Ellen Watson: How Breathwork Became Part of My Path

At EMGV26, Ellen Watson will offer several workshops, including a two-hour introduction to GROF® Breathwork.

Here she reflects on her years at Esalen Institute, the teachers who shaped her path, and the way breathwork became part of her life’s work.

A story of practice, transformation, and living lineage.

Arriving at Esalen

I arrived at Esalen Institute, Big Sur, in the summer of 1984, planning to stay for a 5-day workshop… any workshop… just to get out of Texas.

I extended my stay one workshop at a time.

My first weekend was with Stanislav Grof, MD, and his wife Christina, offering Grof Holotropic Breathwork. I experienced a life-changing energetic release as a breather, with Stan’s bigger-than-ever hands — the hands that know — pressing into my upper back while holding me down and telling me to push upward while making loud growling sounds.

Then he had me turn onto my back and attempt to claw his eyes out, while sounding and clawing as he held me down. Alongside him were my sitter and several skilled assistants.

After that session, I felt as if I could run a marathon. I ran from one end of the Esalen property to the other — about a mile — back and forth.

Freedom. Releasing what had been held through much of my biographical history.

Returning to Esalen

The next program was more mellow — psychological inquiry and NLP.

My last weekend was a Gestalt workshop with Seymour Carter. While sitting on the open seat, Seymour repeatedly asked me:

“What are you avoiding?”

After hearing me answer “I don’t know” over and over, he suggested I either return to Esalen or begin a deeper inquiry at home.

A few months later, I returned as a work scholar.

From the garden to the office to the kitchen, I moved through many forms of work while attending evening groups with different teachers and leaders.

Living and Learning

I was smitten with the whole experience and eventually stayed on as a staff member, working as a cook in the kitchen.

For four and a half years, I immersed myself in as many areas of inquiry, healing, study, and professional trainings as I could fit into my schedule.

Without knowing it at the time, my search for meaningful work had ended the moment I arrived at Esalen.

I became an assistant in Grof workshops and benefitted immensely from the immersive 28-day programs.

These programs included two three-hour breathwork sessions, four days each week. Wednesdays brought remarkable guest teachers from fields including Quantum Physics, Jungian Psychology, Reichian Breathwork, Buddhist Meditation, Zen, Christianity, and many more.

At the same time, I studied Esalen® Massage with many of the original teachers of this healing art form and was later invited to join the Healing Arts staff.

Movement and Embodiment

I danced and sang with many of the teachers at Esalen and eventually settled deeply into Gabrielle Roth and The Wave — now 5Rhythms® — and Singing Gestalt with Nancy Lunney Wheeler.

I also studied Continuum with Emilie Conrad and Susan Harper, a movement form focused on embodying the fluid body through music, breathing patterns, sound, and movement.

What a remarkable opportunity it was to live and work within the Esalen community, to study with so many extraordinary teachers, and to move through repeating cycles of death and rebirth.

The Grof Lineage

Terence McKenna was a regular at Esalen throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

Terence, Stan, and Ram Dass all deeply influenced me and expanded my understanding of the power of plant and synthesized medicines used for healing, emotional release, and the development of emotional intelligence.

All of this blended naturally with my ongoing studies and practices within the Grof lineage.

In the summer of 1988, I joined thirty others in Breckenridge, Colorado, for the first certification training in Grof Holotropic® Breathwork.

I later began offering quarterly weekend breathwork sessions for the in-house Esalen community.

Keeping the Work Alive

At that time, our culture was contracting in many ways around psychedelics and plant medicines. For many years — from the late 1990s into the early 2010s — no mention in writing of Grof, breathwork, or medicine work was allowed at Esalen. I often felt gagged and handcuffed.

The positive result was that I developed my massage work more deeply, became a licensed interfaith minister, certified as a 5Rhythms teacher and facilitator, and began traveling internationally to share these practices globally.

Beginning around 2012, I experienced a new freedom to bring all that I am and all that I do back into the light.

Many of us old timers quietly carried the work through those years.

Breathwork Today

Now everybody and their sisters and brothers are studying breath and becoming breathwork facilitators.

The healing power of the breath is becoming visible again.

Beginning in late 2027, my focus will gradually shift from Esalen® Massage toward the Center for Spiritual Emergence.

Originally founded as the Spiritual Emergency Network by Christina Grof and Esalen co-founder Richard “Dick” Price, with support from Rita Rouen, the work began at Esalen and later expanded into different parts of California.

At the time, the wider culture was not ready, and eventually the project became dormant.

Now, together with several senior facilitators, we are helping to revitalize this work under a renewed vision. One future offering will be The Psychology of the Future, a workshop Brack Jefferys, PhD, and I will begin offering from late 2027 onward.

Central to this work is Stan Grof’s cartography of the human psyche, the cosmos, and the embodied practices that support healing and transformation.

A Brief Introduction to GROF® Breathwork

Holotropic Breathwork was developed by Stan and Christina Grof in 1974 during Stan’s long tenure as Scholar-in-Residence at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California.

Today, GROF® Breathwork represents the way Stan Grof wished this work to be taught and practiced.

The practice combines accelerated breathing, evocative music, and focused bodywork to support access to deep states of consciousness and the release of emotional and energetic blocks.

Participants usually work in pairs, alternating between the roles of “breather” and “sitter,” while trained facilitators supervise and support the process. Following the sessions, participants often integrate their experiences through artwork and group sharing.

This work differs significantly from traditional talk therapy and is increasingly being used to support deep inner exploration, psycho-spiritual crisis work, trauma recovery, addiction recovery, end-of-life care, and emerging psychedelic-assisted therapies.

Continuing the Work

Today, Ellen continues to share the living lineage of breathwork, movement, embodiment, and presence through workshops, teaching, and community practice.

At EMGV26, she will offer a two-hour introduction to GROF® Breathwork, as well as additional workshops during the Gathering.

You are warmly invited to meet Ellen and experience her work within the Global Village community.

May each breath open something soft within.