Holotropic Breathwork For Emotional Release and Trauma Integration
It's common to utilize breathing techniques to help with anxiety, slow down the mind, or support relaxation, but breathwork can also be incredibly potent for trauma healing. Holotropic Breathwork is an amazing modality that utilizes breath, embodiment, gentle altered states of consciousness, and emotional expression to create the conditions for any deeply embodied pain that we've held in for years or decades to be released and integrated.
“Surrendering to a painful emotion for a moment is less painful than a lifetime of resisting it”
What will you learn in this episode - Holotropic Breathwork For Emotional Release and Trauma Integration:
How holotropic breathwork is specifically useful for trauma processing
How trauma-holding patterns in the body are linked to breath
How breathwork can help us bravely surrender to uncomfortable emotions
Who breathwork is not for
What breathwork taught me as a personal practice and as a facilitator.
Holotropic Breathwork has taught me:
the body has its own unique wisdom that’s much deeper than the mind
to trust the process and get out of my own way
emotions have to be felt to be healed and integrated
there’s nothing more cathartic than a good yell or cry
how to self-soothe and return to centre
there’s nothing inside me that I have to be afraid or ashamed of
breath and spirit are intimately intertwined
altered states can be incredibly generative
“Trauma survivors develop holding patterns in the body, which are areas in the body that carry or adapt to the pain and distress we experienced. It’s where we may hold tension, and emotional pain, and maintain self-protective ways of carrying ourselves. Holding patterns can look like holding our breath, clenching the diaphragm or stomach, prolonging eating to keep our nervous system in sympathetic mode, using one side of the body more or less than the other, and many other things. ”
DEPTH Work - A Holistic Mental Health Podcast
This is a space for those who love to dive into the underbelly, to revel in the mystery, question assumptions about what is normal, play in both/and, and honour the wide range of human emotions.
As a complex trauma survivor, holistic counsellor and co-founder of a mental health institute, I learned that there is immense wisdom in our pain and what we call crazy is just what we are yet not willing to understand and explore. Let’s dive in!
Research:
More info on holding patterns: Peter Levine's Waking The Tiger & In an Unspoken Voice
History of Holotropic Breathwork: http://www.dipsu.dk/Holotropic Breathwork by Stanislav Grof, MD.pdf
Study of breathwork conducted in hospitals: http://metslesvoiles.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/HB.pdf
