I spent most of my life chasing excellence. Always doing, always achieving, always pushing.

For years, I was a competitive volleyball player, playing through injuries and pressure, wearing resilience like a badge of honour.

Off the court, I built a corporate career in Human Resources, spending nearly fifteen years working across global organisations and S&P 500 tech giants, supporting thousands of employees. I knew how to perform. I knew how to overfunction. I knew how to live with chronic burnout. What I didn’t know was how to pause.

Somewhere along the way, my body had enough. I had to retire from volleyball, which left me in the middle of a huge identity crisis.

A series of events led me to discover freediving, and that became the foundation for my inner dive. I learned to quiet the mind between breaths and to find comfort inside the discomfort of the breath hold. Freediving taught me that strength does not always come from force and that there is real power in softness.

But I could not take that feeling with me into everyday life. Outside the pool, I was still living in my head, disconnected from my emotions, always doing just to avoid looking deeper.

Talk therapy helped me highly intellectualise the belief systems I had built as walls to keep myself safe. But I could not bring myself to look behind those walls and feel what was really there.

That is when breathwork entered my life and things started to shift.

Breathwork gave me access to parts of myself I could not think my way into. It helped me face wounds I had been avoiding, release trauma, heal from PTSD, regulate my nervous system, find ease in difficult moments, feel my emotions, and eventually, learn how to nurture and love myself. It showed me what it feels like to be at peace with what is, and what letting go really means.

I released layers I had been carrying my entire life, including patterns and imprints from early developmental stages. Because when something happens that is too much, too soon, or too fast, it does not just disappear. It gets stored in the body until it is given space to be witnessed and released. Until then, we carry it through life, often without even realising it.

I get it. It can feel intimidating to even consider unpacking all of that. I used to cringe when someone told me to slow down. How boring, I thought. But breathwork taught me something else. Slowing down is actually cool.

Walking this path did not make me abandon my goals. It simply changed how I move towards them.

It opened the door to a different kind of life, one that feels lighter, steadier and more spacious. A life not ruled by stress, pressure or emotional weight. One where rest, joy and fulfilment are not things you have to earn. Where you do not need to prove your worth to deserve care, comfort or connection.

And yes, you can still live fully and go after what you want. Climb the ladder. Build the body. Master your craft. Chase the vision. Lead the room. Break your own limits. You do not have to sacrifice yourself to succeed.

That is what breathwork gave me and it is what I want others to know is possible too.