From Losing Myself to Creating RhythmReset®
I’ve been teaching yoga for over a decade, and the breath has always been central to how I teach. In the Ashtanga tradition, breathing is woven into the practice. It sets the rhythm, connects the movements, and gives you something to pay attention to beyond the physical poses. That’s something I have always appreciated.
Over the years, I’ve watched yoga evolve into something very different in many studios. Faster flows, more elaborate sequences, and sometimes the breath becomes something we remind people to do every now and then, rather than the foundation of the practice.
So when I became involved with a dedicated breathwork studio in 2021, I was completely taken by it. Everything made sense to me. I fell head over heels in love with the practice.
We were still in the middle of COVID. Masks were part of everyday life, people were cautious about being around each other, and very few knew what breathwork actually was. I remember teaching classes with absolutely nobody in the room.
Not one person.
It’s funny to think about that now.
Not long after the studio opened, I joined the management team and became the studio manager. And when I say I lived at that studio, I’m not exaggerating by much. We spent an enormous amount of time educating people about rhythmic breathing, explaining what happened in the body, and introducing something that, for most people, was completely new.
But something else was happening that I think became just as important as the breathing itself. People were finding each other.
I would sit in the sauna fully clothed, talking to members about their lives. I’d sit on the couch between classes, asking how people were doing, listening to what they were going through. And slowly, those conversations started happening without me. Members became friends. People who had never met before started showing up for each other.
We had just come through a period when human connection had been interrupted in ways most of us had never experienced. And I think people were hungry for it. Actually, I think many of us still are.
I’ve taught thousands of classes over the past 12 to 14 years. Yoga, breathwork, meditation, fitness. Call me a teacher, instructor, facilitator, guide. I’ve never been particularly attached to the title. What I do know is that when you work with people for that many years, you become part of their lives in ways you don’t always realize.
Sometimes they tell you. Sometimes you never know.
At that studio, people shared stories with me that I will carry for the rest of my life. Stories about sobriety. About finding a reason to keep going. About getting through incredibly difficult periods. And stories about simply feeling better and enjoying life again.
And something became very clear to me. Breathwork didn’t belong to one particular type of person. There were athletes, business executives, young people, older people, people who had never exercised a day in their lives. Some were going through difficult times. Others were doing well and wanted to explore something new. They all came into the same room. And they all brought something different with them.
But while I was watching this community grow, something else was happening behind the scenes.
I was struggling.
I poured everything I had into that company. My time, my energy, my ideas, and probably a lot more of myself than I should have. The business grew significantly. The community grew. People often assumed I owned the place because I was always there.
But the working environment had become increasingly difficult for me. I could be praised for what I had accomplished and, in the next conversation, made to feel as though I knew absolutely nothing. Over time, that does something to a person. I started doubting myself in ways I never had before. My confidence deteriorated. I became depressed. And somehow, despite everything, I kept going.
Looking back, I sometimes compare my relationship with that company to an unhealthy relationship you know you should leave but can’t quite bring yourself to walk away from. Because how do you walk away from something you genuinely love? Especially when you’ve invested so much of yourself in it.
And it wasn’t the breathwork I wanted to leave. It wasn’t the people. I believed in what we were doing. I’d seen too much to feel otherwise.
There was a poster I had that read:
Find your tribe and love them hard.
I loved those words at the time. So much that I suggested we put them on the wall in the cold plunge room. And we did. For years, those words represented something I believed we had created.
Even after I left, I kept my poster.
Then one day, a friend and former colleague came over to my house. We talked about our time at the studio, and I told her about the poster. She’s an amazing listener. And sometimes that’s exactly what you need. Someone who listens while you work through something you’ve been carrying for a long time.
Through that conversation, I realized I was still holding on to an old story. One that had meant so much to me, but that I was ready to leave behind.
After she left, I tore up the poster.
It felt like cutting the cord.
I could still appreciate what we’d built, the people I’d met, and everything I’d learned. But I didn’t have to keep holding on to that chapter of my life.
Then came an opportunity I hadn’t expected. Rancho Valencia contacted me about teaching breathwork. And that gave me the push to create RhythmReset®.
By then, I knew quite a bit about what people experienced during different breathing practices. I loved the intensity that rhythmic breathing could create. I still do. But I’d also met people who found that intensity overwhelming. People who wanted to experience breathwork without feeling they had to push harder every time.
And I had become increasingly interested in something else.
What happens when we move between activation and recovery?
What happens when we change the rhythm rather than simply increasing it? Could I create a structured experience that challenged people, gave them opportunities to observe how they responded, and then guided them back toward a slower rhythm?
That became the foundation of RhythmReset®.
The first version was very different from what I teach today. And I hope it continues to change. Because the more I teach, the more I learn. I pay attention to how people respond, what they tell me, what works, and what I want to explore further. I don’t believe a method has to remain exactly as it was when it was first created.
And that brings me to The Vault.
I’ve wanted to make RhythmReset® available online for a long time. Longer than I care to admit. Some of that delay has been technical. Recording, editing, balancing my voice with the music, learning how to put everything together. And some of it, I suspect, has been me. Maybe I’m still rebuilding parts of the confidence I lost during those years.
I spent a long time working in an environment where everything needed to be perfect before it could move forward. There were so many things I wanted to do, ideas I wanted to try, things I believed could work. But too often, we never got past the discussion. And I promised myself I wouldn’t build something that way.
Yet here I am, spending hours adjusting recordings, questioning whether they’re ready, listening to the same sections over and over again.
Funny how that works.
So I’ve made a decision. The Vault is open.
There are recordings in there that I know I could improve. Places where my voice changes. A breath you can hear. A moment where the music might be a little louder than I intended. And I’m putting them out anyway.
Because they’re me. They’re my voice, my guidance, my interpretation of the practice. They haven’t been generated by AI or assembled to sound like something they’re not. They’re recordings of a real person doing work she believes in.
I want them to be good. Of course I do. But I also want them to exist.
RhythmReset® has evolved over the past year and a half, and so have I. I don’t have everything figured out. But I know why I started. And I know why I want to keep going.
Maybe that’s what I’m taking with me from all of this.
The importance of the people. The value of the work. The things I’ve learned, including the difficult ones. And the understanding that waiting for everything to be perfect can keep you from doing the very thing you care about.
So here it is.
Perfectly imperfect.
And very much mine.
