When Breathe & Rise co-founder and President Jerica Love was a competitive runner and hurdler in college, her coach advised her to “inhale when you take off and exhale after you land.”
“My coach emphasized breath work. Tremendously emphasized. I will never forget this. It was like, wait, hold on coach. You’re telling me to breathe a specific way now? And it changed my life. My breathwork started there,” Love told Deceleration.
Now Love is on a mission to embody unity through collective healing using the power of breath. Love and partner Justin Reed (aka J.) formalized what had organically taken shape as the Breathe & Rise Collective (BRC) in 2024. But Jerica’s path to empowerment through breathwork began when she started running track at age 13 to cope with the disintegration of her family in the midst of her parents’ divorce.
“I grew up watching my brother run track and field in high school. I loved it. I fell in love with the hurdles, like, how a body can move like that. And so, it became my safe haven. Track really saved my life. But I suppressed my emotions that way. I thought I was dealing with it, but really I was suppressing it.”
Jerica became a decorated athlete, competing at the national level throughout middle and high school, then receiving a scholarship to attend the University of the Incarnate Word. There she continued to excel at track and field while studying sports administration and business management. After graduation, the COVID pandemic struck. The sudden isolation was a big adjustment for Jerica, a highly sociable Gemini. Boredom and enforced solitude led to hours of THC-assisted introspection, and a darkening mindset.
“This was when I was 20. And I was like, there needs to be more. There has to be more. And I got to a very dark space. And I was isolated with my thoughts. And all my thoughts were saying was just negative mindset.”
On the upside, she wasn’t totally alone. Jerica lived with her sister, who introduced her to vegan food. Eventually, Love started eating exclusively vegan, and learned the art of plant-based cooking. With time, that lifestyle change led to an expansion in both cuisine and consciousness.
“I took a deep dive inwards one day. And I just kind of asked for it to all change. Talking to God, talking to the universe. There has to be more than this empty feeling. Where is my light at? Because I know I have it. I’m so gifted. I’m so talented. But what am I doing with it? And so, I went on a psilocybin trip. That’s what I did. I did it three times.”
The intentional use of psychedelics led Love to a feeling of deep connection and empathy with her Filipino and African-American ancestors and the struggles they went through. Love was also able to confront her own emotional pain and forgive her parents for the unintentional emotional harm they had caused during her childhood.
“I recalled things that my grandparents and great-grandparents were going through. I saw the emotional damage. And I saw the physical damage that my bloodline was literally experiencing. And it changed my whole perspective. I wanted to honor my grandmother and my lineage, so I started making Filipino food. And then I transitioned and I made plant-based Filipino food.”
Cooking and sharing vegan Filipino food with friends and family grew into a small business, Mahal Hut Eats n Tings, a restaurant and catering service. It was through this business that Love met the Third Eye Healing collective, a metaphysical lounge and boutique offering alternative and holistic health services.
Said Love:
“It was such a safe haven. Everything that I wanted to do, I could focus on. I can get on the mat. I can work on my business plan. I can do breathwork. I can do ice baths. I can have a community that wants to do drum circles. And they want to dance freely. And they want to explore, like, dreams and the astral plane. So I became a partner of Third Eye Healing.”
The Third Eye partnership led Jerica to a deeper study of breathwork and breathing techniques; specifically the Wim Hof method, a wholistic practice that combines deep breathing exercises with cold air and water therapies to reduce stress levels, improve focus, and strengthen the immune system. When Third Eye Collective’s home base had to be shuttered, the breathwork continued.
Collectively.
“We just kept doing breath work. And then the people that stayed committed to the breath work, they showed up. We went to parks. We went to community members’ homes and houses. And we stayed true, despite what life is handing us. We’re like, we’re going to meet on the mat Tuesday. And that stayed true for two years. Every Tuesday, one person, ten people. We kept going.“
After two years of community-based practice, the Breathe & Rise Collective became an official nonprofit organization with a mission to make holistic health and wellness both inclusive and accessible. BRC began organizing collaborative events locally, like the ‘Change Yourself, Change the World’ festival at the Cove and an annual fashion show. These events help to build a receptive community for the Breathe & Rise mission, attracting attendees to the various breathwork sessions that BRC facilitates around town.
“Our focus was, how do we actually embody unity? And part of it came from a little bit of my childhood. I felt like I was always trying to keep my family together. That was my wound. And one of my biggest things is I want to transform my wounds into my gifts. And so the gift became, let’s just get people together. We are all on Gaia. We are all on Mother Earth. We are all Mother Earth’s children.”
Attending a breathwork session facilitated by Love and Reed is uplifting, challenging, and educational. Steady drumming provides a framework of rhythm as participants are led through several different breathing patterns. Love and Reed offer encouragement throughout, so that everyone’s energy and mood stays elevated. In addition to breathwork coaching, Love is adept at using crystal sound healing bowls, and these add depth to the already humming vibrational energy that BRC brings to the room.
At one recent gathering, attendees were told that they would be guided through a breath-holding exercise lasting two and a half minutes, a length of time that sounded pretty intimidating. But with expert guidance and preparation, almost everyone was able to complete the exercise. The benefits of breathwork are many, but Love highlights intention and focus as two of the greatest.
“Breathwork can do so much when you go into it with an intention, much like psychedelics or ashwagandha or any of the other sacred practices. Breathwork can achieve that too, without the physical medicine of it. So we set that intention of change that comes from within.
“We’re breathing because we want to change ourselves. We’re breathing because change starts with the inward world and then moves to the outward world. And then we go in intentionally. That means we’re saying mind, body, and soul are in alignment. My body is fully present here. My mind is fully present here. And my soul is fully present here. And it feels just so blissful.
“That’s the one common denominator in all of our events; the energy just feels so blissful.”
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You can find your bliss with the help of Breathe & Rise collective by following them on Instagram @breatheandrisetx or visiting their website. Also: Join them June 8 at the Nourish Health Collective in San Antonio for ‘Reseeding for Reclamation.’
