Self-invest: Ep1. Breathwork.
In the last few years, I’ve realised the value of investing in myself. It can be hard to convince yourself its worth it based on what might be the ‘ROI’ [return-on-investment]. But I’ve found the pleasure and self-satisfaction alone is often enough to stop concerns over cost. In this ‘self-invest’ series I’ll dive into some of these investments and why I think they’re worth it.
Why Breathwork?
Given the recent rise in popularity of breathwork, it’s useful to first define what I’ll be referring to in this post.
What I mean by breathwork is consciously taking control of ones breathing to achieve a desired outcome.
Having been involved in athletic pursuits for much of my adult life, I always knew breathing had the capacity to change performance.
In running I felt like breathing deeply, fully and in a controlled manner allowed me to slip into a good step cadence and control my heart rate.
In climbing it allowed me to relax on the wall and conserve energy.
Building a meditation practice over the last 6 years taught me the introspective appeal of the breath. It’s use as an anchor for the attention naturally lent an additional layer of curiosity toward it.
All that is to say, I’ve long felt breath to be important and even noticed the impacts of changing my breathing on my physiological and mental state. But this always felt more like intuition and not something I would be confident in sharing with others.
What did I want from a training?
I wanted to turn my intuitive sense into something I could scientifically back-up.
Whilst I have a personal interest in the Eastern roots of many of these practices, I wanted to learn something secular and free of any stigma associated with the ‘overtly spiritual’ or ‘felt’.
When I trained as a mindfulness teacher, though Eastern tradition was mentioned throughout, the training was actually born out of John Kabat-Zinn’s, an American medical doctor, desire to bring his experienced benefit of mindfulness from a Zen Buddhist lens, through the rigour of science, to use in the Western world.
I also didn’t want to pigeon-hole myself into one specific area of breathwork. In my mind teaching shouldn’t be a prescriptive practice, but should involve coordination between learner and the learned, to identify what topic, modality or framework might be most suitable.
My last part was community. Investing a significant amount of your time and energy into something alongside others means, ideally, forming some connection with them. I wanted a training that fostered the interconnectedness of their cohorts and made some effort to continue this post-course.
So my desires:
Some level of scientific grounding to the training
Sufficient breadth of breathwork styles taught
A focus on community
These are the main things I would index against when determining if a program offered me ‘ROI’.
What did I invest in?
Since January this year [2024], I’ve now done two teacher trainings.
The first, Just Breathe. The second, Oxygen Advantage. As I would learn, two very different approaches and I’ll save the latter for another day. So:
When looking for any course, Google can be an overwhelming ocean of content, courses and accreditations. Taking the first steps to discern what might be right for you and your learning style isn’t easy.
So it might sound somewhat shallow when I say what drew me in upon first stumbling onto Just Breathe was their clean, calm and thoughtful aesthetic.
I’m a sucker for design and a real proponent for the ‘less is more’ approach when it comes to websites. So the fact I landed on the website and could instantly identify what they’re providing was extremely reassuring.
‘Everyday practices for your mind and mental health’
The language used throughout their site was secular and inclusive, stating in their about us section: ‘we help to translate the complex world of wellness into something that anyone can understand’.
Their list of logos where they’ve published or run events ranged from TEDx to The Telegraph and the Tate. Again, this might seem like a shallow or sensational metric, but to me it meant their methods will have been publicly scrutinised and be broadly applicable given the wide-ranging audience of these institutions.
Then there’s the founder. I think it’s always worth looking to the top of any organisation you’re looking to become involved in. The smaller they are, the more likely the values of the founder will end up representing the values of the business at large.
Oddly my first impression of Michael James Wong, the founder of Just Breathe, was from LinkedIn. Directorships and strategy. Immediately I noticed a pre-conditioned scepticism in his ability to authentically lead wellbeing practices from this long-standing background of corporate work.
Was I expecting ‘cave-dwelling yogic sage, come neuroscientist’? I gave light reprimand to myself for being close-minded. After all, what was it I was looking to do?
