Often breathing is taught as a practice that can help us push “through” whatever difficulties we are experiencing. We are encouraged to breathe through the pain. Breathe through the grief. Breathe through the stress. That hasn’t worked for me. It didn't work two weeks ago when I was in court for the 4th time. It didn't work when I pushed through the courthouse doors to shake in my 90 degree car, AC blasting, tears gushing from my tired eyes. It didn’t work during my thirty-eight hour labor with Solomon. It didn’t work in any of the painful breakups I’ve experienced. It didn’t work when I read the news about my latest book not being as successful as my first.
Dear Ashley, from the perspective of old age I witness younger friends pushing, striving, driving forward, and I wonder what for? Because all the achievement doesn't seem to engender any more happiness. A friend wrote to me yesterday that she works 17 hours a day, she's respected by her bosses, and for the course she's been completing at the same time as a big and important job, she got two distinctions.
I didn't reply. I didn't think there was anything constructive I could say, but I thought how glad I am that I gave up important job and spent the last ten years of my working life as a gardener, loving every moment, loving my dear clients, and being loved by them. I know you like Thich Nhat Hanh. He has a lovely meditation in which he say 'nothing is as important as my peace'. I agree. Pushing through is the antithesis of peace. Love Kate
I really appreciate your perspective Kate. Reading that you have spent the last ten years gardening and loving your clients feels like such an exhale to my system - a voluntary one. I do love Thich Nhat Hanh, thank you for including a thread from his meditation for us. I will take this into my week. ❤️
Just to add ... in the same meditation he says 'breathing in I know I am breathing in. Breathing out I know I am breathing out'. I'm not sure there's anything more significant in our lives than this. xx
Not sure how you ended up in my inbox, but I’m glad. I’ve been a student of voice and breath over the past 10yrs. It’s helped me, as you’ve said, not only “get through” my life’s moments — some blissful ones and some traumatic ones, including the loss of my daughter — but to be present, alive, and *with* those moments. If not for that difference, I am sure I would have missed my daughter’s life.
A similarly beautiful exploration around breath is the way we can experience “being breathed.” That’s been a major focus of mine over the past few years. How the more we let go, the deeper the breathing. And the deeper the breathing, the deeper the healing.
Nathan I am not sure how I ended up in your inbox either but I am deeply moved by your share. Thank you for taking the time to write about your 10 year practice and how it has helped you be with your aliveness in the moments of your life. I am touched by the way you articulate being there for your daughter’s life. And being breathed. Such a profound practice indeed. To surrender to what is. Grateful for your presence in this conversation. I look forward to checking out your writing and work too.
Thank you Ashley, for being ahead of me on this journey, and thank you for sharing so openly with us.
It is true, so often wanting to breathe through and just get to the other side only adds more pressure, more stress, more contraction to the body.
And this made me think that we also cannot receive the flow of grace if we insist on handling everything with our own strengths. "I've got this, I'll be better soon, thank you" is in fact the opposite of surrender : "I need You, I am nothing without You.". It is precisely in this surrender and acceptance that grace flows in and makes us new. (This is from a Christian perspective).
Thank you for being part of this conversation Mahaut and for the important piece about receiving and flow. In states of pushing and contraction it is extremely difficult to fully receive. I am grateful for this reminder today. ❤️
I look forward to breathing with you and all of us in the group with whatever we are showing up with. We can hold one another with the waves of our breath. And while it isn’t the total solution as you mentioned, it’s really beautiful. I look forward to holding and being held in community.
Beautiful Nancy! When I read about holding each other with the waves of our breath I feel my shoulders drop down and my belly expand. I am really looking forward to breathing with you and our group. I can already feel the beginnings of support❤️
Breathing ‘with’ feels like the missing medicine in the whole discourse around breath and breathwork. It’s the honouring of exactly what is, and feels like Love itself. I’ve long had an aversion to ‘this too shall pass’ - the dismissive ness of what is, and breathing ‘with’ feels like the antidote to this 💜
I feel the same way Sarina! There is so much in many of the breath communities I have dipped into that is about pushing through, trying to override yourself into higher states of consciousness, or drop into such disorienting catharsis that it is just too much for a nervous system to integrate in a sustainable way. 'This too shall pass', I am laughing because I have an essay I've been working on about that phrase and others like it and how problematic they are in healing/recovery/living. Grateful for your reflections here, we are so aligned. And yes, the 'with' feels like the medicine <3
This was golden, Ashley. You popped into my mind the other day as I was wondering how your court date went (I pass Foster Love Project on my bike ride to the gym a few times a week and always think of you and your family).
