From Violation to Clarity – How I Alchemized My Worst Session Into My Deepest Teaching
Written by Ada Garza, The Transition Alchemist
Ada Garza is the founder of Love.Alchemy.Life, guiding individuals and corporate leaders through life transitions using emotional alchemy, breathwork, and energy healing. She helps transmute emotional chaos into clarity, enabling clients to embody resilience, reconnect with their soul, and lead with presence and purpose.
Since childhood, I've known life creates situations not to punish but to help you grow. No matter how uncomfortable or disorienting, I've always felt this was true. Every experience helps me expand.
Expansion doesn’t come for free, however. It often means letting go of control. It asks us to stay present, to feel, and to choose how we respond. These moments rarely arrive when we're "ready." They come like a pop quiz from life, let’s see if that inner muscle exists!
For me, the muscle I've been called to develop repeatedly is resilience. Most recently, that growth emerged during one of my online breathwork sessions.
The sacred container
I had been offering free group sessions through Eventbrite. I created a sacred container for people to explore breath, healing, and self-regulation in a safe and supportive environment. The session started as usual. I grounded the space, guided the breathers through foundational theory and technique, and prepared them for the deeper work.
There were only two participants that afternoon. Before their session started, based on their names, I had assumed both were female. However, one turned out to be male. As I shared my presentation screen to guide the early part of the session, I couldn't see the participants. Everything seemed peaceful, normal, and flowing.
When safety shatters
As we entered the breathwork portion, I turned off screen sharing to check in, and an immediate, jarring shock gripped me. My stomach clenched, a cold wave crashed down my spine, and it felt as if the air had been sucked from the room. One of the participants, the male, had repositioned his camera to expose himself. He was engaging in an act that was not only inappropriate but deeply disrespectful to the sanctity of the space we had created.
My entire nervous system froze.
The trauma response was instant, disbelief, fear, and a surge of protective instinct. I looked at the other participant, a young woman, thankfully with her eyes closed and breath steady. I seized the moment to swiftly and calmly preserve her experience. Without a word, I removed the man from the session.
Holding the paradox
Five years of breathwork practice and spiritual training kicked in.
I'd learned to recognize the freeze response, that primal instinct to shut down when a threat is present. I'd practiced sitting with intensity in my own body, teaching my nervous system that I could hold discomfort without collapsing. In those moments, my heartbeat would quicken, and my breath would catch, teetering on the edge of overwhelming instinct. But I'd learned to breathe deeply, feel my pulse steady, and regain control. In that moment, I didn't override my fear or perform calmly. I stayed present with it. I felt the disbelief, the rage rising in my solar plexus, the instinct to protect. And I made a choice from that grounded place, remove him, protect her, hold the container.
I continued holding the space for her, guiding her through to completion as though nothing had happened.
After the session, I filed reports with Zoom and Eventbrite. I did everything possible to block the person from future sessions. But the emotional aftermath had only begun.
The body remembers
After the breathwork session, I had already planned some errands and, in the spirit of not being defeated by the incident that afternoon, I carried on. That evening, I visited my mother, we prepared dinner, and we spent some quality time together. I did not mention the incident to her, in part because I didn't want her to worry or think this work was unsafe. But also because I was still enveloped in disbelief, a feeling that often lingers after such a shocking moment. Once I got home and finally lay down in bed, the tears came. Grief and rage hit me again, the emotional aftermath demanding to be acknowledged and felt.
But I knew better than to bypass what my body needed to process. Breathwork had taught me this, you can't think your way out of a nervous system response. You have to move it. Alchemize it.
The tears came because my body needed to discharge the adrenaline, the fear, and the violation of trust. I didn't suppress them. I let them move through me, exactly what I teach my clients to do.
Metabolizing rage
The next day, I woke up hollow, emotionally numb. As the day went on, anger surfaced. I felt violated, not just as a woman, but as a healer. Someone had twisted my offering for their own gratification.
To clear the emotional residue, I wrote furiously in my journal. Page after page poured out. I lit a fire and burned those pages as a symbolic act of release. I also went to the police station and filed a report, despite having limited information. I needed to do this, for my safety, for my agency, and to reclaim my power.
But the most healing thing I did came later that day. I went for a walk.
What started as a short stroll to move anger through my body became a two-hour pilgrimage.
This is what somatic healing looks like. Step by step, breath by breath, I returned to myself. I let the rage burn, walked faster, breathed deeper, grounding myself. I'm here. I'm safe. I survived.
Every HeartMath technique, every breathwork practice, and every meditation I learned over five years came down to this moment. They were not to transcend the anger, but to metabolize it. I let my nervous system complete the stress cycle instead of storing it.
And by the time I returned home, my energy had shifted. Instead of spiraling into helplessness, I felt a sense of clarity.
Life had handed me another initiation. Another chance to strengthen my capacity to remain open, even after harm. Another moment to ask myself, Will I shrink, or will I rise?
I chose to rise.
The alchemical spiral
This is what my spiritual practice has given me, not immunity from harm, but the capacity to alchemize it. The Alchemical Spiral framework I teach, Feel, Transform, Embody, isn't theory. It's what I lived that day.
Feel: I let the tears come. I felt the rage, the violation, the fear.
Transform: I walked. I breathed. I moved all the feelings through my body instead of storing them.
Embody: I chose to rise. I chose my purpose. I chose to continue.
That's not spiritual bypassing. It's the practice of embodied resilience, feeling what arises, transforming it, and emerging stronger. These are actionable steps anyone can take.
This experience compelled me to reevaluate my presence in the online world. It reminded me that not everyone enters sacred containers with the same reverence. But it also reminded me why I do this work in the first place.
Because in a world that can feel unsteady and unsafe, people need guidance. They need grounded, heart-centered support. They need spaces where they can remember who they are.
I have walked through deep grief. I've left my homeland to start over. I've experienced loss, divorce, and health setbacks. And yet, every time, I've returned to my purpose.
Breathwork didn't make me invincible. Spiritual practice didn't prevent harm.
They gave me tools to support myself through the aftermath. I learned I could survive intensity and return stronger. Resilience isn’t about never breaking, it’s about knowing how to rebuild.
What I offer my clients is this, not guarantees against hardship, but tools for alchemy. Use breathwork to feel your experience, integrate it to understand it, and cultivate spiritual grounding to choose your response. Whether in group containers or 1:1 transformation sessions, this is the work, learning to hold yourself through anything life throws at you, and choosing who you become on the other side.
Clarity in choosing to rise
This incident didn't break me. It clarified me.
I don't need to understand why that man did what he did. I don't need to carry the emotional burden of his choices. I don't even need to forgive him, because the truth is, I feel nothing toward him anymore.
What I do feel is deeper alignment with my voice. My purpose. My capacity to hold myself through anything.
This, to me, defines resilience, experiencing challenge, harnessing inner tools, and transforming adversity into growth. Real resilience is learnable.
We don't get to choose the tests life brings. But we do get to choose who we become in response. And I choose to continue with my purpose.
Read more from Ada Garza
Ada Garza, The Transition Alchemist
Ada Garza is a Transition Alchemist and founder of Love.Alchemy.Life, guiding individuals and leaders through major life transitions using nervous system healing, breathwork, and energy healing. Through her signature Alchemical Spiral method, she helps clients transform emotional suppression into embodied resilience, reconnect with their authentic selves, and navigate change with clarity and self-trust.
