Since 1991, thousands of people have experienced the joy and health benefits of Full Wave Breathing. Here is one person's story of how Full Wave Breathing changed their life.

CASE IN POINT:
Rose's Miracle

Rose was sexually abused by her grandfather when she was three and a half years old and also witnessed her sister being raped repeatedly.

She spent the next thirty-five years suffering from a myriad of physical ailments, beginning with asthma at age four and recurring anxiety and panic attacks at fourteen. In her teens she developed allergies and severe pain with premenstrual symptoms. She saw a chiropractor regularly for treatment of back pain. Exhausted and fed up with these lifelong debilitating patterns, she sought answers outside of traditional medicine.

As an adult, Rose experienced the anxiety that had haunted her childhood. She didn't trust anybody, and felt inadequate and alone. Rose neither liked nor understood herself. "I didn't know who I was," she says. Beneath all of her other disturbing feelings she was aware of a deep, unrelenting sadness.

One day, she became terrified while taking a shower. The episode convinced her to get help. "I decided that it was time to find out why I felt this way all the time." Psychotherapy enabled Rose to remember the rape incidents, and this helped her make sense of her continuing pain.

Her chronic breathing problems seemed connected with unspoken feelings. "My sinus and respiratory infections," she says, "were my pain from all the unexpressed grief I was holding inside, and my asthma came from needing to receive permission to speak about my childhood experiences. I didn't tell anyone-even my conscious self-about the rape for thirty-four years." Because she never expressed these powerful feelings, she was exhausted her whole life. "It takes a lot of energy to block feelings."

While therapy gave Rose valuable insights, her feelings of sadness and anxiety persisted. After two years of therapy, she and her psychotherapist agreed that it was time to end her treatment. "There was no point in continuing to talk about my problems. I still had this grief in me, but we just weren't able to dredge it up. It was time to do something else."

Rose began Full Wave Breathing. One of the reasons Rose tried it was that she hoped to alleviate her chronic breathing problems. In her initial breath session, she noticed a significant improvement. Her lungs expanded to a volume that she had never experienced before, and the constant pain in her upper back lessened considerably.

Rose felt so encouraged after one session that she stopped taking her asthma medication and hasn't resumed since. She estimates that she may have used her inhaler "once or twice since then," and not at all since the first four sessions of Full Wave Breathing. She stopped taking antihistamines because she no longer had sinus problems. Within months, she stopped taking antibiotics, over-the-counter remedies, and all other medication. She no longer needed them, and in fact, they had detrimental effects. "My mind felt like mush. I couldn't get out of my own way the whole day."

Today, Rose's outer world reflects her inner changes. Her health problems have virtually disappeared. After being unable to work for two years due to illness and emotional instability, she took a part-time job as an artist. She held the job until recently, when new career opportunities opened for her.

Now Rose facilitates breathwork sessions for her clients as a Full Wave Breathing Facilitator and travels nationally selling her original designs and teaching needlework at American Cross-stitch festivals. Her confidence level has soared. "I never could have done the things I'm doing now. I am crossing new frontiers."