parts of me that had been buried deep and were quietly pulling the strings on my day to day life. I began to understand them, and have compassion for them, compassion for myself.

The biggest revelation I had came to me over halfway through the apprenticeship:

Leading up to this point, I had been feeling like I wasn’t getting it, I wasn’t feeling like I was becoming a facilitator. In fact, I struggled for most of the apprenticeship feeling a sense of imposter syndrome. I would show up to the spaces I’d be assisting a group, and feel like an outsider standing in the room. I felt like there were eyes on me wondering what I was even doing there, without having ever said a word to any of them. I was quiet, withdrawn, spoke only when spoken to.

Outside of the apprenticeship, I was struggling with loneliness and self isolating. I was coming up on three years sober, and working at a restaurant as a bartender. I was friends with my coworkers, but the bond I once had with them as a drinker was gone. They weren’t my clan anymore. They weren’t my people, nor I theirs. I wouldn’t be where I am now without them, don’t get me wrong, but my growth with them had ended.

Somehow for over 6 months in the apprenticeship, I didn’t see the answer to my problem was already happening around me. I was there, I was in the solution. The people I was meeting, the groups I was assisting, this was a COMMUNITY and it was MY community. I was THERE, I was a part of it. Not only was I a part of it, I was brought into it by this master facilitator who had a following of her own. I was seen as one of her students by every group I ever assisted with her. I was someone who found this breath and decided it was something I wanted to shape my life around. It occurred to me that people started to recognize me assisting these groups. They knew me as one of my teacher’s students.

I realized I wasn’t there just to learn about the breath. I was there to learn about the community, and become a pillar in the community, welcoming others into it. It’s with these people, seeking deeper within themselves, that I feel the most understood. In these rooms, ready to be vulnerable, on our own, but with each other. We can leave our societal statuses behind, and see each other eye to eye as humans.