Breath work and trauma release are techniques that can be combined to allow blockages that are stuck in the body to flow again. The body records events that could not be (fully) felt in the moment itself, in order to feel and release them at a more advantageous moment. With these techniques, we move towards those pinned events. Through trauma release we can feel the traumas and with the breath we can find out the origin of the trauma. This allows the balance between feeling and heart to be restored. By making the body blockage-free in this way, the body’s natural response can take over to release the trauma, which often happens in the form of shaking making it’s way free to recover and rejuvenate.
THE BENEFITS OF BREATH WORK AND TRAUMA RELEASE
• It helps you overcome your fears
• It makes you blockade-free
• It dissolves trauma and relaxes the pelvic floor area
• It reduces back, neck and shoulder complaints
• It gives migraine relief
• It is a Burn-Out prevention
• It gives you a greater sense of resilience
• It reduces worrying
• It ensures a better night’s sleep
• It increases flexibility in body and mind
• It reduces complaints about PTSD
• It gives you zest for life and makes you more vital
• It increases your libido
THE IMPORTANCE OF BREATHING
“To control our breath is to control our body and mind.”
Besides the physiological impact of breathing, there is another important reason to focus on breathing during meditation: the breath serves as the gateway to conscious self-control.
There are a few additional reasons why much meditation practice revolves around the breath: The breath can help you experience things on a more subtle level, as observing it requires a certain level of awareness.
While the primal parts of your brain let you breathe automatically throughout the day, your rational prefrontal cortex is also able to control breathing. In other words, breathing is both automatic and autonomous depending on whether you pay attention. Conscious breathing thus becomes a platform to gain control over your body and mind through meditation.
By focusing on the sensations of the breath, you leave your ‘narrative mind’ and sink into your physical body. In this way, creating a relationship with the breath aligns you with your inner world.
The breath is a great focus object during meditation because it appears in fixed locations in the body but is also in constant motion.
• It can anchor you in the present moment.
• Breathing can prevent you from falling asleep.
• In the later stages of meditation, close observation of the breath can lead to insights into the nature of reality because of its transient yet automatic/autonomous quality.
WHAT IS THE CAUSE AND EFFECT
Most problems arise in a body that is dissociated from feeling and where the head has excessive control. Trauma in the body occurs when our prime instincts, fight and flight, become paralyzed and we can do nothing (freeze). The component then becomes disrupted and the reptilian brain becomes overstimulated, preventing their integration processes from completing. Breathwork and trauma release gives us the opportunity to restore this response.
An important system in your body is the autonomic apparatus. This management of your body’s internal functions, such as the flow of your heartbeat and digestion, and was thought to be beyond your conscious control (hence the name “autonomous”). More recently, researchers have found that breathing can indirectly affect this system.
How you breathe communicates with the rest of your body through the autonomous cleansing. For example, a long, smooth breath tells your body to relax, while a fast breath tells your body there is danger, such as being chased by a lion, activating the fight-or-flight (sympathetic platform) system. By breathing properly, you will happily learn to use both systems.