I read your piece as I was finishing up Richard Rohr's Falling Upward book, about the two halves of life. He talks about the first half being about the pushing through (the ego build up) and the second half having the potential to be more about the soul, which is as you so eloquently say be with rather than push through. He talks about "transcending and including" to be at this soul level where we embrace paradox because we can be with more.
I take comfort in thinking about it this way and think you're lighting the way of this soul work.
My work is rooted in developmental psychology and getting people to a place of self-authoring, which in practical terms is holding the AND. Like, truly holding it so we can make space - or transcend and include - more sensations, feelings, etc. This leads to more flexible thinking and feeling. And ultimately, a greater inclusivity for the parts of ourselves and then others, we often had to override in that first half of life.
This is a long way of saying all the wise people in my life are pointing to the same things. Thanks for being one of them and reinforcing the path I've found myself on since becoming a Mother and Menopause.
Ali!I always appreciate hearing from you and getting bits of what you are thinking about, processing, your work. Your shares are such an anchor for me. Thank you for thinking of us, fostering is such a wild ride. It has brought so much joy and so much sadness as many of the most meaningful paths in my life have.
I have his book on my list! Now I am even more interested in reading it. I love the piece you shared about 'transcending and including', that feels like right where I am at. And yes, the paradox because we can be with more.
Holding the AND. This is such deep and essential work you are doing. Including more of all of it and the flexibility it offers. I have chills. We are so in alignment which is how I feel each time we connect. I love the parallels between us. I find them so comforting and nourishing. Thank you for taking the time to connect and for continuing to show up in all the ways that you do. Grateful for you Ali. x
Thanks for such a beautiful reply. I'm really letting it land as I've always found your presence and all its forms, writing and teaching included, so grounding.
I think you'd love Falling Upward...it gives spiritual language to a lot of the development you've helped others through and are going through. I find safety in "Oh, I'm not the only one to feel this or notice this shift."
I like to think of it as “being with it”. I breathe with it, to be with it. Sometimes the breathing and being with whatever is coming up does create space for things to be released. And other times it simply allows for presence and acknowledgement. To hold space for whatever is there and witness it as it is without forcing it to change, shift or go.
I really appreciate your perspective of overriding the body and noticing how we can use the breath to do the same, because I’ve been guilty of this as well! I ended up taking several months off from any sort of breath practice because I was using breathwork to try and force something. To try and release, or find insight or, well, anything. To avoid what was present and push through.
Beautiful Liz, thank you for sharing this with us. I love how you write about holding space for whatever needs to arise. I also really appreciate your transparency and that you took time off your breath practice when you realized you were using it to push through. I relate to that! Grateful to have your perspective in this conversation 💫
Thank you! I think we need to show that even if you have a certain practice or teach something, sometimes you need to step away. No one thing defines us and everything exists in relation. Sometimes that relationship needs a pause. I kept thinking as a teacher and facilitator of breath, that I had to practice everyday. But it’s a “practice” for a reason. It’s not meant to be the only tool or one that you use to get outside your body. It doesn’t make us less than or out of alignment (that’s what a business coach was telling me) but rather more in alignment with our deeper teachings and beliefs.
Astute observation Liz. Spiritual bypass takes all kinds of forms because the ego doesn't want to relinquish center stage. Not that I am making a villain of spiritual bypass, necessarily. After all we're human, we have egos and sometimes a little bypass can get us through the day. Kind of like denial. You can't really get through a day without a wee bit of denial.
But spiritual bypass can take very subtle forms and you saw straight through one of them. That's a treasure. Thank you for sharing your insight.
We don't see it until we do. And once we see through it, we can never not see it.
Yes! Spiritual bypassing is an easy trap to fall into. When I first started breathwork, I thought it was the modality to end all modalities. Then I went through a period of using it to spiritually bypass things.
You’re right, once you see it, you cannot unsee it.
Pushing through is a delicate matter perhaps. The art is to know when pushing through is necessary and when it is not; when pushing through is, as Kate gently points out, not at all peaceful and is indeed harmful, and when pushing through might actually be an act of grace. Grace because, for example, my mother may have had to push though her exhaustion in order to get up in the middle of the night to attend to one of her crying children when she might have preferred to stay in bed. (Grace given, grace received.)
