The Breathing Revolution

In 2021, Bloomsbury published my book The Breathing Revolution: the fruit of a decade of research and training with the breath.

Yoga and breathing practises are a vital companion to my shamanic work, and have been a key part of my personal healing. I began practicing yoga in 2009 and, after two years, became a teacher. During my teaching journey, I came to a surprising realisation: I was not breathing properly. And neither were most of the teachers and students I worked with.

Yes, we were breathing in time with the poses, but we were also holding our breaths, forcing our breathing, and shallow breathing. And yet, breathing was meant to be the cornerstone of yoga. How could it be that so many of us - even within the intentionality of a yoga practice - were missing the point?

I came to the conclusion that we tend to operate from a “doing” consciousness — one that strives, performs, and pushes. But breathing well requires “being” consciousness: a state of presence, receptivity, and inner sensitivity. You cannot dissociate and breathe well at the same time. You have to feel.

This is radically countercultural. In capitalism, we’re conditioned to do. And many of us bring that mindset onto the spiritual path. I certainly did. For much of my teaching journey, I was driven by the desire to achieve. I pushes myself and strived to master certain poses. I was doing yoga — not being yoga.

Over the years, my teaching evolved. I stopped telling people to breathe. Instead, I taught them how to breathe. After a while, I had developed a series of breathing techniques that reduced stress, enhanced focus, improved energy levels, aided emotional regulation, and deepened student’s connection to themselves.

The Breathing Revolution emerged from that work. It became a tool for helping people to incorporate better breathing into their own practices, whether that was yoga or alongside plant medicine.

The “doing” mindset holds you back when you work with the plants. It’s why breathing remains integral to my personal healing work, and to the medicine journeys I do with clients.