Don’t Forget to Breathe: An Interview with Life Coach and Breathwork Healer Jen Chieco

Have you ever thought about your breath before? Have you ever acknowledged your body breathing, the one thing we need to live? It’s something most of us don’t think about or even realize. But breath is everything, it’s what keeps us alive. 

I learned about breathwork when I was living in North Hollywood, CA back in 2017. I had joined a new yoga studio and saw the only class they had left on the schedule that day was a Kundalini class. I wasn’t aware of what a kundalini class was at the time, but I went anyway.

If you’re not familiar with kundalini yoga, it is a spiritual and physical practice that aims to awaken and harness the energy located at the base of the spine through a combination of postures (asanas), breathing techniques (pranayama), chanting (mantras), and meditation. This practice seeks to promote spiritual growth, physical well-being, and a heightened state of awareness and consciousness.

During the class we practiced different breathing techniques and I remember feeling as if I opened a channel within myself. I left the class feeling re-energized in more than just a physical sense.

I’m not typically an anxious person, but anytime I notice my nervous system getting triggered, I always bring it back to intentional breathing. I do the 4-7-8 method.

I saw a girl from my hometown had begun a business as a life coach but implementing breath work and other practices into it. I thought to myself, sign me up. I reached out to her to write about her practice and highlighting breath work. She took it a step further and offered to do a session for me to write from my own experience.

We hopped on a zoom, caught up a bit on everything from  everyone in our class who’s now having babies to starting our own businesses. Then we seg-wayed into the breath work portion. After we set up the laptop correctly so she was able to view me properly, I laid down and put a t-shirt over my eyes. I didn’t have an eye mask as I was traveling at the time, so a t-shirt it was.

She created a unique playlist specific to my session. I repeated a 3 part rhythmic breath throughout the duration of the playlist. A few things happened. I don’t remember it all, as I felt like I left the realm for a bit, but my whole body was physically vibrating. The 3 areas I felt energy pulsating in the most were my hands, my jaw and throat area, and my back left side. I took a mental note of all of that afterwards to go over with Jen the following day.

*We decided to do a download follow up call the next day so I was able to digest the session and take my time.* 

I picked Jen’s brain a bit about her practices below.

Hi Jen! Please introduce yourself and tell us a little about what you do/services you provide?

My name is Jen Chieco. I am a nurturer at heart, former teacher by trade, and current teen and young adult life coach and breathwork healer. I work with young people between the ages of 13-26 who are discovering their path/purpose, grappling with life's twists, or interested in up-leveling their life through fine-tuning their goals, habits, and mindset. In addition, I support both young people and adults through breathwork. I've learned through experience that talking only gets us so far and incorporating somatic work is integral in breaking up stagnant energy within the body to create space for what we're stepping into.

For those unfamiliar,  what is breathwork?

Breathwork is essentially a practice of coming back to our breath; our life force. It's putting the breath to work to support our body in unlocking stuck energy and allow our bodies to function at an optimal level. We spend most of our day not thinking about our breath because it is involuntary. There are many different types of breathwork and they all have different benefits. This particular breathwork is a form of pranayama, which essentially means that you're breathing in a particular sequence. I was trained by healer David Elliott who describes this work as, "Breathwork interconnects these levels and enrich the healing work in a profound way. Other key aspects of the work focus on identifying, developing and nurturing intuition, focusing creative expression, and identifying and harnessing each individual's relationship and exchange with their environment and most of all Mother Earth." This form of breathing is a 3-part rhythmic breath performed while laying down on your back. You breathe in through your mouth into your belly, then into your chest, and then out of the mouth. Don't knock it until you try it. It's extremely transformational.

It’s so ironic that most of us don’t even think about the fact that our body breathes for us everyday, it’s why we’re alive. When someone taps into intentional breathing, it can make such a difference. I can speak from my own experience. Why is that? What’s the science or reasoning behind that?

