Embracing Breath Work and Alternative Healing: A Journey from Skepticism to Spiritual Advocacy

Bettina M Brown: 0:04

Hello and welcome to In the Rising a health and wellness podcast for those going through and those supporting those going through cancer. My name is Bettina Brown and I'm board certified in physical therapy, wound care and lymphedema. And you know, for me cancer is very personal. It's affected my friends, my immediate and my not so immediate family, and therefore I created this podcast and fit after breastcancercom to address the multiple dimensions of our lives during and after recovery. As long as you are breathing, there is more right with you than wrong with you, no matter what is wrong. And that quote is from John Kabat-Zinn and it's about the importance of breathing and knowing that breathing is life and actually breathing has more to do than just inhaling, exhaling. There is a thing called breath work that combines with meditation to reduce stress. And who has stress? Pretty much all of us. Pretty much all of us do have stress. But there are such important events in life that the stress level, the feeling of being out of control, is just at a completely different elevated level. And when you're first diagnosed with cancer, everything switched upside down, everything's going left to right. Is this even about you? Is this even possible? That's a very stressful event. And what about if it's not you? What about if these are words for your loved one and you're not sure how to plan the next steps of your life, because nothing about this, nothing about this was planned. And so reconnecting to yourself and using breath work as a way to manage that stress is super important. And my guest today is Mary O'Dwyer, who is from Ireland, and I loved hearing her voice. I just loved hearing her accent. Maybe I'm the one with the accent and she doesn't, I don't know, but it was really neat to hear her talk and I'm excited for you to hear her talk about breath work. I am really enthralled with your story, mary, because you said you yourself were struggling a little bit and a friend of yours said that you may be having a disconnect, and you were kind of confused like no, I'm not disconnected, but that you may be spiritually disconnected, and that resonated with me, that many things were in place but still not in place. How did you respond when your friend looked you in the eye and said, mary, it sounds to me like you're spiritually disconnected.

Mary O'Dwyer: 2:49

Oh I thought she was cuckoo. I mean, to this Irish Catholic girl it was like, okay, where's this crazy coming from? But Spirit always has a plan right. There was a part of me that resonated with this. I really trusted this friend. She lived like three doors down from me and she was so sweet. That afternoon she dropped up some books to my doorstep like mindfulness for beginners and meditation for dummies kind of books, very basic, and I credit that conversation with opening the doors because I began to read those books and I grew up in Ireland, so it was very much you're in your Catholic safe box and anything outside of that is a cult. I'm exaggerating a little bit, but that was kind of anything outside of that, too far outside of that, was going to be very scary for me. But I allowed myself to get curious and get open and the universe always responds. When that awareness really got to me and I started to see the disconnect, I started to see that I was wrote, that I was going through the motions, going to church every Sunday, saying night time prayers, saying grace before meals, but there was the passion, the intensity just wasn't there. I was literally just ticking the boxes and I was introduced shortly afterwards to somebody who did Reiki. And again, spirit makes no mistakes, because this lady actually grew up as an Italian Catholic and so she completely got where I was coming from. And when I went to her place of business to get my first Reiki session, I saw the Virgin Mary. She had a statue of the Virgin Mary outside her front door, so it just created safety. It was like, oh, I can trust her, I can trust that this is okay, because I needed that at that time. And then I discovered many other wonderful tools energy work, essential oils and, of course, the breath work, which for me was just a life changing experience. My first session, just you know, it was the two by four over the head that I needed. Sometimes we needed two by four.

Bettina M Brown: 4:59

Sometimes I think I needed a 10 by 20 or something Just really knock it in. And I'd like to just pause right there because you said, like the intensity was not there. Now you were going through motions, you're doing the right things, the way you were brought up, but the intensity was not there. You know, I think sometimes we can do everything, but if that intensity, that passion is not there, it leads to emptiness. How did you feel that your intensity changed as you were going through this process? Like, but intensity only? How do you feel that has changed for you?

Mary O'Dwyer: 5:36

It changed 150% because no longer was I choosing to engage with spirituality, because it was something I had to do and if I didn't do it, god wouldn't love me and I could end up in hell. Suddenly there was a relationship, because in my first transformational brat session I encountered what I would describe as the love of God, the love of the angels, the love of Jesus, and after that experience I no longer believed in a higher power. I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that there was something way more powerful, and it doesn't matter what we call it you know whether it's you know, the Buddha, christ, jesus, god Source, the universe, allah. it's that same energy of unconditional love, source of love, light, wisdom, and when you encounter that, it just changes everything, because now I could have a conversation with Jesus and, like Jesus, I really don't feel like going to church today. I got nothing out of it last week, you know. So this is, this is where I'm at and instead I'm going to do this. And I just started to develop my own spiritual practice. And because I now had a real relationship and what I believe is a direct connection, it was safe for me to be able to do that and trust that my process was right for me where I'm at, and it's completely different maybe from your process, from your listeners' processes, and that's it's all okay, because each of us needs to engage in our spiritual practice. That is both most going to feed our soul where we are now.