It takes a life time to learn how and when to dance on that razor's edge; when it's worth the risk of getting cut and when it is not. (When I perfect the art, if ever, I'll get back to you, lol!)
I so appreciate the layers of compassion and complexity you are bringing to this conversation Cynthia. The example of pushing as grace that you shared about your mother is deeply moving. And your words about dancing on the razor’s edge are landing with me. The dance. The art. The being with. ❤️
thank you for keeping the conversations here going with what you write. This is a thoughtful compassionate group of people here. Nice place to reflect and converse.
As I read this, I kept thinking about my "breathe into" approach, which is not about pushing through, but being more present to how our body wants to inform what needs attention. In short, breathe into allows us to just be, rather than do. So, by the time I reached the end of your piece and you had reframed it as, "breathe with" I could feel our approaches aligning and your relief from the reframe. Thank you for sharing this very important information. 💗
Thank you Ashley..I resonate so much with this…I had to quit teaching yoga because it was actually screwing up my ability to just ‘be with’ myself. Funny how even ‘Being’ itself can become a forceful act, if we push ourselves too much to be too spiritual. I feel like you’re naming something new and underneath that. Maybe it’s ‘grace’…as someone here said…love that💜
I relate to your share Tara! I taught yoga for years too and had to leave my practice because it just never felt like enough. Definitely got injuries from pushing too much as well. Thank you for bringing up this piece underneath- grace. This feels like what we are getting at. Thank you for being here💫
Dear Ashley, from the perspective of old age I witness younger friends pushing, striving, driving forward, and I wonder what for? Because all the achievement doesn't seem to engender any more happiness. A friend wrote to me yesterday that she works 17 hours a day, she's respected by her bosses, and for the course she's been completing at the same time as a big and important job, she got two distinctions.
I didn't reply. I didn't think there was anything constructive I could say, but I thought how glad I am that I gave up important job and spent the last ten years of my working life as a gardener, loving every moment, loving my dear clients, and being loved by them. I know you like Thich Nhat Hanh. He has a lovely meditation in which he say 'nothing is as important as my peace'. I agree. Pushing through is the antithesis of peace. Love Kate
I really appreciate your perspective Kate. Reading that you have spent the last ten years gardening and loving your clients feels like such an exhale to my system - a voluntary one. I do love Thich Nhat Hanh, thank you for including a thread from his meditation for us. I will take this into my week. ❤️
Just to add ... in the same meditation he says 'breathing in I know I am breathing in. Breathing out I know I am breathing out'. I'm not sure there's anything more significant in our lives than this. xx
Thank you for sharing the lovely perspective your life has given you Kate.
Just a shift in preposition use makes a huge difference in meaning. “Through” vs “with” takes you from future focused to present living. I love there.
Yes Teri! So well said! Thank you for popping into the conversation ❤️
Breathing with. Yes. Thank you.
Not sure how you ended up in my inbox, but I’m glad. I’ve been a student of voice and breath over the past 10yrs. It’s helped me, as you’ve said, not only “get through” my life’s moments — some blissful ones and some traumatic ones, including the loss of my daughter — but to be present, alive, and *with* those moments. If not for that difference, I am sure I would have missed my daughter’s life.
A similarly beautiful exploration around breath is the way we can experience “being breathed.” That’s been a major focus of mine over the past few years. How the more we let go, the deeper the breathing. And the deeper the breathing, the deeper the healing.
Nathan I am not sure how I ended up in your inbox either but I am deeply moved by your share. Thank you for taking the time to write about your 10 year practice and how it has helped you be with your aliveness in the moments of your life. I am touched by the way you articulate being there for your daughter’s life. And being breathed. Such a profound practice indeed. To surrender to what is. Grateful for your presence in this conversation. I look forward to checking out your writing and work too.
❤️
Yeah, that's brilliant Nathan. That put a smile on my face...okay, not the part about losing your daughter and thank you for remembering her here.
We always think we are breathing when in fact we are being breathed. Life breathes us...until it doesn't...
YES ❤️
"Breathing with." How helpful.
Thank you Ashley, for being ahead of me on this journey, and thank you for sharing so openly with us.
