WHAT IS BREATHWORK?
Simply put, Breathwork is an active form of meditation that alters your mind, body, soul, and spirit. Together with varied breath techniques, we activate your nervous system to shift how you’ve previously processed emotions and we create new experiences, sensations, and thought patterns with your breath.
ARE YOU READY TO BE YOUR OWN HEALER?
BRILLIANT! BREATHWORK IS A POWERFUL TOOL THAT TRANSFORMS YOU INTO YOUR OWN HEALER.
PICK WHAT YOUR SOUL IS CALLED TO AND TRUST YOUR INTUITION. IT LED YOU HERE FOR A REASON.
Julie: Hi everybody, and welcome to another episode of slow secrets. Today we’re gonna talk about lifestyle. I.m here with Sara Silverstein. We met because I had invited her to the Slow Food and Yoga Festival. One of my friends said; Oh my God! You have to invite this amazing breath-work facilitator because she’s just wonderful! Here we are, welcome Sara.
Sara: Thanks for having me.
Julie: Tell us a little bit more about your story. How did you roll into breathwork? You were obviously teaching in Bali, and now you are back in New York City.
Sara: My background is in anything but! Anything grounded and spiritual. My last job was in finance. I was living, and grinding hard in New York City. My beloved long-term partner at the time turned to me and was like:
Babe if we're gonna stay together, you got some work to do!
I listened. I got a coach. Which I had religiously made fun of. Because I thought why not just go see a professional therapist and get your sh*t together. Before I knew it I was very deep into this beautiful incredible coaching container with my teacher Dana Bielicki. She suggested that I check out breathwork. I told her:
Back off! I was already doing so much with her. I was like, I need go no deeper ma'am!
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I was laying basically on the floor of someone’s living room in Brooklyn New York. In this huge breathwork group. It was the craziest experience that I’d ever been through. I had no idea what I was walking into. I didn’t, I don’t google things before I get into them. Because I don’t want to have a judgment about it, and I would have had a judgment for sure!
I rocked up in my suit from work, and my high heels. I’m basically surrounded by what looks like the would-be in “ballet”. I was like:
Oh! I do not belong!
I’m the kind of girl who listens to hip hop in art museums and prefers making spreadsheets instead of perfecting my downward dog in yoga.
I couldn’t have ever imagined my life path would lead me here but there is no sense in fighting what brings you joy. I am giving you a glimpse into my reality so if you find yourself thinking – I desire something different – know that I’ve been there and I’m here to walk you through any life experience because I believe you deserve to thrive in this lifetime.
I’m a Pisces Sun, Cancer Moon with a Capricorn Rising so I am a highly emotional being that loves nothing more than tackling an organized to-do list. I fancy myself the queen of feeling and a ninja with combating trauma which has led me to this field of work.
I originally hail from Upstate New York where I fled due to my obsession with The Nanny and I attended art school in New York City. After years of being a starving artist (let’s get real – I was a bartender who moonlit as a photographer) I joined the ranks in Corporate America because health insurance and a 401k sounded real good. I had no idea that anxiety and depression also came with those perks. I went on to work in Law, Advertising, Real Estate and I eventually burnt out in Corporate Healthcare Fund Management. I had truly lost my sense of self.
My lifestyle was lavish, my anxiety was high and my emotions were disgustingly low. That’s what brought me to finding Breathwork five years ago and eventually led me to become an International Breathwork Guide.
Burnout and heartache can make you do strange things so I packed a backpack to travel the world in my 30s like an ambitious fool with 3 Breathwork trainings under my belt. I set off to soak up the beauty of this globe and maybe guide a few strangers along the way.
Fast forward 4 years later and I’ve had the pleasure of leading 200 group sessions, over 400 one-on-one sessions and have been honored to speak and lead this modality for numerous corporate establishments.
My wildest dreams did not include me living abroad working as a full-time Breathwork Guide, Female Sexuality Specialist, and Aura Photographer but here we are and I couldn’t be happier about it!
Before I knew it, we were all laying down, everyone having these wild experiences around me. I’m like: Oh Man! What did I sign up for? Get me out of here!
Then I was like: Man, I paid. I might as well get my investment back. I was like all right! I haven’t actually tried this breath pattern, so I did it and ended up having an out-of-body experience.
Beautiful cathartic release and it was stunning! I walked out of there understanding what people were always talking about. When they were really obsessed with yoga or anything else. It never made sense to me. I didn’t get it and then when I left there I was like Oh I got it… I got it…
It was wonderful, so I started practicing religiously about twice a week, and six months down the line somebody had suggested I do a teacher training. I said I’m booked and busy. I have a very lucrative career and then I ended up in the training. I was like Man what am I doing?
Here I was, devoting a lot of time and energy, to this practice. After I completed one of my trainings, I booked a private one-on-one session for the evening of my graduation. Because I wanted to see if I was any good at this. It was at that moment that I got to realize it had nothing to do with me, it had everything to do with the willingness of the individual who was coming in.
That is where I develop my biggest ideas, because ideas are presents from the universe. In silence, I can hear the whispers of the universe, I let my mind wander and I write down the downloads.
For Sarah Blakely, the founder of Spanx (self-made billionaire!) it is in her car, even if she lives just six minutes away from the office, she systematically drives around for 60 minutes before checking in. Tapping into her zone of genius. Einstein had his downloads while shaving.
Where do you get your downloads from the universe?
Slow Exploration
Find your happy place, grab your journal and ask yourself the question “why” a lot. Ask yourself if there is a better way? Write down everything that comes to mind. Write down all the possible solutions. The more I write down ideas, the more pop up, and the better I get at it.
My mind never stops inventing things, it’s always creating the next best thing, I literally had to dump all my ideas in a list, just to save them for later. There was a time in my life I would just pop them out one after the other, but that didn’t end well. Depression, burnout, staff members hating me… I’ll spare you the boring details of my highway to hell. I think us solo- entrepreneurs have all been there at some point in our career. Being aware of it, learning from it, and making sure that never happens again, is the secret.
Reduces Stress and Anxiety
- Let’s face it – we’ve all been under a lot of stress lately. We are jumping through new fire hoops that we were not prepared for. We are doing the best we can to navigate but stress and anxiety are basically unavoidable. Breathwork can help you meet your anxiety and stress in a conscious and constructive way. I have been guiding people into their fears and worries for years and providing a safe place for them to feel to truly release. Anxiety happens in the body when we are triggered into the Sympathetic Nervous System so we learn how to get acquainted with this part of our nervous system and we shift it into the Parasympathetic – where we truly get to relax and calm down. Being stressed and anxious are choices that we are sometimes unknowingly making and Breathwork is an actionable item that you can use to start to properly surrender. In the release you are finding more awareness and compassion for yourself and everything around you. There is a part of a full Breathwork Journey where you are given the opportunity to scream your brains out – after this portion of the session most people feel euphoric and more in touch with their true emotions. Not the emotions that have been running their day to day life. So if you have been struggling with anxiety and fear – this practice may be perfect for you!
