New Year’s Day, 2021. How to ring in a New Year with my closest friends, some of whom were thousands of miles away? One by one, we appeared in the Zoom waiting room of my yoga teacher, tearful at the sight of one another.
“So, Muhlke has brought you together to do breathwork,” said Alison Sinatra, from whom I’d been taking yoga in Woodstock, New York, for 20 years. (She’d stopped using my first name around 2010.) “Have any of you done breathwork before?” We all shook our heads no. When Alison had mentioned during her weekly online yoga class that she was offering virtual breathwork sessions, I flashed back to all the energy-shifting breathing exercises she’d led me through over the years and thought it could be nice to gift my friends a relaxing, re-centering experience for the New Year—a soothing time-out from the nonstop madness and confusion of the world.
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“Okay, ladies. So you’re going to lie on your back on the floor—no pillow under your neck—and breathe like this…” She opened her mouth and took two staccato inhales, then audibly sighed them out, as though she’d been surprised, then quickly relieved. She told us to try it. It didn’t feel natural—or relaxing. “Great! Now you’re to repeat that breath cycle without pausing for 30 minutes while I play some music and guide you—”
I unmuted. “Wait, what?!” My friends laughed nervously. Alison told us to go at our own pace—faster, sharper breathing dialing up the intensity and therefore release—and let us know that our hands might tense into lobster claws. The most important thing was to allow our emotions to emerge, be it grief for what we’d lost through the pandemic, anger (see: pandemic), love…or everything all at once.
This, it turns out, was holotropic breathwork. The therapeutic technique was developed by the LSD researchers Stanislav and Christina Grof in the 1970s after the hallucinogenic was banned, with the goal of helping people achieve altered states of consciousness that allow for emotional release and healing. (The name translates from the Greek as “moving toward wholeness.”) It has been used to relieve depression, substance abuse, and PTSD, as well as to boost self-growth and relaxation.
As I lay there trying to figure out the challenging rhythm, I panicked about what I’d gotten everyone into. Would they call for a Woodstock intervention? In my crew, I was the furthest into spirituality, and I had dipped in deeper as I sought solace from single-parenting and remote-schooling while grappling with work loss and terminal illness in my family. Ten panicked minutes later, a switch flipped. Suddenly, my breath was guiding me, placing me onto waves of emotions. Since I was alone (and the camera and microphone were off), I could let out loud new sounds. Soon, I was crying, then screaming as forcefully as I had during childbirth, finally able to give voice to all the grief and fear I’d buried. Then came a surge of love and gratitude—for my friends, my family, this crazy world, even myself. I had miraculously overridden my thoughts and emerged into pure feeling. It was a wild and cathartic ride, tripping on a hallucinogen made of nothing but air.
Alison guided us back onto the planet, and we turned our cameras back on. To my surprise, we were all crying, thanking Alison and feeling more connected to each other—and to ourselves. It felt like the best gift I could have given.
Since then, I’ve gifted Alison’s virtual sessions to friends who were navigating a difficult time, and recently honored the anniversary of my father’s death with his girlfriend of 30 years. I tried it in person at Frequency Breathwork a few times, then found myself on the floor at Bergdorf Goodman, where La DoubleJ’s glamorous founder, JJ Martin, hosted a breathwork breakfast for fashion editors and influencers, led by Alison. How would they react? Once again, when Alison brought us back upright, the women tearfully shared their surprise and gratitude for the powerful, if initially terrifying, experience.
For me, breathwork has never been easy. And it’s never been less than transformative. It has helped me to release sadness and fear, and to do deeper work on self-acceptance that therapy just can’t access. At its best, it feels like I’m blasting through concrete to forge new pathways. And hearing people share what they want to work through has made me realize that however different (or perfect) others may appear, we all have remarkably similar fears and longings to be loved and whole. Breathwork has been a gift—one that I want to keep sharing.
Christine Muhlke is a culinary consultant, an author, and the founder of the xtine newsletter.
Any content published by Oprah Daily is for informational purposes only and does not constitute medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. It should not be regarded as a substitute for professional guidance from your healthcare provider.
Robert Litman hosts our “The Life You Want” Class on the art and science of breathwork. You will come away with a tool kit of simple breathing techniques to help with stress, anxiety, sleep, asthma, and more. Become an Oprah Daily Insider now to get access to this conversation and the full “The Life You Want” Class library.
