Breathwork 101

The short answer is breathwork is breathing.   In all seriousness, breathworks is the intentional use of specific breathing patterns to bypass the thinking mind and the stories it tells us, and connect to the wisdom of the body to release stuck energy and emotions that are triggering an alarm response in the body, depleting the very minerals required to maintain a state of wellness.  

Breathwork is the fastest way to get out of your head and into your body.   For many people, it facilitates an emotional purge, leaving you feeling safe, calm, supported and clear. In essence, you are coming home to your body, liberating old emotional wounds, establishing new pathways in the brain and cultivating emotional intelligence.

In meditation we are thinking about not thinking.  We are simpy observing our thoughts.  Meditation uses the mind to anchor you in the present moment.  It is essentially mindset work.   And while there is definitely a place for mindset work, when we are looking for sustainable healing and transformation, you have to incorporate the energetics of the body.   

Breathwork, while a form of meditation, helps us detach from the mind and our thoughts.  When we detach from the mind we are able to deeply connect with and feel our body, where our energetic stories and beliefs are held.  This is where we have direct access healing and transformation. 

While daily meditation can be transformative, breathwork is the most efficient modality I have found to push you through emotional and energetic barriers, open your heart, connect to your innermost wisdom, and heal from past traumas.

The breath pattern used in this session oxygenates the blood and stimulates the hypothalamus and endocrine system, sending endorphins throughout your body and moving you into a higher state of consciousness.  In short, the breath is the connector between mind and body, it allows the chemistry in the body to shift, it allows you to detach from old stories of the mind, it allows you to detach from your personality, from who you think you are and who you think you are supposed to be, and all the business of the mind, and it allows you to drop into your body and connect with your heart, your deepest wisdom, where you can heal things that the mind has no access to.  No amount of knowledge can give you this direct access.  And you won’t have to be convinced that it works – it just does – and you will feel it. 

You are voluntarily stimulating the involuntary system and moving to a higher state of consciousness.  As your nervous system slows down you will notice a tangible sense of dropping into your body.  Your body may start to feel tingly or electric like it is coming alive with energy. This may be all over, or local to one area. This is when the body begins to open up and energy and emotions can move freely through the body. 

• Wear loose, comfy clothing.
• Don’t show up with a full stomach.
• Get comfortable - you will be laying down flat on the floor, yoga mat, bed, etc (no pillow beneath your head).  It’s normal for your temperature to fluctuate so have a blanket within reach.  
• Lip balm is a good idea to keep your lips from drying out as you breathe. 
• Have a bottle of water handy incase your mouth gets dry and you need a small sip.  After your breathwork session you will probably be thirsty.     
• Bring a pen + your fave journal incase you want to write down any downloads, insights, or inspirations that come to you in or just after the session, before the analytical mind comes back online.  It can be very cathartic to just let things flow onto paper after a breathwork session.     
• Come with an open mind, an open heart, and no expectations.

• Your space is really important.  The energy of your space has a big impact on the energy of your body.  Make sure you create a space where you feel nourishedm safe and comfortable, and where you won't be interrupted (turn the notifications off on your cellphone, etc). Breathwork can get vulnerable and sometimes noisy (sounds and crying ).  You will want to be somewhere where you feel uninhibited. 
• Eye pillows are great, but not necessary
• Anything else to help you relax: candles, crystals, essential oils, rose water, incense,  saging your space, whatever... the more comfortable you are the better.  

That is entirely up to you!   I do breathwork daily - sometimes only for a few minutes, other times I do a longer session.    

Yep!   Breathwork allows the body to release the residual trauma energies and unaligned belief patterns that have been triggering an alarm response in your nervous system for years.   This alarm response is a huge drain the very minerals that are required for regulation of the nervous system and the endocrine system.  

So breathwork is removing the source of the alarm, but you still need to go back in and replete and balance your minerals in order to allow for regulation and resilliency of your neuroendocrine system (nervous + endocrine systems).