"I loved everything about the retreat. The whole experience was life changing and empowering. The lessons and tools I will carry forward into everyday life. Learning to be in the present moment with breath is the greatest gift I take with me. The retreat has given me a greater awareness and clarity of who I am and want to be. I am very grateful for all the lessons. (Thank you to the moon and back.) I am so grateful for all your love and support! Thank you so much Tracey, Megan (Megan McGeowin, www.
harmonizingwithspirit
.com) and Dave. I love all your enthusiasm and Inspiration"

~ Shelly
(testimonial from a four day retreat in Michigan)

About Us

Breath Northwest was founded on the synergy of Tracey and Dave and their passion for being on a learning path of awakening, and sharing their discoveries with others. While centered on using the vehicle of the breath for the powerful dimension of healing it provides, they've always found it difficult to be confined by the boundaries of only one particular modality or philosophical field.

Dave Merrill has a BA in cultural anthropology, and has immersed himself in a number of diverse systems of thought including Jungian psychology,The Diamond Approach, Transformational Breathing, and Tibetan Buddhism. He became a Senior Trainer with the Transformational Breath Foundation, and after completion of a six month training retreat, is an authorized "Dharma Teacher of The Buddha Path', from the Dzogchen Shri Singha Foundation, and his teacher HE Dzogchen Khenpo Choga Rinpoche.

“My first big hero in life was Henry Thoreau, and when I read Walden at age 14, it changed my life. I've been looking for wisdom ever since, and the adversity I've personally experienced has been the motivating force behind waking up. One day after many years of struggling, and finally having found a sense of healing and peace in my life, I wished to myself that I'd been exposed to these profound teachings many years earlier. It then occurred to me that most of these teachings of Dharma and self healing simply hadn't been readily accessible even 10 or 20 years ago. I realized in that moment that I should therefore start sharing what I'd learned with others. From that day on I've always tried to put the Bodhisattva vow into practice in some small way, and teach for the benefit of others.”

Tracey Stover, founder of Breathing Mandala, is a spiritual counselor, writer and breath-worker with over 15 years of training in spiritual and energy practices. She has an MA in leadership and Creation Spirituality. As a world traveler, Tracey is passionate about the health of our planet as a reflection of our own health. Her Masters thesis was to apply the Natural Step to both the business as well as the employees. A business is not truly sustainable if the people running the business are not sustained – body, mind and spirit.

Over the past 15 years, tracey has explored and studied numerous healing modalities in order to heal herself. A few of these include Reiki, Chi Gong, Transformational Breathing, David Eliott’s breathwork, Energy Psychology, CDM Psychic Institute and several spiritual practices such as Zen and Tibetan Buddhism. Tracey has completed a 6 month Tibetan Buddhist retreat. For the past 10 years she has maintained a private practice as a spiritual counselor, breath-worker, nutritional coach as well as a writer.

“We have this life, and this life is precious beyond words. The Buddha said, that it was as difficult to obtain this human life, as it is for an ancient turtle that rises to the surface of the ocean once every hundred years, to puts its head through a floating ring on the surface of the sea. From a young age, I knew I was here to awaken, and release the wheel of Samsara. I am dedicated to supporting others on their healing journey and to teach whatever I know. I offer my life as a living mandala to the benefit of all beings.”

Our intention

We're here to help you wake up and find your ultimate destination!

"Waking up" on Planet Earth can be experienced in many ways, through great pain and suffering, through great beauty and joy, through being alone or surrounded by others. Waking up is not an option; it is the highest essential requirement of being a human being......for all human beings...

Your one path of waking up, is the one in front of you. How will you go?


What does "waking up" mean?

It means expanding my view of myself, and of what is possible. It means expanding my horizons and my capacities to respond creatively to all situations in life. It means realizing my own responsibility for healing myself, for enlivening my “presence” in this amazing present moment, and for stepping confidently into my future. It means abandoning a self-centered focus to include working for the benefit of others, and of all beings. It means being responsible for my path, for how I walk it, and for what I leave behind. It means abandoning anger, jealousy, pride, ignorance, and greed, and replacing these with altruistic compassion, love, generosity, and wisdom.

Every day, I will wake up more and more!

Our philosophy

Human life occurs in a rapid whirring of present moments strung together like high speed film images; the movie of our lives. We seem to be the camera, the film, the director, the script writer, the actor, and the coffee maker.
We are responsible for our entire universe.

But it's essential to realize we are also...in essence... none of those things. Waking up means unraveling all of the scripts, dramas, and repetitive self-identities which we've been busily acting out. This self-generated simulacrum or matrix of what is possible is also our prison which keeps out other possibilities and prevents us from realizing who we truly are.

The opportunity for transformation always occurs by skill-full intervention in a present moment, by interrupting the continual flow of habitual thinking and acting. Revelatory shifts can happen.

This is the doorway we're given.

The skillful use of the breath is one of the most powerful ways. . .
to find the door, unlock it. . .
and walk through.