Have you heard about Breath work recently? It seems to be the flavour of the month.
What have you heard? Is it new to you or have you had an experience of using breath for relaxation, for yoga for birthing ?
There are so many ways to experience breath work from the Wim Hoff method of breathing to yoga pranayama.
The breath work I do in my therapy practice is called conscious connected breathing. It is based on Holotrophic breath work developed by Groff. He used conscious breathing to access altered states when he realised that just being conscious of your breath and breathing in a particular rhythm could replace the use of LSD to access the unconscious.
Breath work in my practice is somatic therapy or body connected psychotherapy. That is, breath work is used to access what is held in your body that your conscious mind isn’t always aware of. Our body is wise and our body connects us with our inside world, to the thoughts, feelings, memories, or traumas of our life. Our breath allows us to access our unconscious by taking us into a state that is almost dream like but where we are sill conscious. It helps us bring attention to the feelings and experiences we have pushed down and away. Perhaps emotions we are ashamed of for example, such as shame, anger and sadness. When we slow down and become aware of our body more we can put aside thinking and intellectualising our experience.
We often try to quiet our mind with practices such as mediation, to see if other information is available to be understood. But our mind is so clever at coming in again and again to tell us what it thinks is going on. Our body mind is slower, just drop into your body now and be with yourself. What is your body telling you? I am tired, I feel my body shaking when I am anxious, I can’t feel all my body, my throat feels tight, my chest heavy, I’m breathing in a shallow way to avoid what my feelings are telling me. Listen to this felt sense for a moment. It is our body telling us what is knows but we ignore. It is often a mystery to us so be curious don’t judge any of what you sense.
Our society tells us that rational thinking is far more important than anything our body tells us. Our body carries us around all day and we often don’t feel it. When was the last time you noticed your feet for example.
Somatic therapy with breath helps us know another layer of ourselves, from our life story. This is beyond our rational mind, analysis, and a personal idea of ourselves. We get in touch with the subtle, the spiritual, the unconscious realms of knowing.
A client I recently worked with felt unsure of being with themselves in this way. Stopping and being in their body. Breathing consciously. We worked slowly and gently together with me guiding them carefully into their body with no expectations. I asked them to lie down and I connected them to conscious connected breathing for a short time. They still were not sure. It was not easy to be with their body despite trying before in other forums.
What was revealed to them after only a few minutes of being with themself in their body and breath, was a memory. A memory they knew about in their mind but perhaps not in their body. This memory connected them to the issue that was present for them in the therapy we were doing together. Breath connected them to their feelings about their body including shame and self hatred. To behaviours that were self harming and addictive that developed from this early experience in order to avoid their body. Does any of that sound familiar?
Perhaps we can all relate to parts of us who we don’t like. Parts of us who have self hate. Behaviours that manifest in our early life to disengage from being in our body so that we can survive.
The breath is a simple gentle way to reduce the dominance of the rational mind.
Working with breath work in counselling and psychotherapy is a beautiful gentle, slowing down. A way back to ourselves to our body and what lies in the unknown in the mystery of our true self.
When we carefully work into this space we can find an understanding of the issues that are troubling us right now. There is no necessity to dive into painful memories or traumas. This is not necessary. We only to move our awareness into our body with breath for a deeper understanding.
You can meet yourself more fully with breath work.
Take the next step towards yourself. Call me for a free chat now.