A Month of Breathing, Part 2

A life-changing workshop at Esalen

Photo by Akos Kokai

Here is Part 2 of this post. If you haven’t read Part 1, you can find it here. Enjoy!

The music was intentionally loud and evocative. It was designed to take us on a journey, to trigger us and to push us to the outer edges of consciousness into the realms of the transpersonal.

As I watched my partner breathing in accelerated deep breaths, her face contorting and her body twisting and turning, I heard someone scream. In the corner of the room, someone else was sobbing. I felt as though I’d jumped into a yawning abyss of terror. I, again, questioned my sanity for agreeing to this untested, experimental modality. Feeling a bit like a lab rat, I wondered what the outcome of this grand experiment would be and how we’d feel once it was over.

I scanned the room for Stan and Christina. They were circulating and checking in with those that were sitting for their partners. Christina was headed my way. She knelt down, put her hand on my shoulder and whispered some reassuring words in my ear. I felt a wave of calm wash over my body.

Overwhelmed as I was, I was not ready to walk out of the workshop, so I decided to surrender.

Before I knew it, it was my turn. My partner was sitting up sipping water with a yoga blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She looked at me and winked but didn’t speak.

I got comfortable on my mat and readied my mind for a journey into the unknown. Soon, the music started, prompting us to breathe.

At first, my body felt strange, as if I were hyperventilating. Stan had told to expect this reaction— dry mouth, and hands and feet spasming in involuntary contractions—not a comfortable feeling at all. But, we’d been instructed to keep breathing beyond this part, which I did.

Nothing much happened for a couple of minutes, but then I seemed to be traveling backwards in time. Stan had also told us that we would probably go back to places of significant painful events in our lives (though not necessarily in any particular order) to process what had been suppressed or avoided. He had a particular interest in the trauma of birth—this time of transition from the womb to the world because it was such a dramatic, intense experience. The promise was that once we moved through all of that trauma, we’d open ourselves up to transpersonal, non-ordinary experiences beyond this lifetime.

My journey backwards arrived at the point in time when I was conceived. It was 1958, and my parents, who were both in their senior year of college had quick, impulsive sex one night, and became pregnant with me, changing their lives forever. This choice point on my timeline was significant, and my breathing had led me there. I was overwhelmed with emotions and deep, ancient sobs emerged from a timeless place as I connected with the emotional loneliness and pain I would experience in the early months and years of my life.

Okay, Stan, that was rough. I guess I’d been secretly hoping that I could skip the painful stuff and jump right into an experience like the floaty, blissful NDEs that had been shared on the first day of the workshop. Instead, it felt more like a deep dive into hell.

Luckily, that evening as we shared and processed our experiences, it was clear that we’d each revisited some past milestones on our life path that held sacred wounds as well as gifts that we needed to retrieve, heal and integrate into our current lives.

I could only hope I didn’t have that much messy trauma to move through. While the healing benefits were great, it was like cramming years of therapy into four weeks. Not what I thought I’d signed up for.

Did it get better?

Yes and no.

Yes, primarily because we had some magical full days with more luminous guests, including Angeles Arrien (more on her below). Also, because we were in one of the most beautiful places in the world. After each breathing session, we were greeted with stunning views of the Pacific Ocean on the one side and mountains on the other side with Esalen nestled cozily in between. Plus, we got to eat delicious organic food grown right on the property and soak in the natural, sulphur hot spring baths.

No, because, the breathing sessions were hard work. I found them intense, challenging and uncomfortable. Again, I knew they were highly beneficial. We cleared years worth of emotional baggage in a handful of breathing sessions. Add to that, a handful of people were blessed with travel in the transpersonal realms. Sadly, I was not among them.

Remember I was only twenty-two. Had I been older, I would have embraced this modality full on because I would have recognized how powerful and miraculous it was. Instead, on the heels of the intense grieving I’d done over the sudden loss of my father the year before, I would have preferred to just take the month to relax and immerse myself in self care.

And yet, had I done that, I would never have met Joseph Campbell, and I wouldn’t trade that for anything. It was also an extraordinary privilege to spend time with Angeles Arrien, cultural anthropologist and author of a number of books including, The Four-Fold Way: Walking the Paths of the Warrior, Healer, Teacher and Visionary. She was born in Basque Country in Spain, and she shared a lot about the Basques—their culture, mythology and mystical ways. The Basques are known for their close relationship with the four elements, especially the earth, and have always been considered somewhat mysterious. Listening to Angeles felt like opening a portal to another world. I was captivated by her stories and her way of seeing things. To give you a taste, here’s an excerpt from The Fourfold Way: Walking the Paths of the Warrior, Healers, Teacher and Visionary:

"Some shamanic traditions in parts of Africa and the Oceanic societies attend to health and well-being through what is called cradling work, a four-part practice in staying connected to the good, true, and beautiful aspects of one's nature. In cradling work we lie on our back and place both hands over our heart (in many cultures hands symbolize healing). Silently, we acknowledge the character qualities that we appreciate about ourselves, we acknowledge our strengths, we acknowledge the contributions that have been made and continue to be made, and we acknowledge the love given and the love received.

"In these societies mentioned above, this practice is generally done three times a day: once in the soft time of the day, morning; once in the strong time of the day, afternoon; and once in the subtle time of the day, night. Cradling work and the different times of the day remind us that we are soft, strong, and subtle creatures."

I’m eternally grateful for this part of my life path. It was my father that introduced me to Esalen. Unbeknownst to him at the time, it ended up being a kind of a parting gift to help me sort through the endless questions that arose following his death. I also met the man I eventually married there.

Esalen, in so many ways, will always have a piece of my heart.

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