Breathwork

We are breathing between 23,000-26,000 times a day.  How we breathe affects so much— from blood chemistry, energy levels and digestion, to overall nervous system function.  In turn, all of these factors can affect how we perceive life and how we respond to it. 

Working with our breath is often put into the catch all phrase “Breathwork.”  But what does breathwork mean? Breathwork can point to many practices ranging from yogic pranayama practices and Wim Hof to Conscious Connected Breathwork (CCB).  We refer to the pranayama practices as “top down” approaches because we actively use the mind (often counting breaths) to change our breath to get certain results in the body.  We call practices like CCB “bottom up” approaches or “body-based” practices because we use a looped breath (no pause at the top of the inhale or bottom of the exhale), thereby by-passing the thinking mind. The breath will naturally change speed and volume during the practice & help us tap into and follow the wisdom of the body.  

When we loop the breath, we have access to “non-ordinary states of consciousness,” in a nut-shell— we move out of using our pre-frontal cortex. Our pre-frontal cortex is a miraculous part of our brain which we use during many of our daily activities. It allows us to make conscious decisions & focus our attention; however, when we are using the pre-frontal cortex, we generally do not have access to suppressed emotions, memories or incomplete reflexes…and this is very helpful. Most of us do not want to have a plethora of challenging memories surfacing while we are making a speech at the office or navigating heavy traffic! Essentially this helps us function in the day to day. Yet when these emotions and memories are stuck underneath the surface, they can cloud us from seeing reality clearly or make us believe that a safe experiences is actually unsafe. For me, one of the biggest advantages of this type of breathwork is the opportunity to go into suppressed memories and emotions, whilst in a well held and safe container. Perhaps there was a time when it was unsafe or too over-whelming to fully feel or express our emotions, and this practice can give breathers an opportunity to feel things all the way through, complete incomplete reflexes or emotions… essentially giving us a chance to experience what we were unable to experience in order to find completion… this allows us to file the memory / emotion out of the limbic brain and into the mid-brain. When a painful experience is stored in the limbic brain, it is affecting us on a sub-conscious level.

Breathwork provides us with the opportunity to look at and to change our relationship with ourselves and with everything and everyone around us. It is not a quick fix nor is it is not a magic potion. Conscious connected breathwork is a path that takes courage, dedication and a true willingness to be with ourselves. You will be supported breath by breath during your 1:1 journey.

Conscious Connected Breathwork helps support people in:

1. Developing emotional awareness, capacity and resilience & courage.

2. Tapping into our inherent wisdom

3. Regulating the nervous system.

4. Developing greater dynamism in our breathing so we can breathe and respond more appropriately to the stimuli in our lives.

5. Completing “incomplete reflexes.” (This can range from feeling an emotion we suppressed to the body to completing a movement pattern that we were not able to during the time of an accident, surgery or traumatic event.