Breathwork?! Sell me.

Think of it this way. If you’ve tried and failed to meditate and can feel how hollow mindset work and affirmations are, you’re not broken. You’re switched on!

You have a fear-based mind that thinks. You have a sensation-based body that feels. Often, we try to change how we FEEL by telling ourselves what to think.

I call this head-on-a-stick living. And it makes NO sense!

Because 80% of information flows from your body to your brain. If you don’t like how you feel, and want to work smart not hard to change that, drop to your body’s level and learn how to speak your body’s language.

That’s breath.

Also, think of your body like a scrapbook. It holds the memories of your life. As you grow up, experiences get stuck and stored in your body. We call this trauma.

Trauma is a big misunderstood word.

We think trauma is car crashes, war, or acute horrific experiences. Those are very real. But when I started digging into my inner world, “trauma” flat-out confused me.

II was a middle-ish class bitch with straight As and a lot of gifts. Compared to other people, I had nothing to complain about. Nothing major had happened to me!

I couldn’t point to a precise moment and say “that fucked me up!” So why was I still drowning in sadness and self-judgement, starving and binging, and REALLY not liking myself?

Here’s what I learned the hard way.

The body decides what “counts” as trauma, and takes bookmarking events very seriously.

Doesn't matter if your mum was a total witch or loved you like her life depended on it.  

It still wasn't enough.

Getting lost at the supermarket when you were 4? Bookmark.

Dad never home because he’s working 22 hours a day? Bookmark.

Only catching his attention when you do well in sport? Bookmark.

Having way less money than the other kids at school? Bookmark.

Made fun of by your “best friend” Jennifer for the way your face looks when you’re concentrating? Bookmark.

People assuming you’re smart and capable and don’t need help? Bookmark.

Ending the term with a mouth covered in stress ulcers because you were terrified of getting a B? Bookmark.

A mum with very low self worth? Bookmark.

Freezing when you were called on in a group? Bookmark.

A toxic boss or work environment? Bookmark.

Cheated on? Bookmark.

Get it. It all counts.

Here’s the thing. No one has parents who love them perfectly. No one is immune to the pressure of societal conditioning. No one arrives in adulthood unscathed.

We ALL experience microtears in our soul.

Yeah, believe it. Even the strong high-functioning people with their shit together get burned.

These microtears nestle into the fabric of your body and sit there like gaping wounds. And these wounds leak all over your life, work, and relationships.

Leaking feels like a thumping anxious chest, not being able to find words, or a solid wall of sadness on Sunday night. Leaking looks like stuffing yourself with food, working to the bone, giving up before you get up, drinking, sleeping around, getting high, people-pleasing, over-exercising, scrolling, and numbing.

Leaking creates belief systems that stain your thoughts and lock you in negative loops. Leaking creates identities like the lonewolf, the perfect daughter, the sweet and selfless person, and the strong, stoic leader. Which doesn’t sound bad. Except when those identities are actually coping strategies creating pressure that crushes you to bits.

Leaking leaves you feeling so far away from who you’re meant to be.

And without even realizing it, you pour salt into your own wounds and reinforce these painful identities every single day.

It’s a relentless loop that creates your reality.

You end up painting the pain of your past onto the present moment. And it doesn’t feel good.

But, honestly?! Discovering this bookmark shit was a relief.

Seeing my life through such a brutally simple lens lit a fire in me.

I could do something about this! Because like fuck was I going to stay stuck and victimized by my past. NO WAY was I living my life as a monument to past pain. And HELL YES was I taking sole responsibility for my one beautiful life.

Because I understood that my body was a scrapbook, I wasn’t going to waste my time trying to spot-fix surface level behaviors, attempt to control my million negative thoughts, or “love and light” it.

Fuck that. I was burrowing right to the heart of the matter to heal the wounds trauma had stamped into the fabric of my body.

I was going to learn how to speak my body’s language like my life depended on it.

Because it did.

So how do you start healing what’s stuck and stored in your body? How do you turn the stone in your chest back into a beating heart? How do you chill your body out when you're looping in fight or flight? How do you shift how you feel in 5 minutes flat? How can you go on deep psychedelic healing ride to heal the pain of your past?

Simple. You do breathwork.

You learn the patterns. You do the holds. You follow the visualizations. You breathe with the music. You open yourself up to the experience. You find a way to stay. At a certain point, your mind disappears and it’s just you, feeling BIG stuff.

Before too long, even though you thought breathwork would “never work for someone like me” you start turning the muck into gold.

And today is your lucky day. Everything you need to start the Soul Dig is here in Muck + Gold. Waiting patiently for you to be brave.

tough as old boots. soft like a marshmallow

My biggest fear when I started doing inner work?

Soft.

I was so damn scared I was going to end up a wobbly, emotional woman with zero standards.

Damn was I wrong!

You can get so fucking kind and self-aware without losing your razor-sharp edge.

And adding a wise inner eye sharpens your spear!

Because, look. I’ve won a lot of shit in my life. I’m a former All American athlete. I’ve had the fancy job and the lean body. But the whole time my life was glittering, a river bed of bleak depression and ruthless eating issues snaked beneath the surface.

This should tell you two things about me:

• I was strong before I was kind

• I had to dive DEEP to find the heart I was missing

I ran my life with an iron fist for nearly 30 years.

Within a few months of turning my body into a brain through inner child work and breathwork that grip started to dissolve.

And I found the love I was missing. Not by working harder. Not my collecting more pointless societal trophies. Not “out there.” And not because someone else gave it to me.

I found it right here at home. Where love had always been. Buried deep inside my own heart.

In Muck + Gold, you’ll use breathwork to go fishing for your own soul.

And it won’t be a fluffy thing. I'm the least hippy breathwork teacher ever. You will not find me in the flowy pants doing the girly yoga sloshing around in my feminine essence.

You’ll find me rolling with the dudes at jiu-jitsu, drinking whole milk iced lattes, and walking the streets of beautiful Boston in elevated athleisure, complete with a luminous yellow fanny pack.

You’ll also find me guiding anyone whose willing to step outside the shadow of their own fear through life-altering breathwork experiences.

No cushions that look like sheep, headache-enducing incense, or third-eye-centres required in Soul Land (unless you like that kind of thing). No shade on that stuff, it's just not the Muck + Gold vibe!

When people ask if I'm woo, I say “a twinkle.” I'm also wildly practical and live in the real world.

In Muck + Gold, you'll get the best of both.