Your Healing Journey Can Follow a Gentle Path

My recent trip to visit with whales was, as always, meaningful and rewarding. It was in this particular piece of ocean, while I was visiting with gray whales, that the idea of WhaleBreathing first incarnated. 

But this trip was also significant in a way I didn’t expect. I received the clear message that my primary work is not to host whale-watching trips for others, but to go and be with them myself, then come back with downloads and a higher vibration. 

My real work is to teach WhaleBreathing. 

Breathwork has proven truly transformational for me and for those I work with. Notice the word itself—breathwork. When we commit to a healing path, there is work involved. Eighty to ninety percent of us breathe shallowly. We’re afraid of taking deep breaths because that represents engaging with life, and we’re afraid to engage fully with life. 

Or maybe you’re wondering: how do I engage in life?

When we intentionally use the breath to travel within, we learn to plumb the depths of our emotions, which leads to new levels of understanding, and ultimately, to finding connection with our higher selves and all living things. 

It’s been very gratifying for me to bring this work into unexpected places. Last week, I worked with a group of police and fire officers through the Brave Wellness Center, which provides mental health support for first responders. I was brought in to lead the group in breathwork and help establish a safe space for them to process trauma and difficult emotions. 

Some of the participants were interested in using a more aggressive, trauma-centered healing method with the intention of stirring things up. I said I would do that type of breathing one on one, but did not want to do it with a group.

“Why do we think we have to be tortured and suffer so much?” I asked. “That’s masculine energy. It can feel chaotic.

My work is about having a conversation with your body temple, and listening to how your body wants to move energy. More importantly, how to ground into your body and get the support it needs when it meets the trauma.

Emotion equals energy in motion. 

If your body wants to thrash and cry, fine, but I come at it from a feminine place, holding space in a gentle, non-forceful way. There should be a sacred partnership between masculine and feminine energy to support healing.

Think of the beautiful gentle giants—the whales. What I notice, as they come, is that they have people in tears, because they seem to know how to open the ❤️ of all of us, just by being present.”

After I explained this, a man spoke up and said, “I like your approach, Mary. It’s loving and more of an inner conversation.” 

When the session was over, another person told me, “Mary, at first I thought you were a kook, but it was strange. I felt like I was swimming with whales. It was beautiful and my heart was wide open!”

Since I’ve been doing this work, I can see the positive effects of meeting the breath. The body starts to trust the process. It surrenders to the heart and the soul as emotions are allowed to move. People soften and become more peaceful. 

I’m honored that I can provide a tool to help others find peace and calm through the storm. Breathwork is like a candle that lights our healing path.

As we start this conversation with our body, soul, and spirit, we really begin to meet ourselves with compassion and love.
As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that.”