The Snowy White & the Breathless Tribe

Nicole Chufi (aka Chufi)
7 min readNov 13, 2020

A story of Cold. Mountains. Snow. Rain. Wind. Flow. Breath. Tribe. Connection. LOVE.

Loaded with a few extra hours during the lockdown — I found myself devouring the Goop Lab series on Netflix. There was an episode where this group of people went to experiment with the Wim Hof method — breathing, bonding, and dipping in frozen lakes half-naked— all I could think was:

“That’s sick! Who is crazy enough to do something like that?”

Months later. Answer: “Me”.

To Escape.

I’m an explorer by heart. I live to travel, to try new things, to challenge myself, which brings me joy and meaning to life. He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named got in the way (not Voldemort, COVID!). Australia decided to close the borders, my travels became an illusion, stress was building up, I felt trapped…“How could I escape?”

The Expedition.

I needed break free, immediately — there was no one to save me but the weekend. That’s when I came across “The Breathless Expedition”. A friend of mine had been and described a similar experience to the Goop Lab episode I watched. All I knew was that it was in the Snowy Mountains, it involved breathing and cold water exposure. It ticked the “challenge myself” tickbox so I asked my partner if he wanted to join, as I…

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Nicole Chufi (aka Chufi)

Artist & Explorer #45 countries. Curiosity guides me. Community grounds me. Art & Music inspire me. Insta: @nicolechufi