How Grief Brought Me To Breathwork

This is a podcast style track for listeners to get an inside scoop into how I got into breathwork through my mom's terminal diagnosis and her death. I share stories from my time as her primary caretaker and what I did that helped (and continues to help!) through my grief process.

Transcript

Hey there,

Insight Timer friends.

My name is Deegan.

I am the other half of Blue River Breathwork.

Alex,

My husband and I run this venture together,

And today I just wanted to introduce myself so we can get to know each other a little bit better and you know maybe a little bit about the woman who is telling you to extend the exhales and who's telling you that humming is great for your immune system.

So if you've listened to Alex's story and you listen to this one,

You'll find that our paths to breathwork are so,

So different.

For me,

My journey with breathwork really started in February of 2024.

Prior to that,

I had done breathwork.

I was familiar with breathwork,

But it was never really something that I loved or really even felt like I needed in my day-to-day life.

But in February of 2024,

My mom was given a terminal diagnosis where they gave her two to six months to live.

At that point in time,

I was 26,

I was a digital nomad,

I had just hiked the Himalayas,

Surfed in Panama,

And now I was living in Mexico with a few of my friends and my husband.

When I got this diagnosis,

It was via text from my mom.

She basically just sent the test results and I had no idea what it meant.

It was all in this medical jargon and I had to like Google to try to understand what it was even saying.

No doctor had called her to give her this update.

She found out basically through the medical system's web portal.

And so we were all sort of trying to figure this out together.

And once we did,

It was like my world stopped.

Here I was in sunny Mexico in February,

Avoiding winter,

Having fun,

Drinking smoothies,

And then I find out that my mom is dying.

It felt so confusing,

So earth-shattering,

Like how could this even be true?

A month prior to that,

Alex had completed his breathwork facilitator training,

Which feels like one of those moments when the universe or God or whoever you believe in just sort of lines it up perfectly.

And because he had just completed that training,

He knew exactly what I needed to calm my anxiety,

Calm my stress,

And help me really navigate the anticipatory grief that I was experiencing.

At that point,

I flew back to Wisconsin and became the primary caregiver for my mom as she finished out the final five months of her life.

And when I say that this was difficult,

That is no joke.

And anyone who has been near death and dying knows.

The days are long,

But the time is so short.

Those five months,

I felt like I aged two years,

Because each day is a progression closer to death.

It feels like the opposite of babies,

Like every time you see a baby,

They're bigger,

They're learning new things.

And when you're close to the dying process,

It's like every moment,

Every day,

They're losing capabilities,

They're losing their memory,

All of these sorts of things.

And so watching my mom lose her hair,

Lose her mobility,

Lose her strength,

And then ultimately lose her life,

I had so much anticipatory grief,

I had so much anger,

Resentment,

I had so much joy and love of being able to spend those five months with her.

It was like this wild roller coaster of the highest highs and the lowest lows all stacked into five months.

And historically,

I was someone who could just really tuck things away to get what I needed to get done.

So that meant all of my emotions,

My grief,

My anger,

Resentment,

Joy,

Love,

It was all just being tucked somewhere in the back to deal with later,

When I actually had the time and space to do that.

And that just doesn't work.

I started having illnesses and sickness that was manifesting in my body.

And I just remembered that there was one practice that I knew I could go back to,

And that would unlock my emotions.

And that was breathwork.

Two months before my mom died,

I decided to take a weekend away and go on a breathwork retreat with one of my teachers,

George.

And when I tell you this transformed not only the rest of the two months that I had with my mom,

But honestly,

The rest of my life and the way that I view myself,

My mom,

Our relationship,

And grief itself,

It was so,

So needed.

So anyone who is a caretaker,

Please take time for yourself to rest and reset.

Anyway,

Back to breathwork.

So I go to this breathwork retreat,

And people are there for all sorts of reasons.

And I am there to go into the depths of my soul.

I am here to confront my resentment.

I'm here to confront every shadow.

