From Blue Lights to Breathwork

By Abbie Westgate

If someone told me upon joining the police that within six years, I’d be handing in my badge and walking away, I’d have laughed at them in disbelief. 

But that’s exactly what I did. 

Not because I hated it, or it wasn’t what I thought (which would’ve been much easier), but because it was costing me too much to stay. 

I’d been through a lot during my service - I’d lost both my mum and my sister, had a long-term relationship end, as well as experiences within the police that really knocked me.

After hitting rock bottom with my health, I was pushed down a healing path that demanded real change. 

And the version of me on the other side… she no longer believed that stress was exciting, overriding her own needs was service, or that exhaustion was to be endured. 

So we had a bit of a problem! 

Because it meant that policing, the job I loved, was only compatible with the unintegrated parts of me. 

I was a sergeant earning good money, I couldn’t just walk away from a life that took me years to build. But the bigger question at play was - how could I not?

With nothing but a quiet voice within calling me forward, I resigned - not knowing if I was about to make the biggest mistake of my life.

There’s no way to hide the fact that letting go was (and still is) painful. I’ve had to grieve an entire lifetime of dreams and find the ‘plan b’ I never knew I needed. 

But there was also something incredibly freeing about life becoming a blank page, and getting to redefine what success means to me. 

I vowed to no longer place money or prestige above my own wellbeing - and that is something to which I’ve stayed true.

But that still didn’t help me figure out what I was going to do.

I initially started a business, Healing Blue Hearts, teaching trauma-informed wellbeing to frontline workers.

I felt really passionate about this and believed my second chapter was all mapped out. But very early on, I heard that inner voice again telling me ‘this isn’t it!’. 

I just knew my work would never fully land. Mainly due to cultural and environmental factors within the police itself, but there also needed to be a readiness within the individual too.

So I let go of what I thought my life should be, and allowed intuition to lead instead. I’d qualified in breathwork upon starting my business, and wanted to run group events. 

It was a big step up from the 1:1 sessions I’d been doing online, and worried it was too soon, but the tickets for my first event sold-out in two days… with not a single police officer in sight.

Instead, I was met by parents, business owners, and busy professionals - all choosing to work on themselves and their wellbeing. 

I knew this was where I wanted to be - in spaces where my story and all I’ve lived through got to be its own kind of medicine.

Where everything that came before; the loss, the uncertainty, the grief, holds quiet wisdom - even if I had to walk through fire to get there! 

From this place, my work grew organically; events became collaborations, sharing my story became authorship and guest speaking, and my experiences became education.

It taught me that purpose is not a destination, but a timeless expression of our natural gifts, and a heart-led desire to serve.

An inner fire that continues to evolve as we walk our path through life.

Connect With Abbie

Instagram: abbiewestgate_breathwork