Therapeutic Breathwork is the healing and focused application of conscious, connected breathing, guided by the Spirit of Breath and held within the sacred container of a therapeutic relationship. The Spirit of Breath in this case refers to the multi-dimensional collective intelligence or spirit that naturally seeks harmony, balance and fulfillment, and seems to surround and guide the intentional act of conscious connected breathing. Working purposefully with the Spirit of Breath seems to uplift most aspects of therapeutic interaction and provides for a heightened sense of self-realization and esteem. Consciously activating the human respiratory cycle promotes awareness, transformation and integration, and helps participants to experience deep connection and an improved sense of well-being. Therapeutic Breathwork engages all aspects of body, mind and spirit in its approach to upliftment and healing. The three primary areas of benefit are: 1) body-mind therapy, 2) personal development and 3) spiritual enlightenment. Each one of these approaches may be the primary focus of any given breathwork session, yet all three seem to comprise the full scope of facilitating Therapeutic Breathwork. Most importantly, what makes Therapeutic Breathwork uniquely powerful is that it utilizes and is guided by a self-regulating, biological mechanism: the human respiratory system. On its own, the act of respiration naturally energizes, cleanses, purifies, uplifts and reconnects the human organism to a state of maximum balance as well as higher states of physical, emotional, mental and spiritual health. Combining these inherent capabilities with conscious choice accelerates the healing effect by activating and supporting the spiritual desire to grow and improve oneself. Therapeutic Breathwork not only enhances the human respiratory function with conscious intent, but also seeks to engage the intelligence within the breath itself in order to escort or lead the process of self-discovery and improvement. The first step in this practice is in reminding the body how to breathe an “open, healthy breath”, i.e. the natural, relaxed and uninhibited breath most of us began with as infants. This usually involves a direct encounter with whatever physical, emotional and/or mental patterns have developed within the individual’s body-mind, and are currently getting in the way of breathing fully and easily. How a person breathes has been found to reflect how a person lives and responds to their life, and the reclamation of this type of relaxed breathing is crucial to letting go of the long-term effects of stress-related living. The first step in this practice is in reminding the body how to breathe an “open, healthy breath”, i.e. the natural, relaxed and uninhibited breath most of us began with as infants. Then, by “picking up the inhale”, i.e. by starting the next breath a little sooner and closing the natural pause or gap, the connected or circular breath is established. This type of breathing usually initiates a direct encounter with whatever physical, emotional and/or mental patterns are currently getting in the way of breathing fully and easily. How a person breathes has been found to reflect how a person lives and responds to their life, and the reclamation of this type of relaxed breathing is crucial to letting go of the long-term effects of stress-related living. The first component of Therapeutic Breathwork, therefore, is body-mind therapy, and directly addresses the journey from restricted breathing to open breathing, from physical dis-ease to ease, from personal dysfunction to function. Similar to its physical role, conscious breathing also sponsors a means to emotionally cleanse, purify and integrate body-mind imbalances (often called suppressions) as a way of releasing tension and creating integrated and/or higher states of functioning. Breathwork as therapy delves into a client's past in a way that is vital to their evolution for two fundamental reasons: 1) during the connected breathing portion what needs to be addressed first tends to show up first, and 2) the participants must initiate this conscious breathing process for themselves. Therapeutic Breathwork embraces the idea that the client is primarily in charge of his or her session, and at the deepest (though not necessarily conscious) level knows what is needed right now to assist them on their path of transformation. Individual styles of counseling are used, however, the principal focus of attention is upon the alignment of consciousness towards a higher state of functioning and harmony, not necessarily in the removal of something deemed undesirable. Assisting a client to find an open, healthy breath automatically begins to address what has gotten in the way psychologically and how the person has had to negotiate and protect themselves through the various physical, emotional and mental traumas of their life. Therapeutic Breathwork considers, however, that the intelligence of the client’s body-mind, if given a chance through the activation of conscious breathing, will naturally seek to create the conditions of safety and balance that will lead to feelings of peacefulness, confidence, stress release and a sense of well-being. As a tool for personal development, Therapeutic Breathwork aims to uplift the body, mind and spirit of the individual towards new levels of awareness and creative expression. Just as breathing communicates and creates an intimacy between the body and its inner and outer environments, the empowering aspects of this work helps a client to explore new levels of personal expression, purposefulness and interpersonal communication in their relationships. As a part of this process, a client is guided and “coached” through a variety of personal growth techniques and tools that seek to engage and direct their life, creatively and with a sense of spiritual purpose. This aspect of ego support and exploration is often considered as equally important, and may involve such things as homework and practice assignments, behavioral suggestions, life skills, group work, accountability frameworks and outside referrals. During the time a client is being guided through a series of sessions, core beliefs as well as core body-mind suppressions are being dynamically re-examined for re-evaluation, release and integration. Conscious intention and goal setting are also actively engaged so the client can take more responsibility in his or her life. This type of restorative and intentional collaboration is essential, and the therapeutic breathworker’s relationship with the client is most often based upon the willingness to utilize a mutually supportive set of guidelines and agreements that encourage full participation and exploration for all involved. Lastly, Therapeutic Breathwork can be applied to an individual’s journey towards spiritual enlightenment. Some research has shown that a natural byproduct of circular or connected breathing is the stimulation of the longer brainwave patterns (long wave Alpha, Theta and even Delta) normally found during various stages of sleep and transcendent or meditative states of consciousness. As the inner intelligence of the client’s own body, heart, mind and soul are encouraged to lead a session, the breathwork practitioner must also be able to attune to and carefully negotiate the activation of energetic and transcendent patterns, as well as the possible presence of what has been called “non-ordinary states of reality”. Frequently, a client will appear to temporarily transcend the normal flow of time-space and experience states or dimensions of deep integration and/or ecstatic reunion with something larger than themselves. The Therapeutic Breathwork practitioner not only anticipates these transcendent states of experience, but must also be able to “midwife” the client in such a way as to encourage assimilation of these and similar experiences into their daily lives. Because of this, attending to the spiritual aspects of breathwork necessitates an additional facility on the part of the breathwork practitioner that goes beyond direct therapeutic interaction and intervention. This divinely attentive and transcendent part of this process seems to be an integral part of every breath session, whether or not it is consciously recognized or activated. Every person’s experience of their connection to the Divine is uniquely their own, yet a practitioner must have suitable training and enough practical experience before he or she is considered capable of holding another’s spiritual empowerment with the kind of safety, integrity and competence that maximally supports psychological and emotional integration. Together, these three aspects of body-mind therapy, personal development and spiritual enlightenment make up the core components of Therapeutic Breathwork, and help to identify it as a uniquely powerful and dynamic healing modality. With the current rise and support of professional and ethical standards of breathwork internationally, Therapeutic Breathwork may soon be seen as the cutting edge to personal empowerment and as well as an equally effective adjunct to psychotherapy and spiritual disciplines. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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