It is true, so often wanting to breathe through and just get to the other side only adds more pressure, more stress, more contraction to the body.
And this made me think that we also cannot receive the flow of grace if we insist on handling everything with our own strengths. "I've got this, I'll be better soon, thank you" is in fact the opposite of surrender : "I need You, I am nothing without You.". It is precisely in this surrender and acceptance that grace flows in and makes us new. (This is from a Christian perspective).
Thank you.
Thank you for being part of this conversation Mahaut and for the important piece about receiving and flow. In states of pushing and contraction it is extremely difficult to fully receive. I am grateful for this reminder today. ❤️
I look forward to breathing with you and all of us in the group with whatever we are showing up with. We can hold one another with the waves of our breath. And while it isn’t the total solution as you mentioned, it’s really beautiful. I look forward to holding and being held in community.
Beautiful Nancy! When I read about holding each other with the waves of our breath I feel my shoulders drop down and my belly expand. I am really looking forward to breathing with you and our group. I can already feel the beginnings of support❤️
I love your suggestion and interpretation of 'breathing with'!
Deep resonance with Synchronosophy. 💕🙏 🪶
I am so glad this resonates so deeply with you and your work Veronika!💫
Resonance over here too!! Very much looking forward to our Breath Work Immersion ✨
Hope to see you there, Veronica! 🤍
So looking forward to having you there!!❤️
Breathing ‘with’ feels like the missing medicine in the whole discourse around breath and breathwork. It’s the honouring of exactly what is, and feels like Love itself. I’ve long had an aversion to ‘this too shall pass’ - the dismissive ness of what is, and breathing ‘with’ feels like the antidote to this 💜
I feel the same way Sarina! There is so much in many of the breath communities I have dipped into that is about pushing through, trying to override yourself into higher states of consciousness, or drop into such disorienting catharsis that it is just too much for a nervous system to integrate in a sustainable way. 'This too shall pass', I am laughing because I have an essay I've been working on about that phrase and others like it and how problematic they are in healing/recovery/living. Grateful for your reflections here, we are so aligned. And yes, the 'with' feels like the medicine <3
Ah so interesting! Look forward to that essay if it lands on Substack.
💜
This was golden, Ashley. You popped into my mind the other day as I was wondering how your court date went (I pass Foster Love Project on my bike ride to the gym a few times a week and always think of you and your family).
I read your piece as I was finishing up Richard Rohr's Falling Upward book, about the two halves of life. He talks about the first half being about the pushing through (the ego build up) and the second half having the potential to be more about the soul, which is as you so eloquently say be with rather than push through. He talks about "transcending and including" to be at this soul level where we embrace paradox because we can be with more.
I take comfort in thinking about it this way and think you're lighting the way of this soul work.
My work is rooted in developmental psychology and getting people to a place of self-authoring, which in practical terms is holding the AND. Like, truly holding it so we can make space - or transcend and include - more sensations, feelings, etc. This leads to more flexible thinking and feeling. And ultimately, a greater inclusivity for the parts of ourselves and then others, we often had to override in that first half of life.
This is a long way of saying all the wise people in my life are pointing to the same things. Thanks for being one of them and reinforcing the path I've found myself on since becoming a Mother and Menopause.
Ali!I always appreciate hearing from you and getting bits of what you are thinking about, processing, your work. Your shares are such an anchor for me. Thank you for thinking of us, fostering is such a wild ride. It has brought so much joy and so much sadness as many of the most meaningful paths in my life have.
I have his book on my list! Now I am even more interested in reading it. I love the piece you shared about 'transcending and including', that feels like right where I am at. And yes, the paradox because we can be with more.
Holding the AND. This is such deep and essential work you are doing. Including more of all of it and the flexibility it offers. I have chills. We are so in alignment which is how I feel each time we connect. I love the parallels between us. I find them so comforting and nourishing. Thank you for taking the time to connect and for continuing to show up in all the ways that you do. Grateful for you Ali. x
Thanks for such a beautiful reply. I'm really letting it land as I've always found your presence and all its forms, writing and teaching included, so grounding.
I think you'd love Falling Upward...it gives spiritual language to a lot of the development you've helped others through and are going through. I find safety in "Oh, I'm not the only one to feel this or notice this shift."
