Remember when I said this was going to be a daily email? Oooh, that sweet, sweet post-layoff euphoria. Anyway, if it wasn’t clear, this is just a whenever-I-feel-like-it newsletter.
The truth is that the last month has been a deep, dark dive into the parts of myself that still needed a lot of healing. Between meditating multiple times a day, spending extra time in nature, going into altered states daily as I work on a breathwork certification, and just living an extra isolated life during the pandemic, it’s been a lot of intense inner work.
To be clear, by “altered states,” I’m talking about reaching an expanded state of awareness, typically associated with psychedelics, but also possible through breathwork techniques. These states can be powerful, vivid, and help you process even the deepest layers of trauma with profound results.
For several weeks, while in these states, I’ve seen this vision of myself hiking up a mountain while simultaneously giving birth to a new version of me and carrying the decaying corpse of my former self on my back. At first, it felt as impossible as it sounds. Impossible to let go of the fears of rejection, being seen, losing everything and everyone, fear of the unknown. But as the weeks have gone on, I’ve watched as the new me peeks out a little more and pieces of the old me fall away, lightening the load. Just this morning I thought to myself, It feels like the head is mostly out and the corpse’s legs have fallen off. Ahh, progress!
If you’re wondering, as my dad did, “In this vision, is the new you coming out… of your… vagina?” The answer is yes. And I agree that the visual of me giving birth to a fully grown adult version of myself while a stiff, gray version of myself not only rides on my back but has dusty, mummified pieces falling off with every step, is objectively disturbing.
But this is what I love about altered states. Shit gets weirder than you could ever imagine. The deepest recesses of your mind have some wild stuff to show you. And it isn’t just weird for weird’s sake. It’s your consciousness’ own unique movie production studio that knows exactly what bizarro visuals will grab you and shake you to your core so that you’ll really listen and never forget. Everyone has the ability to access this higher state of consciousness safely and there’s actual science to how and why it works.
Which brings me to the entire point of this newsletter: I’m in the process of becoming certified to teach others how to reach these altered states of consciousness through breathwork alone. While prior to this, the majority of my altered state experiences have been with entheogenic substances, I’ve found that the quality and intensity of the journeys I’ve taken with breathwork to be equally as powerful, and I want to show others (1) how they can do it safely and (2) how to navigate these states for optimal internal healing and growth.
It’s going to be so dope.
More on this to come.
- Chelsea