Breathing Practices
“Bring body and mind back to the present moment so that you do not miss your appointment with life.” -Thich Nhat Hanh
Yoga Breathing (Pranayama)
- Manage your energy and emotions
- Receive and retain more vitality
- Quiet anxiety and soften physical tension
- Build Resiliency to bounce back from stress
- Enhance your immune system
Breathing For Emotional Self-Care
Some pranayama breathing practices calm and soothe our emotions, bringing anxiety and hyperarousal down to a healthy balance. Other breathing techniques lift our energy and create wakefulness and focus, clearing dullness and sparking motivation. Our breathing rhythm immediately reflects our emotional experience, so by consciously changing our breathing pattern, we can shift the associated emotions.
We Are Energy
When we bring in more vital life energy, known as prana or chi (qi), we can develop the capacity to absorb and retain more resilience and vitality into the body through breathing practices. Over time, the body begins to bounce back from stress more easily and feel more consistently open and light. Every cell in our body relies on oxygen to heal from injury and illness; therefore, mindful, efficient breathing assists both our body and mind in gracefully adapting to life’s constant changes.
Integrative Breathwork Sessions
- Expand your mind
- Receive inner guidance
- Create and strengthen new neural pathways
Evocative music and dynamic breathing open the door to insights and inner guidance
- Learn to trust yourself
- Know that your answers are within
- Gain confidence, feel lighter
- Loosen the negative grip of past trauma
Dynamic Breathing, Expanded Mind
Taking fuller breaths more rapidly, accompanied by carefully selected music that guides your experience, can nudge you into a non-ordinary state of consciousness. Your brain’s typical default mode relaxes. Most of us have an overactive, self-critical “monkey mind,” which slips out of the way as we continue to breathe faster, more deeply, and continuously. Soon, inner wisdom reveals important insights which can shift a dysfunctional habitual thinking pattern, providing a new way to look at ourselves and our relationship to the events of our life.
Softens the Grip of Past Conditioning
For many people, noticing, accepting, and expressing authentic feelings is a learned skill that requires practice. A common phrase is “What you resist persists.” it is natural to resist what is uncomfortable and lean, instead, towards avoiding that discomfort by suppressing emotions and stifling the ones that we perceive are not acceptable, such as anger or sadness, perhaps. Integrative breathwork recognizes the pervasive impact of personal and collective trauma and responds with tools that untangle it while also intending to avoid re-traumatization. It is an efficient way to clear conditioned resistance.
If you would like to try a breathwork session with us, or if you have questions about breathwork, we’d love to hear from you.