Just Breathe: An Interview with Kathleen Woeber on Healing December 22, 2014 • 3 Comments Since the holiday season is officially upon us, I thought it might be a good time to share some insight into something we rarely give much thought too, even though it is literally a part of every moment of our lives: breathing. I know of no better way to calm and re-connect with myself than the simple practice of noticing my breath, over and over. I had an opportunity to interview Kathleen Woeber from the Matrix Light Institute. She is a passionate advocate of connecting with our breath and healthy self-care. Her peaceful presence and radiant glow belie the trauma she has survived and it is my honor to share her wisdom here. Dianna Bonny: How would you describe what you do? Kathleen Woeber: I am an energy healer and teacher. I help people feel into their own body. I am also a loving, joyful person who is excited about life. DB: I love that! Joy is so important and I lost touch with that for awhile. Tell me about your definition of what it means to heal. KW: It is coming back to a place of wholeness, oneness and to the place where you know exactly who you are within yourself. And, from that place of knowing who you are, your perspective of yourself and others is going to be much more accurate. We are largely products of what the marketing machines have told us we are supposed to be, so we are always striving to be good enough, attractive enough or sexy enough to get our needs met. That is not healing. The first thing we need to understand, both men and women, is what it really means to come back to our true self. You do this through healthy self-care, connecting with the breath and creating a vision of what you truly want physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally. Most people stop at the physical, without understanding that the other elements weave in and out to create a whole being. DB: For someone just starting out on the healing journey, how do they begin to figure out who they are and what they really want? I know it was a terrifying question for me to ponder and initially I could not answer it. KW: Most people don’t have a clue what they want because their lives are based on what others want for them. It is wrapped up in what we should want, what others expect of us and what will make us feel important. We are told, from the very beginning, how to behave. Healing that wounded place is where you start. To begin, sit with the question, “What do I want?” And then consciously breathe through your entire body. Because when you breathe, you move yourself to a place of peace and calmness, and at that moment you can start hearing yourself and navigating your inner world. Breathing is essential to reconnect with your core and to begin to discern: this is important to me, this is who I really am. It is functioning from a conscious, inner directed vs. outer directed place where you begin to get glimpses and insights about your true nature and desires. DB: How do you see the woman who is lost in the busy-ness of her life, vacuuming her floor, wiping her counters, a slave to her to-do list, doing anything to avoid being with that uncomfortable angst in her body? How do you put into words how it feels to touch that quiet inner space? KW: I see energy leaking out of her body, darting off in all different directions. When there are shards of energy coming out, it is like a leak in the system. Returning to a place of wholeness is sealing up those leaks. When I put my hands on those places and have her breathe all the way down through her feet, the system begins to balance. When we avoid our pain it is like putting a giant rock in the middle of your life and creating a permanent blockage. Similar to when you step on a hose, the energy, or water, has to go somewhere, so it backs up and we get stuck living our lives around avoiding the pain. By breathing all the way down through your feet and simply noticing what your energy is doing, you let your breath touch the blockage and begin to restore the flow. Feel into your body and watch where you stop your breath. Just begin to tenderly notice your own process. It is only when you are in this quiet place that you can begin to look at what kind of energy you are emitting that is, in turn, attracting a particular dynamic towards you. Whenever we are attracting something to us, there is a reason, because the system is always moving towards wholeness so you can heal. We will attract the reflection that we need to see within ourselves, so that we have the opportunity to make different choices. DB: Wow. That is a powerful way of looking at life experiences, that they are here to inform us. What about fear? When you are so afraid of feeling those emotions that might sweep you away, how does one learn to embrace these feelings? KW: We all try to ignore and avoid these feelings, both men and women. The belief system is that we are not worthy. It is our sense of our self in the world and we avoid it because we don’t want to feel that pain. That belief system is within us, like the rock. When you arrive to the place in your life where you are ready to deal with the emotions around those beliefs, and feel them, then the blockage becomes the gift, the birth of your true self. Everything is a gift when you can shift to that understanding. DB: And once you are ready to feel that pain, what is the first step? KW: Connecting with the breath, the life force. When you are consciously breathing into your body, you are deliberately bringing the life force into every cell. Our bodies are a system, not a collection of isolated cells, and breath is the connecting force. The breath slows everything down and anchors the process of conscious awareness. How far you are experiencing your breath will determine how deeply you experience your life. DB: Lovely. Thank you, Kathleen. I hope this inspires my readers to begin connecting with the power of their breath. It has been an instrumental element of my healing over the last few years. May your life be filled with radiant, transformative breathing that connects you with the healing power of your cells. All the way through your tippy toes. Wishing you much joy this holiday season. – db Who is Dianna Bonny? Hi, my name is Dianna Bonny. It’s my mission to candidly share my journey with you. For me, it’s all about the healing: to create a radiant healing energy for others who have befallen a similar fate. Together, we can forge beautiful lives of belonging and connection. Thanks for joining me today! I look forward to hearing from you.