Ep 194. How Breathwork Can Fast Track Your Healing, with Megan AshtonEp 194. How Breathwork Can Fast Track Your Healing, with Megan Ashton
Behind The Smile with Ash Butterss
Ash Butterss talks with Megan Ashton about using conscious connected breathwork to address trauma, grief and long-standing patterns of numbing with alcohol, food and travel. They discuss safety, physical sensations and integration, offering a grounded perspective for those curious about breathwork in recovery.
55:31•27 Sept 2026
Breathwork, Breakups and Letting Go of Numbing: Megan Ashton’s Story
Episode Overview
- Escaping through alcohol, food and constant travel only postponed pain and kept unprocessed grief locked in the body.
- Conscious connected breathwork can access non-ordinary states where inner children, buried emotions and old wounds can finally be felt and released.
- There is no “right way” to breathe in these sessions; every experience is valid, from big emotional releases to quiet, peaceful states.
- Safety, clear explanations of physical sensations and generous integration time are essential to prevent overwhelming or re-traumatising participants.
- Talk therapy and somatic work like breathwork complement each other, helping people move from intellectual understanding to genuine change in daily life.
“I don't think we can pick and choose our emotions.”
Curious about how others navigate their sobriety journey? This conversation between host Ash Butterss and breathwork facilitator Megan Ashton shines a light on how conscious connected breathwork can support trauma healing, grief processing and life after alcohol. Megan shares how her early years of drinking, bulimia and constant travel were all ways of escaping herself.
She jokes about “doing geographicals” long before she knew there was a name for it, moving from country to country in the hope a new place would fix an old pain. Behind the big smiles in her travel photos, she describes feeling “deep in heartbreak and hopelessness” after a toxic yet magnetic relationship.
Everything shifted during a breathwork class in Bali, where within 15 minutes she was sobbing like her three-year-old self, grieving the love and touch she never felt she received. That session became the turning point that led her away from alcohol dependence and into a decade-long relationship with breathwork, both as a breather and as a facilitator. Ash and Megan keep things honest and practical.
They talk about tetany (those classic “claw hands”), shaking, crying, and why none of these sensations mean anything is going wrong. Megan stresses the importance of safety, clear preparation and plenty of integration time, especially for people with anxiety, trauma histories or those in early recovery. She likens connected breathwork to yoga: lots of styles, but this particular approach is activating, usually done lying down with music, and best guided by a trained facilitator.
This episode is especially helpful if you're sober or sober-curious, have tried talk therapy and still feel something is stuck in your body, or you’re simply tired of numbing out with alcohol, food, work or endless scrolling. It might leave you wondering: what could shift if you finally gave yourself permission to really feel?
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