Grateful for you too Ashley 8-)
I like to think of it as “being with it”. I breathe with it, to be with it. Sometimes the breathing and being with whatever is coming up does create space for things to be released. And other times it simply allows for presence and acknowledgement. To hold space for whatever is there and witness it as it is without forcing it to change, shift or go.
I really appreciate your perspective of overriding the body and noticing how we can use the breath to do the same, because I’ve been guilty of this as well! I ended up taking several months off from any sort of breath practice because I was using breathwork to try and force something. To try and release, or find insight or, well, anything. To avoid what was present and push through.
Beautiful Liz, thank you for sharing this with us. I love how you write about holding space for whatever needs to arise. I also really appreciate your transparency and that you took time off your breath practice when you realized you were using it to push through. I relate to that! Grateful to have your perspective in this conversation 💫
Thank you! I think we need to show that even if you have a certain practice or teach something, sometimes you need to step away. No one thing defines us and everything exists in relation. Sometimes that relationship needs a pause. I kept thinking as a teacher and facilitator of breath, that I had to practice everyday. But it’s a “practice” for a reason. It’s not meant to be the only tool or one that you use to get outside your body. It doesn’t make us less than or out of alignment (that’s what a business coach was telling me) but rather more in alignment with our deeper teachings and beliefs.
Astute observation Liz. Spiritual bypass takes all kinds of forms because the ego doesn't want to relinquish center stage. Not that I am making a villain of spiritual bypass, necessarily. After all we're human, we have egos and sometimes a little bypass can get us through the day. Kind of like denial. You can't really get through a day without a wee bit of denial.
But spiritual bypass can take very subtle forms and you saw straight through one of them. That's a treasure. Thank you for sharing your insight.
We don't see it until we do. And once we see through it, we can never not see it.
Yes! Spiritual bypassing is an easy trap to fall into. When I first started breathwork, I thought it was the modality to end all modalities. Then I went through a period of using it to spiritually bypass things.
You’re right, once you see it, you cannot unsee it.
Sorry I will have to miss this breath work practice with you Ashley, at least this time around anyway. May there be another opportunity.
You will be missed. If it feels supportive all around I will offer another in the fall💫
Pushing through is a delicate matter perhaps. The art is to know when pushing through is necessary and when it is not; when pushing through is, as Kate gently points out, not at all peaceful and is indeed harmful, and when pushing through might actually be an act of grace. Grace because, for example, my mother may have had to push though her exhaustion in order to get up in the middle of the night to attend to one of her crying children when she might have preferred to stay in bed. (Grace given, grace received.)
It takes a life time to learn how and when to dance on that razor's edge; when it's worth the risk of getting cut and when it is not. (When I perfect the art, if ever, I'll get back to you, lol!)
I so appreciate the layers of compassion and complexity you are bringing to this conversation Cynthia. The example of pushing as grace that you shared about your mother is deeply moving. And your words about dancing on the razor’s edge are landing with me. The dance. The art. The being with. ❤️
Thanks Ashley. And as always,
thank you for keeping the conversations here going with what you write. This is a thoughtful compassionate group of people here. Nice place to reflect and converse.
Absolutely beautiful!!!
Thank you Shamiqua <3
As I read this, I kept thinking about my "breathe into" approach, which is not about pushing through, but being more present to how our body wants to inform what needs attention. In short, breathe into allows us to just be, rather than do. So, by the time I reached the end of your piece and you had reframed it as, "breathe with" I could feel our approaches aligning and your relief from the reframe. Thank you for sharing this very important information. 💗
Love this Lisa thank you for sharing about your practice. ❤️
Thank you Ashley..I resonate so much with this…I had to quit teaching yoga because it was actually screwing up my ability to just ‘be with’ myself. Funny how even ‘Being’ itself can become a forceful act, if we push ourselves too much to be too spiritual. I feel like you’re naming something new and underneath that. Maybe it’s ‘grace’…as someone here said…love that💜
I relate to your share Tara! I taught yoga for years too and had to leave my practice because it just never felt like enough. Definitely got injuries from pushing too much as well. Thank you for bringing up this piece underneath- grace. This feels like what we are getting at. Thank you for being here💫
A really cool perspective! Gave me something to ponder over as well! Thank you for writing simply and with heart 💖
Thank you Mohika I am glad this gave you something to ponder. Appreciate you letting mw know❤️
I love and appreciate your transparency. It's is very helpful. **breathing with...** with you.
Thank you so much Laura❤️