Listening Beyond What Is Spoken

“I’m fine.”

How often do we say this even when we are not?

Perhaps there is a lump in your throat, a heaviness in your chest, a feeling in your stomach you cannot quite explain. Something is there, but the words are not.

I’m Chanelle, an Integrative Psychotherapist, Breathwork Coach and Artist.

There was a point in my life when I knew my body was dysregulated, and I also knew that talking was not enough. I had things I wanted to explore, but I wasn’t finding the release I needed through words alone. My mind was trying to work things out, while my body was asking for something different.

So I listened.

Not with a plan, but with instinct.

I felt drawn to water. I did not want to swim. I wanted to be in the water.

Sometimes I would hold onto a float, rest my head on my crossed arms and let my legs dangle beneath me, allowing the water to move me. In and out. Back and forth.

Then came sound healing. Or at least, that is what I thought I was going to. I accidentally joined a class combining sound and breath, having thought I was signing up for sound healing alone.

I came for the sound. But then there was the breath.

Looking back, I don’t think it was entirely accidental. I believe in coincidence. I believe in intuition. I believe sometimes life places something in front of us at the moment we are ready to receive it.

I was ready to listen.

This was the beginning of my journey into breathwork.

Not because I was looking for something. Not because I knew swimming or sound healing would change anything for me. I was simply in a season of listening to my intuition. I was allowing my body to lead me towards the things it seemed to be asking for.

Water. Sound. Slowness. Rhythm.

I was not trying to figure out where any of it was taking me. I was just willing to follow. I listened to my body, and slowly and gently, it led me somewhere.

Eventually, that somewhere was breathwork.

What breathwork means to me

For me, breathwork began with curiosity and openness, and curiosity is something I continue to lead with as a Breathwork Coach.

We breathe all day automatically, yet the breath is also one of the few automatic processes we can consciously influence. Changing its rhythm, pace or depth can influence our physiological state, but I do not believe that means making promises about how someone will feel.

I do not promise regulation.

I do not promise safety.

I do not tell you that a particular technique will make you feel amazing.

That is not breathwork going wrong.

The practice does not exist separately from your life. You bring your whole self into the room.

And that is what I am interested in.

When I guide you into consciously breathing, I am curious about where it will take you. I do not judge, expect or promote that anything particular should happen. Instead, I invite an openness to let your body lead and to follow it.

Breathwork, for me, is not simply a collection of techniques. It is a journey of felt curiosity. A story of sensations. It begins somewhere and finds its way somewhere else.

Sometimes, if we are willing, we do not need to know where it is taking us.

We can simply follow.

There are parts of our human experience that words cannot meet, but instead can be explored through movement, art, music, intuition and breathwork.

Being a Beyond Words Therapist is not about moving away from words. It is about making space for the different ways we can access and express parts of ourselves that words struggle to convey.

This comes from believing in my Integrative training and the different therapeutic perspectives it offers.

Talking therapy can be incredibly powerful. So can play. So can art. So can movement. So can breathwork.

What interests me is what happens when we allow them to work together.

Not mind or body, but mind and body.

This is where my creativity, psychotherapy and breathwork meet, not as separate practices, but as different ways of listening to the same person.

We are not made up of one layer. We are thoughts and feelings, bodies and stories, memories and instincts, and everything that exists beyond them.

To truly see someone is to make space for all of those parts to exist together.