FAQs
- What is your typical process for working with a new customer?
The session begins with a 15-20 minute check-in, which segues into a guided breathwork experience. During the check-in, the client shares what is currently going on in their life and how they are looking for support. The guided breathwork portion, then works with the breath to bring healing to the body, mind and spirit.
- What education and/or training do you have that relates to your work?
Since 2008, I have studied and trained closely with David Elliott, one of the leading fundamental teachers of breathwork and the creator of the 5 levels of Healer Training. Through David Elliott, I am a certified practitioner and I am one of a handful of teachers qualified to teach his level 1 Healer Training (a training that focuses on intuition + leading one-on-one breathwork sessions). In 2012, I pioneered the development and expansion of the first consistent breathwork meditation class in Venice, CA. This class attracted, taught and advanced some of the current top breathwork practitioners in the LA area. In 2014, I initiated the establishment of the first breathwork practice in Aspen, CO. This required generating interest in the discipline, and distilling the teachings into a simplistic nature accessible for a neophyte community. I broke new ground, successfully introducing breathwork meditation practice into the Aspen Jail System. Teaching a weekly class to inmates became a highlight, and in my recent move from Aspen, I was happy to be able to pass this class along to a promising student of mine. Raised in New York, I earned my Bachelor of Science in Dietetics from James Madison University in Virginia, followed by a career for several years as a fitness and wellness expert.
- How did you get started doing this type of work?
The Beginning... “I was disenchanted and turned off by the rat race of my life when breathwork entered my world. It brought me back to a sense of purpose. But more importantly, it introduced me to my creativity. At first it was a bit awkward. I was lying in a room full of people I didn’t know, doing an unfamiliar breathing technique. My New Yorker mind was a bit cynical, but there was something inside of me yearning for more in life. It pushed me to keep breathing. Eventually I began to tingle and vibrate along with feeling some pressure in my chest. I realized I was connecting to my own energy and the pressure was stuck energy. This was a pivotal moment for me. Despite having an intellectual understanding that I – along with everything else – am energy, there was a part of me that resisted the idea of ‘working with your energy.’ Having this kinesthetic experience shifted that resistance to fascination. Emotions are simply energy that wants to move. Suppressing emotions creates blocks in our energy. If suppressed for too long, these blocks create disease and lack of well-being. I wanted to know how something as simple as breathing can bring awareness and healing to my life. At the end of that first session, it was as though my mind dropped off into an abyss, and the sense of relaxation I achieved was unlike anything I had ever experienced. With breathwork, the intention is to go beyond the intellect and to bring more focus into the body. Breathwork engages the nervous system to release tension and distress that negative thoughts and traumas cause in the body. Over time, healthier new neural pathways are developed and the nervous system is recalibrated to bring optimal well-being. Breathwork also heightens our senses to receive the more subtle energies of creativity. Creativity sits beyond the logic of the mind. The abyss I mentioned before is the void of creation. The breathwork takes you there.” The Purist Magazine Spring/Summer 2018 issue