Moonthly Letter XVI: 5 lessons from a year of breathwork
Plus current offerings, a few changes and March Delights
Before I get into this month’s letter where I'll be sharing about some changes for this Substack space and the 5 biggest lessons from a year of practicing breathwork, I want to tell you about my current offerings.
The Sacred Pause is a 1:1 conscious connected breathwork session for gentle souls who crave stillness in a busy world. Ideal for you if you're new to breathwork and want to try out conscious connected breathwork or you're simply wishing me to hold space for your stillness.
The Pilgrim’s Inn is a one-off 1:1 session fusing conscious connected breathwork with Human Design to identify stuck and stagnant energy through your BodyGraph and start releasing it from your body with breathwork. I want you to leave this session feeling more empowered in who you are and start tapping into your deep-rooted self-trust. Ideal for you if you're not ready to commit to my 6-month offering.
The Pilgrim’s Journey is a 6-month 1:1 immersion of Human Design and conscious connected breathwork to help you identify stuck and stagnant energy, explore old stories that are no longer serving you and start cultivating deep-rooted self-trust so that you can courageously live your life on your terms. Ideal for you if you're ready to get radically honest with yourself and what's keeping you from the life you want and you need a supportive and nurturing space to unravel who you’ve been and reweave who you want to be.
And if you’re unsure which option is for you, or you simply want to explore how our energies mix and what it would be like to work with me, I offer a free 30-minute Coffee Chat with no strings attached.
“Wow, breathwork! What can I say? I am hooked.
So this is what my own energy feels like.”
These are the exact words I wrote after my very first breathwork session. It was an in-person group session for the Spring Equinox last year. I remember the feeling of apprehension going to that session on my own. I had no idea what to expect but I knew I had to be there.
This year on the Spring Equinox I completed my 400-hour breathwork facilitator training with an upcoming graduation in beautiful Tuscany in June. I have no idea what to expect from my very first BreathCamp but I know I have to be there. And I can't wait for the in-person conversations with my peer group. Week after week, we showed up, we did the work, and we cheered each other on. And I can't wait to celebrate us!
What a wild ride!
In honour of this journey I want to take up space in this month’s letter and tell you about the 5 biggest lessons I've learned along the way.
But first, here are a few changes I'm implementing on my Substack.
I'm no longer creating content specifically for paid supporters.
What does this mean?
It simply means there are no extra perks for becoming a paid subscriber. Yes, I might put some content behind a paywall, especially some of the raw and vulnerable backstage stuff, but it is not my intention to entice you in with extra content. I trust you support me because you want to hear from me and find some value in it. I still stand by keeping the paid content I have created thus far behind the paywall. If you want to cancel and receive a refund, please let me know. I will do so no questions asked.
I'm also releasing the need to cultivate community here. I've realised I've been trying to do it out of a need and desire that wasn't mine to begin with. Rather, I simply followed along to the narrative that we have been told to want and do. After all, we are social creatures. But what I’m questioning here is how can we cultivate communities that are aligned with who we are? And what do we mean when we say we want to cultivate a community?
Does that mean I don't want a community?
Of course not. I love being part of the communities that nourish my soul and I have a few I can jump in and out of. But I've always thrived in deep one-on-one connections and in spaces I can nip in and out of. But as an individual on Substack, it is no longer my aim to cultivate community. So perhaps it is an audience that I am truly looking for?
When I get radically honest with myself, cultivating a community that I would feel responsible for does not sound that appealing to me. I’m definitely not a tribal person. In fact, I’d even argue that it goes against my nature as more of a lone wolf who needs a lot of time for herself, and has a tendency to want to step away pretty regularly.
I’m starting to see that more clearly now that I am allowing myself to be detached from that need and instead lean into simply wanting to share the work that I do. I trust you are here because you want to be here and find some kind of value in the things I offer. For that I am grateful.
With that said, if you ever fancy a quick one-on-one with me to pick my brain about something or to simply chat, you can always book the 30-minute coffee chat with me even if you have no intention to work with me. I love connecting with people who don’t shy away from doing things their own way and I can’t wait to chat with you one-on-one.
Now, let's dive into the 5 lessons from a year with breathwork.
You can trust your body.
If you know about my story, you'll know I was pretty heavily bullied for my weight as a kid. That whole experience told me that my body is not worthy, that I was not worthy of being seen, that this body was not worthy of being here. So I hid and I spent most of my 20’s numbing with food. I called it my social anxiety.
What breathwork taught me is that my body is worthy and it has things to say. So I learned to listen to my body. And through that I've learned to trust my body. I've learned to feel the physical sensations without necessarily needing to put a meaning on them. I've learned to trust what it has to say and then take aligned action from that place of deep trust.
Your breath is your power.
It is so easy to slip into self-doubt especially when we have stories from our past that can confirm why we might be feeling that doubt in the first place. And once we are in that doubt spiral, it is very hard to stay connected to our true nature.
I have found that breath is a beautiful pathway back to our power, that innate, inherent power within each one of us that guides us on the path we are here to walk. I've witnessed it within myself but also my clients - that deep connection to our life force energy that surges through our bodies when we are practicing conscious connected breathwork. We realise that this life force is a huge part of us and exactly what we are here for. We find our way back to our power through our very own breath.