Bettina M Brown: 7:30

I think that resonates, and we say resonates right. Resonate is a vibration, it is an energy.

Mary O'Dwyer: 7:36

We use our language.

Mary O'Dwyer: 7:47

I'm setting myself on a path. It was kind of like I was scared that I was going on a slippery slope like that I'm going to descend and lose all of my morality. And there was definitely a time when I stepped away from it all. And I can remember, before my first transformational breath session, I remember having a window where I wasn't sure, like, is there really a God? Does it matter? And I think I had to go through that so that I could come back and have the experience I had and then change and then just over time, developing that trust, that trust in myself, that trust in spirit, that trust that God loves us all, no matter what. And so you have now created.

Bettina M Brown: 8:29

You had something before, but you have now created something where you use transformational breath, and I'd like to pause there and really have you explain what that is.

Mary O'Dwyer: 8:39

So, transformational breath is a very specific type of breathwork. It's an integrative breathwork, which means what that means is to integrate us, to make whole, because there's parts of us that we have maybe left behind, those parts of us that we don't like, those things that we have suppressed. Right, you know that part of you that sometimes, that part of you that maybe is a scaredy cat, that part of you that's insecure, and so we put on our masks and we try and just hide and even ignore and pretend that those other aspects of us don't exist. However, anything that we have suppressed, any emotions, any aspects of ourselves, they are stuck in our body, just like we store stress in our neck and our back. We store everything. So transformational breath is an integrative breathwork where we breathe in a very specific way, which is a circular, connected breath through the mouth. This allows us to access our diaphragm, so we're taking really deep belly breaths, we're raising our vibration, which means we're bringing in that life force, that she, that Holy Spirit. Breathing is respiration, respiration. So this raises the energy of our body and when we do that, the laws of physics say if there's something of a high vibration, that encounter something of a low vibration in the same plane. So we're breathing. So where our body is, the plane, the breath that we're bringing in in a conscious, connected way is the high vibration, and that lower vibration is all of those things that we have suppressed and repressed and so they can't coexist on the same plane. So something called entrainment happens, where these old suppressions and suppressions, whichever ones, are ready to heal during that session come up to the surface. So we get to, either through felt sensation or possibly an emotional experience or possibly a memory, get to revisit something from our past that's ready to heal. And then I work with you to consciously breathe through that, because our survival mechanisms in life is when we come across something that we don't want to feel, we hold our breath because that stops the flow of that emotion, so that we can manage it, repress it, put it somewhere out of our sight where we don't have to look at it or think about it or talk about it. And so in the session we're encouraged to breathe through it, maybe move it with our voice, whatever way we need to move it. And then when we let go of some of these things, because these, these are just energies, these old emotions are just an energy, and energy can't be created or destroyed, but it can be transformed. So as we breathe through maybe, that old anger, we might transition through the anger and it might come to a place of acceptance or peace, and then towards the end of the session we get to connect deeply with ourselves. There's an opportunity for us to have a spiritual encounter, because when we've let go of some of this stuff we feel lighter, much in the same way as you feel lighter after you had a really big cry.

Bettina M Brown: 11:58

So if you're interested in learning more about breathwork or breathwork and cancer connection, how can you receive support through the use of breathwork and meditation? Please see the description box below. If you're really interested in learning more about Mary, because she's actually pretty cool, I have her website below. It has changed since the time that we recorded and so I did a few alterations. I am also very grateful for your time, because it's the one thing we don't get back, and so if you feel that this podcast or this podcast episode is something that would resonate and would invigorate someone that you know, I invite you to share it. I also invite you to leave a five star review, because it does so much to put this podcast in the hands and ears of those that it makes a difference for. And I also have a special gift. This is the last podcast episode of 2023. So I have a little gift for you, and it is in the box below. Click on in. Thank you all. I wish you a happy holiday, however you celebrate it or if you are not celebrating it. I wish you just all the peace and love, because that is something we can all use. Until next time, let's keep building one another up!