How You Can Prepare For Your Breathwork Journey
The 10 most important guiding principles for a successful breathing session
Many types of experiences are possible and none are better or worse than the others. Each time you do breathwork, it will be a completely different experience depending on what is up for processing at the time of the session so it is important not to compare to prior experiences. Most of the experiences that participants report fall into the following categories:
Sensory experience
You might feel hot, then cold, then hot again. Your body might feel completely numb. You might feel intense tingling anywhere in your body. Also, there is a physiological principle that in order to get the best release, it is best to first create maximum tension. For example, if you want to relax your whole body as much as possible, the best way is to first tense up all of your muscles to the maximum degree and then let go of all of the tension. In breathwork the body might do this on its own. So, you might feel that your whole body is completely stiff and tense and cannot move at all. You also might get what is called tetany where your hands or toes get very stiff and sometimes that can be painful. Your hands might look like claws with your fingers completely stiffened. This is actually a very healing experience where your body is taking the energy that has been stuck in your body is creating maximum tension before an amazing release. The basic direction if that happens is to just let it be as tense is it wants to be in order to get the best release possible. If it gets too painful you can always slow down the breathing and the cramps will subside in a short period of time.
Biographical experience
Some people report having a visual experience of something that happened to them in their past which, at the time, they felt overwhelmed and did not allow themselves to fully experience the emotions involved. If that happens, the direction is to let yourself fully experience whatever emotion comes up and allowing it to fully express and release. If your body wants to cry, let it cry. If your body wants to release anger, let your body make whatever sound wants to come out (screaming, growling, moaning, etc). If you are in a space where it is impossible to make loud sounds without bothering other participants you could put a pillow in front of your face and scream or growl into the pillow. You will find that in some cases, things that have been stuck in your body or psyche and have been running your lives unconsciously for years, will be released and make an amazing difference in your life. Sometimes your biographical memory can also be perceived as images from past lives.
Perinatal experience
Psychiatrists used to think that when we are born, we are a blank slate. The reason for that is when we are a fetus, our brains are not myelinated enough to form word or explicit memories. However, we now know that from the time we are conceived, we do form body or implicit memories. I use the model of Dr. Stan Grof, a worldwide expert in what happens during expanded states of awareness, who breaks the birth process into 4 phases, each of which has its own characteristics and energies. The first phase is from the time that you are conceived to the time just before the birth contractions start. Unless your mother is doing drugs or is in a state of major emotional trauma, it is a time of oceanic bliss where all of your needs are taken care of and you are just floating in warm salty water.
The second phase is when the contractions start. Just imagine that you have been in the womb for 9 months floating around in a blissful state and one day you are being compressed with tremendous pressure with your nutrition being cut off. Since the umbilical cord is being compressed also and since the birth canal has not opened yet, there is no place to go. If this has not been released, this is the energy that you access in times of your life when you are in a difficult situation and feel like things are terrible and they will never change.
The third phase is when the birth canal opens and you start pushing your way through. This phase is characterized by aggression, overcoming obstacles and sexuality. It is an important part of the birth process because it gives you an imprint of what it is like to overcome an obstacle and reach a goal. In this case the goal is being born.
The fourth phase is when you are actually born and is a sort of death rebirth experience. You are dying to one way of existing as a water being and being reborn into a totally new type of existence as an air being. This implicit memory can support you during times in your life when you have to let go of a part of who you are to take on something new such as looking at the world in a different way or changing careers to something completely new. Or taking up a new role as you become a mother or a father to your child.
Transpersonal experience
The type of experience that is “beyond the personal”, an experience that you would generally never have in normal everyday life with your thinking mind in control. For example, people report feeling like they are floating in the stars; or, feeling more connected to everything; or, seeing what is happening in different parts of the world for instance with a friend or relative and then calling later and finding out that that is exactly what was happening at that moment. People also report getting insights into issues that have been plaguing them and holding them back in their lives. Or you might experience a deeper connection to yourself, a felt sense of the innate magnificent consciousness that you are and realize that you are not your body.
Yogic Sleep State
Even though it may look from the outside that you are asleep, you are not actually asleep. Instead, you go into a deep profound relaxation. This is an amazing feeling where you generally will go into what some would call an enlightenment type of experience where you completely lose track of time and space and, later, will just feel very relaxed and present.
