Biography Long Form

Catherine Dowling was born in Ireland but has divided her life between the United States and her home country. She trained as a teacher gaining degrees in English and History and a post-graduate qualification in Education. Since college she has gained qualifications in group facilitation, training, mediation, and breathwork therapy. 

She began her career as a teacher but since then, she has worked as a trainer, group facilitator, breathwork therapist, and as an education specialist providing support to women exiting incarceration. Every job offered her the opportunity to meet people of all ages, orientations, political affiliations, and life experiences, to hear their stories and get to know their perspective on life. 

Her twenty-year clinical practice as a breathwork therapist allowed her to get to know people on the deepest level and to support them through struggles, losses, achievements and successes. Out of that experience, came her first book, Rebirthing and Breathwork: A Powerful Technique for Personal Transformation. (Piatkus, London), a comprehensive guide to breathwork as a tool for personal development and self-awareness.  

In 2008, she moved to the US to take part in an internship at the Center for Action and Contemplation in New Mexico. As part of that program, she learned meditation, studied various spiritual practices, and was exposed to poverty on a level she hadn’t previously experienced. Out of her American experiences, came her second book, Radical Awareness: Five Practices for a Fully Engaged Life. (Llewellyn Worldwide, USA), a handbook for putting the wisdom of spiritual awareness into practice in daily life.

Most recently, as a vocational specialist, she provided education and employment supports to women exiting incarceration. Her focus is to amplify through her writing the voices of marginalized women whose stories are untold or misunderstood. Out of this, has come her most rewarding writing project yet, the biography of an Iraq war veteran—That Kind of Girl: The Fall and Rise of an American Hero.

Her articles and essays have appeared in Oneing, Rkvry, Positive Health, Inside Out, Lowestoft Chronicle, HerStry, Montana Mouthful, and more