Details: Last Updated: Thursday, 23 April 2020 01:44; Published: Thursday, 19 December 2019 05:47

Holotropic Breathwork

As we enter the festive season, a transformational breathwork session may well be one of the best self-care investments you can make.

During our younger years while our brains are developing we find it difficult to process trauma, grief, fear and other states that are experienced during our upbringing. The effect is that they often get buried in our bodies or our subconscious.

A few years ago Elizabeth Gilbert wrote a blog post about the impacts of time with our families during holiday periods:

“Even in very loving families, not every individual in that family is happy, healthy, sane, or safe. You may have done enormous personal work on yourself during the course of your life. You may have evolved into a graceful, peaceful, compassionate, well-adjusted, loving human being… and yet you still may find —when you go home for the holidays, or when your relatives come to visit you — that suddenly it is totally impossible even for YOU to remain happy, healthy, or sane.”

This is where breathwork therapy, or rebirthing therapy, can be of enormous value.

Breath workshop

Breathworks

Breathwork practices and techniques help us to recalibrate.

Breath works.

As a mindfulness practice, you can do hold the intention of inhaling the future and exhaling the past.

Oprah Winfrey spoke of its power to bring us back to the present moment:

“Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.”

This article looks at the rise of conscious breathing.

Breathwork Rebirthing

To understand what holotropic breathwork is, consider the work ‘holotropic.’ It comes from the Greek words holos (whole) & trepein (moving toward). Essentially, it means moving toward wholeness.

Abraham Maslow became renowned for introducing transpersonal psychology to the world. He advocated a psychology and a philosophy that helps people attain greater wholeness and health.

Stanislav Grof co-founded transpersonal psychology. Where Maslow came more from the intellect, Grof took more of an experiential approach.

While exploring breathwork, Grof experienced an altered state of consciousness. Some people experience altered states through meditation or lucid dreaming. Grof entered them from rapid breathing, coining the modality: holotropic breathwork.

Stan Grof

Healing Breath

More than two centuries ago Jane Austen said:

“We have all a better guide in ourselves, if we would attend to it, than any other person can be.”

Holotropic breathwork attests to this, holding that the bodies wisdom is to be trusted above all else.

As a facilitator of holotropic breathwork in Sydney, my role is to help you focus on your breath and help you engage with that altered state where your body can release what it needs to release.

After a session, I then offer a space where you can talk through your experience, which many people finds helps to complete the healing process.