Breathwork in Boystown: How One Therapist Is Rewiring Trauma

Most people don't think about their breath until it stops working right. For queer Chicagoans who've spent years managing hypervigilance, internalizing shame, or navigating systems designed to exclude them, the breath becomes something else entirely: a record of survival, often a shallow, protective one. This is where Marcus Webb enters the picture. Working out of a practice on the North Shore, Webb specializes in somatic experiencing and breathwork—a modality that treats the body as the primary site of healing rather than an afterthought to talk therapy. Over the past three years, he's built a quiet reputation among Chicago's queer community as someone who understands that trauma doesn't live only in the mind. "People come in thinking they need to talk more," Webb says. "They've been talking for years. What they need is to feel safe in their own body again." The distinction matters. Traditional talk therapy has its place—it absolutely does. But for many queer people, especially those who've experienced medical trauma, social rejection, or the accumulated stress of living in a culture that has, at various points, considered their existence criminal or sick, talk alone can feel insufficient. The body keeps score, as psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk famously put it. And sometimes the body needs more than words. Breathwork operates on a different principle. The nervous system—that collection of nerves running through the spine and branching into every organ—responds to breath patterns in real time. A shallow, rapid breath signals danger to the brain. A slow, deep breath signals safety. By consciously altering breath patterns, a person can essentially tell their nervous system that the threat has passed, even if the mind is still caught in a loop of worry or hypervigilance. For queer clients specifically, this can be revelatory. Many grew up in environments where it wasn't safe to be fully present in their bodies. Some were told their bodies were sinful or wrong. Others learned to dissociate as a survival mechanism—to leave the body behind when the world became too hostile. Breathwork offers a way back in, one conscious inhale at a time. Webb's approach combines several techniques. He uses box breathing—inhale for four counts, hold for four, exhale for four, hold for four—to calm an activated nervous system. He teaches clients to notice where they hold tension (the jaw, the chest, the belly) and to consciously release it through longer exhales. He sometimes works with what's called "resonance breathing," which involves matching the breath to a specific rhythm that research suggests optimizes heart rate variability. But the real work happens in the noticing. Webb asks clients to pay attention without judgment. Where does the breath want to go? What happens when you slow it down? Is there a feeling underneath the physical sensation? These questions aren't meant to be answered intellectually. They're invitations to drop into the body and listen. One client, a trans woman in her early thirties who asked to remain anonymous, describes her first session as "strange and kind of intense." She'd been in therapy for years, processed her trauma narratively, understood intellectually why she struggled with anxiety. "But I still felt it in my chest all the time," she says. "It was like knowing something intellectually and knowing it in your bones are two completely different things." After six weeks of weekly breathwork sessions, she noticed a shift. The anxiety didn't disappear—trauma doesn't work that way, and anyone selling you that bill of goods is lying. But her relationship to it changed. She could feel the anxiety arise and, instead of being consumed by it, she could use her breath to create a small space of calm around it. "It's not fixing me," she says. "It's giving me a tool. And honestly, I think that's more honest." While outlets like The Advocate and Queerty tend to cover wellness through a national, often consumerist lens—ranking yoga studios and meditation apps—the real work in Chicago is happening in smaller, more intimate settings. Webb's practice doesn't have a glossy website or Instagram influencers raving about it. It exists because there's a need, and because Webb understands something fundamental about queer healing: it's not one-size-fits-all, and it's not always pretty or Instagram-friendly. The science behind breathwork is increasingly solid. Research from institutions like Stanford and the University of California has shown that slow breathing activates the parasympathetic nervous system—the "rest and digest" mode—and reduces cortisol, the stress hormone. For people with trauma histories, this isn't academic. It's the difference between a body that's constantly braced for impact and one that can, occasionally, relax. There's also something worth noting about the specificity of queer breathwork. Many wellness spaces, even progressive ones, can feel culturally generic. But when a practitioner understands the particular ways that queer bodies have been trained to hide, to protect themselves, to not take up space—the work becomes different. It becomes recognition. It becomes a kind of return. Webb emphasizes that breathwork isn't a replacement for therapy, medication, or other necessary interventions. But it's an addition. A complement. A way of saying: your body isn't your enemy. Your body has kept you alive. Now let's teach it that it's safe to breathe normally again. For Chicago's queer community, that message—delivered not as inspiration or aspiration, but as a practical tool—might be the most radical wellness offering available.