As a child I watched everyone around me playing their roles, as mothers, fathers, teachers, the lady at the checkout at the supermarket, and I waited for the moment when I'd find out what I’d be as an adult. That moment never came.

So, I decided to travel the world. I thought the insights and experiences of travelling would open my mind for future career possibilities. But no, I just ended up writing stuff on the “things I don’t want to do” -list. Eventually I came to the conclusion that I might never find that perfect fit and got a job in sales. A job that took me to New Zealand for a conference. 

The turning point

You know when you look back at your life and see how the choices you made led to a turning point? The trip to New Zealand was one of those turning points for me. I fell in love with the country and its people and wondered if perhaps I could live there? It turned out I could if I studied, so I did. Three years later I went home to Sweden with a Bachelor of International Communications in one hand and my future husband in the other.

All the different roles we play

The following years presented me with lots of different roles, and I stepped into all of them. The role of a wife, an information’s officer, a mother of two. All good things, until life started throwing other roles at me. Or as I now like to think about them, - situations that challenges you to expand and grow. At the time I thought it all happened randomly.

I stepped into the role of the one who lost a sister, then her best friend to cancer. The one whose mother had a stroke and husband who wanted to move back to New Zealand. It all happened at the same time. Packing boxes in between funerals. And within a year, moving back to Sweden. No time to reflect, to process, to grieve. I just pushed on. Until one day I found myself unable to get out of bed. Unable to think clearly, massive brain fog and an inability to perform the simplest task. I had hit the famous wall. The wires in my brain didn’t connect, at all. I struggled to get back into being me. When I finally started to get better, I realised I needed tools to manage this new version of me in the same old life.

Finding new tools

I went back to school. As a certified coach and later a silversmith I felt like a new me. Strengthened and equipped to step out in the world again. But life keeps happening. Or throws situations at you untill you finally listen. I didn't listen this time eihter. So my body responded buy shutting down, again. This time it hit so much harder, and it took a lot longer to get back. But when you don't listen to your body it does everything untill you do. I had no choise but to make radical changes in my life, or die.

It took a divorce, a move and a new job and me finally starting to listen to the greatest teacher of them all, my body.

I had shut out my inner voice and ignored my gut feeling for so long. And I have a degree in communication..… In my defence there was nothing in the textbooks about the body guiding you to health. That’s a different section in the bookstore. Eventually I found that section. And after going through the medical system with what they have to offer in terms of remedy for stress symptoms (dodging the antidepressant they keep throwing at me) I got as well as anyone could expect.

Body teachings

Learning to listen to my body has been the greatest teaching in my life. It’s not easy when the programming starts running in my head; “but you said you’d do it, you can’t back down now”. Old me would have done it, regardless of my energy level. New me listens in to see if it truly resonates with me before committing.

And then I found Breathwork. Breathwork is by far the most efficient and effective practice for the body to heal traumas, and regulate the nervous system, energise, rewire and focus the body and mind. One session of breathwork did more for me than all the previous therapy had done, combined. The amount of healing and release I had after my first journey was unprecedented. I felt like I had an internal light bath. My whole body felt energised and focused and exhausted at the same time. It blew my mind.

My hope and wishes for humanity is to let go of the roles and start living through the concious breath. I feel truly blessed in my new role, one I feel at one with, spreading the medicine of Breathwork to all corners of the world.

Breathe to heal

Joanna