Balance, Healing and Radical Change in Your Life
“Breath by breath let go of fear, expectation, anger, regret and frustration.”
With each passing day, life gets more frenetic…more to do, less time to do it in, more complexity, more moving parts, the push-pull between work and family. In this seemingly impossible struggle, the effort required to keep up can sap your energy and stir the pot of your anxiety.
Begin with time constraints; work demands; family expectations and obligations; financial concerns. Add equal parts of the urgency to pay attention to your relationship as well as to attend to your personal needs. Stir in the omnipresent global firestorms that stoke pervasive fear about the ability to live safely, and the pressure cooker in which you are living creates the perfect recipe for the silent killer, stress, in your life. It boils over into exhaustion, depression and destructive coping habits that might creep into your daily experience.
In this chaotic soup of life, it is easy to become disconnected from your essential nature and lose site of that infinitely divine and vast being of potential and possibility that you are!
How do you create a better work-life equality? How do you climb into the driver’s seat of your life and build resilience, emotional intelligence and techniques that will help you thrive rather than just cope? How do you find your way through the tangle of complexity? How do you discover peace in the midst of the unrelenting demands? Most importantly, how do you get back to being in touch with who you know you are at your core?
Finding the Way Out by Understanding How You Got There…
The seeds of your present circumstances were actually planted much earlier in your life than you might imagine. Yet their present day effects play a significant role in the adapted actions you take to feel safe and secure, accepted and loved. Your fear, expectation, anger, regret, frustration and stress-based issues thrive in the hidden unhealed influences that quietly direct and sabotage your ability to live everyday fully and in peace.
The mounting inner war between your conditioning and your authenticity becomes a life script that is often written in the language of denial. As you adapt to the immense pressure to perform and succeed, you are forced to repress what you intuitively know is your heartfelt truth.
No matter how distasteful or uninspiring that job you go to every day, or how trapped you might feel, you will continue to go there because that is what you were educated to do, that is what is expected of you and that is the path to someone else’s version of your fulfillment. No matter how unhappy you are in your spousal relationship, you stay and soldier on because that is what you have been told is the right thing to do.
Radical Change and Clear Perspective are needed….
The pressures and constraints of this set-up reach a tipping point when you can no longer swallow the bitter pill of compromise, when you know that you are suffocating and you need some kind of intervention to awaken the vitality of love, joy and happiness within you.
In the moment that you clearly realise something needs to change, your breath is there to lead you to heal the inner conflicts and ‘disconnects’ that have become your adapted way of life.
Your breath is the greatest delivery system of clarity, personal healing, expansion and transformation that you will ever encounter.
What is Breathwork?
Breathwork is a safe and effective process that involves the use of a ‘conscious connected breathing technique’ to create an altered state of awareness within you. That state provides an opportunity to release what no longer serves you so that you can awaken your authentic self and return to your original state of wholeness.
The principles and ancestry of Breathwork’s therapeutic use reach back to ancient times. Eastern civilisations used the breath as a means of healing, for meditative connection to divinity, for daily focus and to promote well-being.
In the history of modern psychology, whispers of the importance of breathing techniques are evident in the works of Freud and Jung who believed in the use of the breath to explore the role of the unconscious mind. In present day, such prominent transformational leaders as Stanislav Grof, PhD, and Arthur Janov, PhD have dedicated lifelong research into the efficacy of using the breath as healer.
How Does ‘just breathing’ Create Healing?
Imagine the breath as pure crystal clear water being poured into a glass. At the bottom of glass is sediment and mud that has collected. Pouring the pure water into the glass stirs up the mud and causes the water to become murky…but…if you keep pouring that water into the glass, the sediment will eventually come completely out and the water in the glass will become crystal clear.
At the essence of existence, EVERYTHING IS ENERGY -Your experiences, your blocks, your adapted behaviour patterns and your breath.
By simply breathing in and out in a controlled, cyclic fashion, the Breathwork process pours life-force energy into you and disturbs the issues inside. There are layers of emotions and thoughts that your breath will clear out in a gradual process of release as you breathe in the conscious connected breath pattern. Your breath continues to pour the life-force energy into those hidden aspects of yourself that get in your way and eventually creates a pure environment within you like the crystal clear water. You are free from what holds you back and able to act in your life with clarity and awareness.
