By increasing the energy level in the body, profoundly relaxing the body and encouraging breathing to become full and free, the deeply buried feelings and sensations associated with past trauma gently rise to consciousness and are integrated.
Due to the unpleasant nature of body sensations associated with traumatic experiences and our inability to resolve them, we learn to repress or deny them. For example, a child may attempt to deal with overwhelming emotional pain by constricting their breathing and tightening their body. While constriction is a natural response to a traumatic experience, it can provide only temporary relief. Over time, holding on and constricting become chronic, habitual patterns operating unconsciously.
If a traumatic experience is so overwhelming that constricting the breathing and the body fails to lower the intensity and provide adequate relief, a further strategy is adopted, that of dissociation - moving away from contact with the body or parts of it. Dissociation has been called the escape when there is no escape. In addition to holding on, maintaining disconnection from the body also becomes a chronic, habitual and unconscious pattern.
Breathwork sessions help heal the effects of traumatic experience regardless of when it occurred, whether it was a single event or on-going, as in the case of years of childhood neglect.
These strategies not only lock the energy associated with traumatic events in the body, they block access to our felt experience, which disrupts our development, interferes with our ability to form bonds with others, distorts our perception, and creates health problems. Breathwork heals trauma by helping you recontact and integrate these buried sensations in a way that is gentle and safe.
Awareness of the cause of our suffering is often insufficient to free us from the symptoms and repetitive patterns that buried emotional wounds produce. In other words, you can have knowledge, will power and the best intentions, but without fully entering into the felt experience of the body, healing and integration of mind, body and spirit remains incomplete.
Breathwork sessions help heal the effects of traumatic experience regardless of when it occurred, whether it was a single event or on-going, as in the case of years of childhood neglect. Breathwork also integrates current life experience and generally supports the ongoing unfolding of consciousness.
The traumatic experiences listed here are just some of the areas Breathwork has proven to be an effective healing approach.
Birth Trauma
The birth process can be experienced as painfully overwhelming. Even a birth without complications can be experienced as traumatic and lead to traumatic reactions. Birth trauma can compromise an infant's ability to form a secure attachment with their mother which in turn has a considerable impact on future development. Birth trauma, without our awareness, affects the way we relate to being alive, our experience of love relationships and our experience of ourselves. It influences our character and orientation to life from our very first day. A series of gentle breathing sessions is the best way of resolving birth trauma that I know of. Birth trauma is taken seriously by the legal profession in Australia and overseas.
Childhood Trauma
Includes sexual, physical, mental and emotional abuse. Can take the form of a single traumatic event or ongoing traumatization. Examples are incest and rape, abandonment, beatings and ongoing threats, intimidation and belittlement. Children are also particularly vulnerable to trauma from illness and physical injuries and hospitalization characterized by fear and abandonment. If any of these issues have affected your life, the healing transformation you will experience as a result of getting some Breathwork sessions will be profound.
Loss of Parent During Childhood
The loss of a parent during childhood is thought to lead to a greater susceptibility to anxiety and panic attacks in adulthood. Separation anxiety and fear of abandonment are often related to early loss. When we have this vulnerability, stressful life events are more likely to lead to excessive levels of anxiety and the potential for panic attacks.
Breakdown of a Relationship
This can be particularly disorienting and painful with strong emotional responses. Traumatic reactions form under the surface, even when much effort is made to maintain composure and get on with life. Without effective integration, relationship breakdowns can lead to distrust and inhibit our ability to love deeply again. Breathwork sessions help you reconnect with yourself and get on with your life.
Loss of Someone Close
Loss of person you were closely bonded with can be very destabilizing and generate much inner confusion about what to feel and think. Guilt, anger and grief are common experiences. The meaning of your own life may become more of an issue. The loss may also push us into confronting our own mortality. Often the experience is suppressed but haunts us and undermines our well-being.
Loss of Job, Status or Wealth
An experience of this sort can be particularly painful and is often accompanied by deep shame and humiliation, as well as anger and confusion. Becomes more traumatic if there is a sense of being betrayed. Confrontation with the lack of meaning in life may also be evident and motivation may disappear. If integration of this experience is achieved, a positive life transformation leading to a more stable identity and a sense of deeper spiritual values can take place.
Specific Trauma
Breathwork has shown to be very effective in helping integrate exposure to specific traumatic events. Examples could include, witnessing an accident in which someone dies or is horribly injured. Personally being involved in an accident or comming close to a potentially fatal situation. Or even the experience of having an unexpected panic attack in an unfamiliar environment (for example, while traveling overseas). Experiences of this nature can leave us shaken and often lead to ongoing anxiety, avoidance behaviour, disurbing images - symptoms associated with posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Breathwork has also been used to address PTSD resulting from exposure to war.