About me

Hello, welcome. My name is Beth Maiden. I’m based in Todmorden, West Yorkshire, where I live with Dora, my dog.

I am a fully qualified functional breath coach, working one-to-one to support people to manage stress, anxiety and pain using breathwork, mindfulness and somatic tools.

I am a dance artist and a facilitator of movement improvisation classes. I’m in love with improv and experimentation as a way of life, and fascinated by the forms that emerge from our bodies when we give them space and time. I am, very slowly, working towards my diploma in movement therapy.

I don’t offer anything here that I don’t lean on in my everyday life. I am no stranger to the emotional chaos and discomfort that accompanies big transitions. My life story is filled with unexpected change and movement, love and heartbreak, joy, abundance, grief and loss.

In my 20s and 30s I was often overwhelmed by the waves. I had no idea how to handle my big feelings, or tolerate the uncomfortable sensations in my body. So I did what most of us tend to do: I numbed and checked out, over-worked and stayed busy, hid from my feelings, stuffed everything down, made dramatic, impulsive decisions …and over the years built chronic tension and pain in my body and mind. 

Somewhere along the road, though, I stumbled upon breathwork, which changed everything. Breath lead to meditation, meditation led me to mindfulness, mindfulness led to somatics, somatics led to dance… and dance brought me full circle to breathwork.

After a lot of time, practice, experimentation and training, I found I had a set of truly useful tools to help me ride life’s rollercoaster.

Working consistently with my breath and body, getting to know my diaphragm, spending time in meditation and somatic awareness, I discovered deep reserves of strength, compassion, creativity and grace. I learned to get comfortable with discomfort, to tolerate what had once seemed intolerable. In time, I found that I could embrace the experience of living through change, and be present for the full spectrum of feelings that come with grief, loss, and being with so many unknowns.

One of my herbal teachers once said to me “you know, life is stress and adaptation – this is true for all living things.” Meanwhile, Octavia E Butler wrote in her Parables novels that “the only constant truth is change. God is change.”

These things are true. Life is so beautiful… and also, at times, so hard. Fortunately, adaptation is one of humankind’s greatest skills. To me a “good life” is not so much one where nothing stressful ever happens, but one in which we learn to feel present and strong and connected as it unfolds in all its inevitable messiness. 

I still live with chronic pain (I have a spinal/nerve injury that will likely never heal). But I am no longer chronically anxious or depressed, nor taking daily painkillers. Through breath, movement and mindfulness I am able to manage and often release somatic tension and stress, and where that can’t happen, to live with it mindfully. Thanks to breathwork, dance and meditation, and with the support of some beloved herbs, I move more slowly, have more compassion, and feel, at last, at home in my own imperfect life and body,

More about me? I’m an artist, writer, dancer, clown, and occasional performer (and I facilitate dance with a wonderful clowning school if you fancy really fun time). I’m a recent convert to the church of dog, obsessed with my pup and our interspecies relationship. I’m a raging dyke and use she/her pronouns. I’m perimenopausal. I make weird dolls. I love to ride a bike. And from 2011 to 2025 I was the proud founder-owner of Little Red Tarot, where I authored All of Our Stories, a tarot guidebook, and created the popular and long-running Alternative Tarot Course.