In our day-to-day stressful way of living, we are holding our breath or breathing rapidly out of fear, anxiousness, or uncertainty. For myself personally, I have learned that I don't fully breathe into my diaphragm and instead only inhale into my chest all day which increases my body's sympathetic nervous system response. It's like what comes first, the chicken or the egg? Is it my chest breathing causing an increased stress response, or the internal stress causing my body to breathe in a shallow manner through my chest? Like you said, we don't think about it until it becomes a problem and we see or talk to someone who dives in a little deeper and asks us what we feel in our body. The 3-part rhythmic breath taught by David Elliott creates a breathing experience where you're allowing the breath to do the work in supporting the body through what it needs. Each breathwork experience is different because our body needs something different every day. 

Who can benefit from breathwork?

Everyone can benefit from breathwork. Everyone can benefit from reconnecting with their bodies, disconnecting from the mind, and moving stagnant energy in order to receive more self love and abundance. In our stressed out world, the absolute best thing we can do is focus on ourselves. Not in a selfish way by thinking of ourselves all the time, but by filling our own cups first. I always say that if we each spent more time releasing our own fears, limiting beliefs, shame, and guilt, the world would be a better place for all because as a collective we would be carrying less pain. Breathwork can support the process of releasing and moving those feelings and memories that the body holds on to and tries to protect.

We all have busy lives, how could someone integrate breath work into their day to day easily?

Breathwork, in whatever form you choose, can take as little as 1 minute a day. 1 minute can change the trajectory of your day. If 1 minute is what a busy mom has in the morning, then she can just sit up in bed, close her eyes, and feel the air fill up in her belly and then let it out through the mouth and repeat. For the breathwork that I hold space for, David Elliott has an amazing Spotify channel with a breathwork recording as short as 7 minutes. It's so easy to pop on the recording and those 7 minutes fly by. You'll actually feel yourself making more time each day after you breathe because you completely shifted.

What could someone experience during/after a session?

During a session, someone may start to feel physically lighter. The breath is shifting the energy in the body and breaking up density. It is common to feel the body, especially the hands, start to tingle and vibrate. A lot of my clients cry. Some clients share that they have finally cried after years of not crying out of conditioning that crying is shameful or weak. Every single experience is different and the most important thing to remember going into each session is to release expectations. After a session, it's important to come out of it slowly. Some people may feel lightheaded because of the dramatic increase of oxygen to the body.

During our breathwork session, was there anything as an observer that stuck out to you during the session that was interesting to point out?

During our breathwork session, I noticed how quickly your body responded. I could tell you were open to receiving the experience without any expectations or self judgement because you listened to your body when she told you to start moving your hands and arms. It felt as though you were supporting the circulation of energy and emotion that was coming to the surface. Like I previously mentioned, every breathwork session is different and as the observer, I'm making sure that you're feeling safe and checking in with the sensations you're feeling, or any feelings that are coming up that you need support working through. The beautiful thing about this breathwork though is that the breath will truly do the work for you. I love supporting both young people and adults through the breath, but I will never gatekeep David's Spotify channel (or his books- check out Healing and Reluctant Healer) because they're transformational resources. 

Next, we’re going to do some sessions with one of my family members who suffers from anxiety which we will have to document the journey. What excites you about working with people with say anxiety?

As a former teacher, I observed a staggering number of young people feel a level of anxiousness that severely impacts their wellbeing. One of the reasons I decided to become trained as a breathwork healer is, like I mentioned previously, talking about our challenges, problem solving, and looking forward with a new outlook is very beneficial, but integrating the body into the process is transformational. Although I am not a doctor and this is not medical advice, we often become our diagnosis or allow it to become part of our identity. I'm excited to help people take their power back and feel empowered from within. 

Anything you want to add?

If you're reading this, it's your sign to give yourself permission to slow down. Your world and the world will be better places when you take care of yourself. 

How can we find you? 

You can find me:

Instagram: @jenchieco

Website: jenchieco.com

Email: connect@jenchieco.com

Book a 1:1 Breathwork Session: https://hello.dubsado.com:443/public/appointment-scheduler/65a196be5f3f3b27d047652f/schedule 

Book a Free 30 Minute Coaching Discovery Call: https://hello.dubsado.com:443/public/appointment-scheduler/6515e9bb077a18003a6ee945/schedule