I am here to confront the joy of my mom.

I'm here to confront the anger that is so deep within my belly.

Literally all of it.

And so I go into this retreat with the question of,

How do I move from resentment and anger into forgiveness and love?

And so I sobbed,

I laughed,

I connected with others,

I felt so much closeness,

And I was able to release all of the tension,

All of the anger from my body,

And just honestly sleep.

Like there were four sessions,

And two of the breathwork sessions ended up just being a nap for me because my body was so,

So tired and undernourished that that was what the breath gave me.

The other two breathwork experiences that I had were deeply profound and something that I think about often.

But it was really this coming home to this practice for me that reminded me like,

Hey,

This is really important.

And for someone who isn't able or wasn't able at that time to really tap into my own emotions,

This practice turns down the prefrontal cortex,

The thinking mind,

The to-do list,

All of the things that when you're a caregiver are just so loud.

It turns all of those down so that your emotional intelligence and some of these other intelligences can come back online and say,

Hey,

I'm here,

And you've pushed me down for a really long time.

Let me see the light of day.

And so that's what happened for me.

All of these emotions came up.

I was able to just be witnessed in them.

One of the most beautiful stories from that retreat was I had this one session where I was just scream sobbing,

Like so loud.

And at the end,

You know,

We were doing sort of a share and I was just,

I made light of it and I was just like,

Haha,

Yeah,

That one was pretty heavy for me.

You guys probably heard it,

Haha,

Like trying to just brush it aside and be like,

NBD,

It's no big deal.

And this man who is probably in his lower 60s turns to me and just said,

Thank you for sobbing.

It was so beautiful to hear you cry.

And that is something that I think about every single day.

Whenever I have emotions come up,

Like how beautiful that I get to A,

Experience this and B,

Express this for myself and for the world to see.

That's something that I share with the bereavement groups that I work with all the time is like there's no shame around emotions.

They need to be felt and they need to be witnessed and they need to be given back to the earth to transmute it into something beautiful.

After my mom's death,

That didn't stop the breathwork for me.

This wasn't just something that I used up until she died.

In fact,

It's something that I'm still using,

Especially when I'm feeling waves of grief,

Even a year and a half later.

I especially turn to this whenever I feel the resistance for emotions.

If I think like,

Hey,

I think I'm over this thing.

I go into a breathwork session because like I know myself and I'm not over it and it needs to be addressed.

And breathwork for me is the ultimate tool to tap into all of that.

On Insight Timer,

We share a lot more of the energizing breathwork and downregulative,

Relaxing,

Calming breathwork for sleep,

That sort of thing.

Because honestly,

Those are what we call the tactical and practical breathworks.

Those are not the active breathwork sessions that I was describing in this,

But those are the ones that like got me through the mud when I was a caretaker.

When I was tired and woke up in the morning,

Instead of grabbing four cups of coffee to get through the day,

I would turn to some energizing breathwork.

And at the end of the night,

When my mind was just so loud and I had so much fear and uncertainty and a to-do list a mile long,

I would turn to the breathwork for sleep.

Things like extending the exhale,

Slowing down the breath,

Breathing deep into the belly,

All of these things that tell our body like,

Hey,

It's okay.

There's nothing more for you to do right now than to just be.

And those are what helped me really get through the day-to-day and the nitty-gritty of being a caretaker.

Breathwork will always hold a really special space in my heart because of the time that I spent doing it when my mom was sick and after she died,

And because it truly transformed our relationship,

My ability to accept death,

And help my mental,

Physical,

And spiritual health along the way.

So I hope you enjoyed this little podcast-style audio so that you can get to know me a little bit better.

I am Deegan at Blue River Breathwork,

And I love sharing our content with you.

I hope that it helps you,

Whether you are a caretaker yourself,

A friend,

A family member,

Whoever you are that's doing breathwork,

I know that it is serving you to be more regulated,

More energized,

More well-slept,

All of the things that we know breathwork can help with.

Have a beautiful day.