FUEL's History
FUEL came out of my passion to know more about breathing and breathwork to better serve my family, friends, patients, clients, myself and the world at-large.
In 2008, I noticed I began to have increasing episodes of shortness of breath, especially when exercising. So, I went to see my primary doctor who referred me to a Pulmonologist. The Pulmonologist after hearing my symptoms, ordered a bunch of tests.
One morning while at my Physical Therapy consulting job, he called me. Immediately my heart began to race because I knew having a doctor call you directly is usually not a good sign. He told me “Elizabeth I have some bad news for you, but I also have some good news.”
The bad news is that we found a small, black mass in your left lung. The good news is that we don’t think you have lung cancer, but we are going to need you to come in and take some more tests.
So that began a 3-year long process of multiple exams, blood work and doctor appointments. Thankfully, I did not have lung cancer.
I have always had this interest in breathwork (even before it became mainstream), but going through this experience, coupled with my dad’s progressive cardiorespiratory history and wanting the best for my patients, really spurred an interest in me to find out as much as I could about breathing and breathwork; how the lungs work; and could breathing techniques help my shortness of breath issues, my dad’s breathing, and others? Really impact the quality of our lives.
So, whenever I had time, I started reading and collecting anything and everything I could on breathwork. I put everything into a folder which quickly grew to multiple folders.
What began as a personal hobby, quickly changed in 2020 with the pandemic and losing about 80% of my work. I decided to use my extra time to make a serious study of breathwork.
The approach I used was taking each system of the body and seeing if there were specific breathing techniques that may help a condition within that system based on my research from journal articles, experts in the field of breathwork, and publications from well-known and respected health care institutions such as the Cleveland Clinic, Harvard Medical School and John Hopkins.
As an example, I researched the cardiovascular system looking at conditions like angina (pain in the chest), arrhythmias, heart attacks and strokes and looked for breathing techniques known to help lower blood pressure and heart rate, improve the heart’s performance and decrease stress.
And I did this same process for each system of the body as well as sleep dysfunction and mental and emotional health.
We should certainly keep doing our cardio exercises, strength training, stretching, having a healthy diet, drinking plenty of fluids and all the things that make for a healthy body and mind. But I wanted to know can we add breathwork into that mix to help people with back pain, neck and shoulder pain, high blood pressure, immune and digestive disorders, sleep dysfunction, stress, you name it.
And based on the research I read, we can. Now, looking at breathing practices as a possible treatment modality is still relatively new in the scientific community and more research is definitely needed, but I was truly amazed and inspired by the power of our breath, this free gift that has been give to each of us regardless of our age or our abilities to completely transform the way you think, feel, move, perform and live!
Thank you for looking into this course. I hope this serves you. And I wish you Abundant Blessings, Abundant Peace and Abundant Love!
Welcome to FUEL!!!