About 15 years ago, a psychotherapist I was seeing told me that I held my breath at times. I had not noticed this before and so it came as a surprise to me. I didn’t know why I did this and what impact it had on me. At that time it was very rare for me to pay attention to my breath. In singing lessons I had struggled to follow instructions to use my diaphragm in the way they said I should. I found I sang better when I didn’t think about the breathing consciously but at times I didn’t know why I found it harder to sing.

 

Like many others, I found it made me anxious to focus on my breath at all so I avoided it. As a teenager, I had started to think about my mortality and wondered when my last breath would be. It scared me to realise that I didn’t have control over this so it could be any moment, including the one I was in. I found I could not do meditations where I observed the breath. When they instructed me not to interfere with the breath but just to view it, I found I couldn’t stay with it and started to alter it.

 

About 3 years ago after experiencing and learning about many types of therapies and bodywork both personally and professionally (including body psychotherapy, yoga, Tai Chi, Qi gong and somatic experiencing therapy) I spoke with a friend Shakti Tracy about her experiences of breathwork. She told me how incredibly helpful she had found it, especially with anxiety. I knew the depth of personal growth work she had already done as well as the power of her work with others before discovering breathwork so I was curious to know more. I arranged a one to one session with her.

 

I wondered if I would be able to do the technique she had learnt as I still hadn’t focussed much on the breath itself apart from taking deep breaths sometimes. Once Shakti Tracy explained the simple breathing technique she used in her style of conscious connected breathwork, I found it was easier than I expected and the natural releasing movements and sounds I made during the session surprised me. As a therapist myself who mostly talks with others in my work, I liked the freedom to just trust that my body and breath knew what I needed to do in order to heal and my mind could relax.

 

Later I joined in some group breathwork sessions that Shakti Tracy was leading and found these an extremely powerful way to release some stuck places in myself that were hard to reach. Shakti Tracy included vocal toning in her sessions and I found the freedom to let out sounds myself during the session very freeing. It felt almost like the opposite of the singing lessons when I had tried to force out my sound in a way that didn’t feel right for me. I learnt more about how the breath wasn’t something I had to be afraid of but something I could use for profound healing.

 

My journey with breathwork since hasn’t been a linear one as I have found at times I have needed breaks from it but I have kept coming back to it. I have parts of me that can try to force the breath during conscious connected breathwork which I have found isn’t right for me. As I am familiar with parts work which includes trainings in Internal Family Systems, I realised that parts of me weren’t really trusting in the breath itself and truly letting go. So over time, I have found ways to work with these parts so I am freer to follow my own rhythm in breathwork.

 

I wanted to be able to support others who might have had a similar journey of fearing their breath so they could find a way to also experience the deep and powerful benefits of breathwork. So I decided to train as a breathwork facilitator with Breathing Space. Shakti Tracy introduced me to Benedict Beaumont who runs Breathing Space and as soon as I experienced a conscious connected breathwork session with him, I had a profound sense of how breathwork was going to change my life. It took me some time to be ready to train afterwards but now I am developing my own style of conscious connected breathwork. I include parts work in it to help reach blocks in myself and others and I use my own “sound track” of percussion, voice and song to guide the sessions. I am excited to see where my experiences with breathwork will go next.