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Hi, I'm Heather
Somatic Breathwork Practitioner
Trauma-Informed Embodiment Coach
Plant Medicine Advocate
Heather Walton is lovingly known as Your Hippie Aunt. The one who always knows how to calm your nervous system, tell you the truth with tenderness, and remind you who you are beneath the noise.
With decades of lived experience, deep training in trauma-informed somatic breathwork, nervous system regulation, and embodied emotional healing, Heather creates spaces where people can finally exhale. Her work blends modern neuroscience with ancient wisdom, weaving together breathwork, somatic movement, cacao ceremony, guided meditation, sound, and compassionate coaching to help clients feel safe in their bodies and aligned in their lives.
Heather’s path has been shaped by resilience, curiosity, and a devotion to healing. She believes the body is wise, emotions are messengers, and rest is a revolutionary act. Her approach is gentle yet powerful, intuitive yet grounded, and always centered on choice, consent, and deep listening.
Whether you’re navigating burnout, stress, emotional overwhelm, or a season of transition, Heather meets you exactly where you are and walks beside you as you come home to yourself. Sessions with Your Hippie Aunt feel like being held by something ancient and loving - equal parts science and soul.
Pull up a chair. Take a breath. You’re safe here.
If you're currently breathing (which I know you are ;)
YOU NEED BREATHWORK
What Is Breathwork?
You already breathe 20,000+ times a day, this is just doing a few of those on purpose.
Breathwork is a simple, powerful practice that uses intentional breathing to regulate your nervous system, release stored stress, and bring you back into your body.
It’s one of the fastest ways to shift out of overwhelm and into a place of calm, clarity, and connection.
Why It Works
Your breath is directly tied to your nervous system. When life feels like too much, your breath gets short and shallow. When you slow and deepen it, your body gets the message: you’re safe now.
That’s when everything starts to soften.
The Benefits
This isn’t just “feel good” energy—there’s real science behind it:
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Studies show breathwork can reduce stress, anxiety, and depression
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Even 5 minutes of intentional breathing can improve mood and lower anxiety
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It can lower heart rate and blood pressure
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It supports better sleep, more energy, and emotional regulation
And beyond the stats, it helps you actually feel again, in a safe and supported way.
Why People Love It
Because it works in the body, not just the mind. You can talk about your stress for years, or you can use the breath and start to move it out. This is where you come back to yourself. This is where your body finally gets to exhale.
How Healing Happens
(Step by Step)
1. Breath Directly Regulates the Nervous System
Breathing patterns send immediate signals to the brain.
• Shallow, restricted breathing = danger
• Full, intentional breathing = safety
Somatic breathwork intentionally shifts the body from:
sympathetic activation (survival) → into parasympathetic regulation (rest, repair, connection)
This is not cognitive, it’s physiological.
When the nervous system feels safe, healing becomes possible.
2. It Bypasses the Thinking Mind
Talk therapy works through the prefrontal cortex (thinking, analyzing). Somatic breathwork works through the limbic system and brainstem, where emotional memory and survival responses live. You've got to get out of your psyche (head) and into your soma (body).
This allows:
• Emotions to surface without needing a story
• Release without re-traumatization
• Insight to arise after sensation, not before
Many people release things they couldn’t articulate, because the body remembered even when the mind didn’t. The body keeps the score.
3. Stored Emotions Are Released Through the Body
Unprocessed emotions show up as:
• Tight jaw
• Armoring in the chest
• Hip tension
• Gut discomfort
• Chronic holding patterns
During breathwork, people may experience:
• Tingling
• Heat or cold
• Spontaneous movement
• Emotional release (tears, laughter, sighs)
These are a sign of completion. The body finally gets to discharge what it once had to suppress. You've got to feel it to heal it.
4. It Rewrites Safety in the Body
One of the most powerful effects of somatic breathwork is felt safety.
Not “I know I’m safe.”
But “I feel safe.”
This changes everything.
With repeated experiences of safety:
• Hypervigilance softens
• Anxiety decreases
• Boundaries become clearer
• Self-trust returns
• The body stops bracing for impact
Healing happens not because we force change, but because the body no longer needs to protect itself the same way.
5. Integration Creates Lasting Change
After the active breathing phase, the nervous system enters a receptive, plastic state.
This is when:
• Insights land
• Patterns become clear
• New responses feel accessible
• Old stories loosen their grip
This is why integration time is essential. Without integration, release is temporary. With integration, release becomes embodied wisdom.
What Somatic Breathwork Helps With (Non-Medical Language)
Somatic breathwork can support:
• Nervous system regulation
• Emotional processing
• Stress resilience
• Increased self-awareness
• Feeling grounded in the body
• Releasing long-held tension
• Reconnecting to intuition and agency
It doesn’t “fix” you, it restores your body’s natural capacity to regulate and heal.
Why It Feels Different Than Other Modalities
Unlike:
• Talk therapy → mind-first
• Meditation → often stillness-only
• Exercise → physical but not emotional
Somatic breathwork is:
• Active yet inward
• Structured yet intuitive
• Deep without being overwhelming
It meets the body where it is, not where we think it should be.
The Deeper Truth
Somatic breathwork doesn’t give you something new. It helps you remember what your body already knows:
• How to feel
• How to release
• How to return to balance
• How to trust itself again
That’s the healing.
1 hr 30 min