The more I researched, the more curious I became. Michael seemed a man doing everything. From newspaper articles on yoga, supporting new car launches, founding and running a yoga teacher training school, publishing 2 books and, as I would learn later, being a father of 2.
All this at from what I could discern from LinkedIn sleuthing, only 41!
My curiosity piqued, I sent an email to the folks at Just Breathe to get more of an understanding of content. Given I’d already spent a lot of time in training to teach mindfulness, I didn’t want to feel it was solely a refresher.
They both reassured me of the breadth of the content, but beyond this, the friendly tone and emphasis, both in their communication and from what I’d gleaned on the website, about the nature of the Just Breathe community really cemented my choice.
So, was it worth it?
At £1200 it definitely wasn’t the cheapest option. But this granted me the following:
100hr breathwork & meditation teacher qualification - this was roughly split 50/50 between direct tutoring from either Michael or Dan and homework and case studies.
Access to an e-learning site with all recorded sessions, theory and practical videos behind all practices covered in the course, workbooks explaining the practices, journals to record your own practice and a full workbook to accompany the course itself.
A beautifully printed course manual for the in-person training.
The option of fully virtual or hybrid attendance, with the in-person section being hosted in a dreamy space nestled just above Omnom, Islington.
Access to your tutors and classmates via whatsapp for the duration of the course.
A vast array of support following graduation for teachers in the Just Breathe community. To name a few things:
Teachers whatsapp to coordinate meet-ups, festivals, gain support or get hype for your new breath-oriented ventures.
Separate teachers e-learning portal with additional content.
Opportunity to participate in future events and share your practice with the wider world.
I could spend pages diving into why the content itself was excellent, but suffice to say it was thoughtfully designed, expertly paced and had both sufficient breadth and depth to be highly engaging throughout.
The two things that stood out beyond everything else in clarifying my choice of course were the course tutors and the community of people.
Just Breathe Tutors
Dan Morgan and Michael James Wong. A duo reminiscent of PB&J.
Michael is like water. He embodies a flow-like quality that’s ever-present yet never over-bearing. He often would seemingly blend into the background, never taking more of a platform than was necessary to convey the wisdom befitting the situation. This quality gave him a humility I hadn’t before found in a teacher and his approach really empowered learners to arrive at their own moments of discovery.
Ignoring the almost perpetually present grin, Dan could be quite an intimidating guy if he tried. Underneath the colourful just breathe apparel you can tell there is a body honed for physical performance. I would learn later that whether it’s inverting himself on his hands or grappling on the mat, this was a fairly accurate assumption. Given this, I found it almost disarming to experience Dan’s attentiveness and deference towards his students. Nothing was about him, save to lend colour to examples. Discovering Dan was a long-time meditator himself came as no surprise; his interactions seemed egoless and his warmth infectious.
Just Breathe Community
During our virtual sessions, as you’d expect it wasn’t an easy task to get a measure of people and everyone is typically dealing with their own unique blend of what learning from home can mean. Kids, dogs, parents, partners etc.
It’s when we came together for the immersive part of the training, that the community element really shone. I’m drawn back to this term ‘egoless’. Whilst everyone had clearly signed-up for themselves, it felt like it was a group of people committed to the development of each other. Whether via an absence of judgement, encouraging words, constant unwavering patience … it felt like our collective purpose was to enable the group to succeed.
We laughed together, struggled together and, as cliche as it may sound, when it came to graduating cried together too.
The emotional overwhelm is really only a testament to what Michael and his team have built. True connection can be fleeting, sometimes ethereal, in nature. So an organisation that brought such authenticity to the pursuit of learning and connection, was unique and refreshing.
It’s clear that Just Breathe attracts a certain kind of person. Everyone I’ve met in the community since has displayed similar levels of compassion and curiosity I found on the course.
In my opinion, I’d have struggled to find something more worthy of my investment.