A Typical Breathwork Session
Breathwork sessions are initially conducted with the assistance of a trained professional who is there to facilitate and guide your process. Breathworkers ensure you have a safe space where you can heal, find freedom and be open to explore and access parts of you that have been shut away or need to be let go.
The total time required for a session is approximately 3 hours and begins with an in-depth confidential interview to set intentions, review your personal history, and identify issues after which your actual Breath Session begins.
In a comfortable, quiet and safe setting accompanied by soothing, relaxing music you are invited to lie down and are guided to breathe in the conscious connected pattern of Breathwork . This breath pattern initiates your journey inward to explore the depths of your essential spirit and to release and heal any issues that need attention.
As you continue to breathe in this circular breathing pattern, the vital energy and life force flowing into your body first clears your stress and tension. At this point, you might become aware of random thoughts. Just observe the musings and let them pass like clouds moving across the sky.
As your breath continues to pump the energy through your body your blocks will start to surface. These blocks can manifest as physical feelings (heat, tightness), emotional feelings, memories or thoughts.
JUST BREATHE AND OPEN TO THE EXPERIENCE!
There is no typical Breath Session but usually toward the end of the process, you may have a complete understanding of the vastness of who you are and awaken to the absolute truth and awe of your intimate ties to your Divine nature. These moments are nothing short of pure bliss and are the crux of the radical change you are seeking.
When you are complete (you will naturally know) your Breathworker will spend time debriefing to help you reflect and integrate your experience.
It is here and in the days after your Breath Session that you will begin to discover the limitless possibilities and immense potential that have opened up in your life.
Breathwork on Your Own
The ultimate goal of Breathwork is to learn how to do it for yourself. This requires a number of facilitated sessions but eventually, you are able to have this empowering tool at your disposal to use whenever you need it. When you have learned the technique, you might want to use it in a regular practice or you can call on it in any situation that requires release of tension or overwhelm. Breathwork does not require a complete session to be effective. Tension and stress can be relieved with partial breathing sessions although the best results and integration are achieved with full sessions.
Breathwork During Activities
When you have gained enough experience and are ready to self-administer, Breathwork is a flexible tool and perfect companion you can use in any situation to help relieve discomfort or anxiety no matter where you are.
♥ When at work and you are feeling the need to release tension.
♥ Whilst you are perhaps getting ready to make a presentation to an audience. A short bit of breathing in a conscious, connected manner is a wonderful way to calm the natural anxiety of speaking in front of people.
♥ Even while you are driving, you can employ the techniques to calm any frustration of traffic jams, thoughts that cause tension or simply feeling overwhelmed. This is one place, however, where you must exercise caution and use the breathing sparingly. It is obviously important that you don’t go as deeply as you would in a facilitated Breath Session as this will impair your ability to drive.
♥ As you lay your head down to sleep at night, Breathwork is a beautiful way to begin a night’s rest and release the stressors of the day.
The Gifts of Breathwork – Perspective and Transformation
Breathwork is a compelling invitation to release a lifetime of repressed thoughts, emotions, beliefs, negativity and pain. It is a most efficient way to shatter old patterns that no longer serve so that you can begin to live, thrive and maintain the free flow of your vitality. You can take it with you always.
As a result of your Breathwork experiences, you may decide to find a new career, end or begin new relationships, heal other meaningful connections and take risks that you might never have taken in the past. It is all about your growth and expansion as a human being.
In the end, making a difference in your life has the exquisite side effect of rippling out and making a difference in the world too. That is the most profound outcome of all. You are here to make a difference. With Breathwork you realise that you do make a difference. With Breathwork, you are motivated and inspired to tap into your limitless potential and share your gifts with the world. There is no greater or radical transformation in your life than taking action because you have the courage to be seen as the light that you are.
Mastering breath is mastering your life. By mastering your breath you can use it to unlock aspects of yourself that are locked away, hidden and damaged. Connecting with your true inner self – your inner healer-in this way is liberating.