If in doubt, breathe it out.
I've learned to be with the discomfort of life without the need to always resort to numbing or dissociating. Instead, when I find myself in moments of discomfort that life inevitably offers, I go to my breath. I allow my breath to bring me into deeper presence in the now instead of resorting to unhealthy and unhelpful thoughts patterns that would spiral out of control. That inevitably takes me deeper into the discomfort but I’m learning that this perhaps is exactly the point - to allow ourselves to feel all that life has to offer.
It is more than OK to be vulnerable.
During a mandala breath session a couple of weeks ago, I truly witnessed our interconnectedness as a species. I saw the truth of who we as a species are. We are all souls in these physical bodies doing our best with what we've got. And yet, so often we act as if we have our shit together. We hide behind the many masks that tell the world we know what we’re doing and we have everything under control.
Imagine a world where it is OK to fully feel our feelings, to embrace the uncertainty and to not know the answers, to say we don't know and truly mean it without trying to accommodate for the need for answers. To truly sit with the uncertainty of whether things will ever work out the way you want them to.
Being in breathwork spaces has taught me to lean into that vulnerability and to honour it within myself and others. After all, we are all in this together. We all have off-days. We all have things we’d rather not admit to. How can we make it OK to be with it all within ourselves and others?
You have the right to be here.
Your breath is your access point to the present moment. As long as you have your breath, you are alive. You have the right to be here, to share your voice, to take up space, to offer your gifts for others to benefit from. Even though it sounds very individual, it is more a reciprocal way of being. We are in this together.
And what I'm learning is that we need to know our boundaries and our preferences so that we can own our right to be here. And that comes through deep self-exploration and self-discovery. Breathwork, to me, has been that beautiful access point within.
And here we are, 5 lessons from a year of breathwork. Here's to many more breath journeys and the unravelling and reweaving that comes with it.
Sending you all a deep and nourishing breath,
Silvia
*I've loved diving into The Human Design Coffee Talk podcast and have found so much value simply hearing about others’ lived experience with the modality that is growing dearer to my heart by the day. Not only is it informative but the hosts are so fun and entertaining to listen to, too. They had an epic almost 3-hour episode with Jasmine Nnenna which was so good. I'd highly recommend it to all my fellow Generators.
*We’ve been rewatching Hell on Wheels and I'd forgotten how good that show actually is. I'm pretty sure Cullen Bohannan is a Generator. He seems to simply go through life and respond to whatever comes his way without ever initiating anything. He ends up on a railroad and commits to seeing it through til the end no matter what. This is giving me true gate 29 vibes.
*Another show that I’ve started rewatching is Felicity. Where are my fellow Felicity fans? This desire to rewatch was spurred on by the new Dear Felicity podcast that is full of behind-the-scenes goodness from the cast. Did you know that Scott Foley was actually cast as Ben but it changed in the last minute? And apparently Scott Speedman had to attend an actual university when filming Felicity because he needed a visa to work at the States? Pretty pointless trivia but so fascinating at the same time, right?
*I've been keeping up with my personal project of following the Human Design weekly transits and the data collection is a lot of fun. I'm picking up a lot of data on the different line days and am constantly amazed by the themes and energies that show up in correlation to the different lines both in my own life but also around me. I stumbled on Kat Smith’s work recently who has released a free private podcast on the different line days and how to work with them in your business. I found her take really useful, and pretty on-point so far.
*Yin yoga keeps being a true anchor for me ever since I discovered it at the end of 2023. I've found it to be helpful to ground myself in the body in the present moment, especially after busy and people-filled work days. I'd highly recommend it to anyone who struggles with a busy mind and restlessness. Plus, the flexibility building is a nice bonus.
*I’m in love with my new Tarot deck. It’s the Fountain Tarot and I must say the artwork is breathtaking. I’ve been experimenting with a daily card pull again and it is lighting up my soul.
*This song. It needs no words of introduction. Simply listen to it.
*Finally, I had the pleasure to swap sessions with Sylke Laine recently and she really helped me see my day job in a new light, especially by sharing her own experience with long commutes. Sylke called it her gifted hour and that was so useful in reframing mine. My commutes present me with a gifted hour to dive into an exciting podcast episode that I know I would not listen to otherwise as I am very much a commuter podcast listener. Although that is exactly what I’ve been doing for years, this tiny shift in perspective has actually allowed me to cherish the commute and take away some of the frustration I’ve been feeling.
Found something new you can’t wait to share with the world? Or perhaps you’ve had a profound insight into something lately that might be helpful to others? Pop it in the comments for us to explore with you.
Reading about your realizations around community felt like a breath of fresh air, Silvia! it's great that you found clarity on what's aligned for you on Substack. I could feel the relief while reading through your words. Kudos on breaking away from what we think we "should" do here on Substack!
Congratulations on completing your training and becoming a breath facilitator, Sylvia! That’s a fantastic accomplishment, and I can easily imagine the depth of bonding that took place. You’re on the way to enhancing a lot of lives with your magical combination of Human Design and breathwork. And next up, Breath Camp in Tuscany! May it be a big, beautiful, breath and mind blowing experience :) Sending applause and love on a long breath ♥️